Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon
Статья посвячена проблеме аллитерации в английском языке. Этот феномен изучаетсяв разделе “Фоностилистические средства стилістики”, но ему, как правило, не уделяется должного внимания. Представлен кратний обор проблемы на современном этапе развития самого термина”аллитерация”. Поскольку аллитерац...
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| Опубліковано в: : | Культура народов Причерноморья |
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| Дата: | 2002 |
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| Формат: | Стаття |
| Мова: | Англійська |
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Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України
2002
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| Назва журналу: | Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| Цитувати: | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon / T.N. Suvorova // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2002. — № 34. — С. 65-67. — англ. |
Репозитарії
Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine| _version_ | 1859768719597633536 |
|---|---|
| author | Suvorova, T.N. |
| author_facet | Suvorova, T.N. |
| citation_txt | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon / T.N. Suvorova // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2002. — № 34. — С. 65-67. — англ. |
| collection | DSpace DC |
| container_title | Культура народов Причерноморья |
| description | Статья посвячена проблеме аллитерации в английском языке. Этот феномен
изучаетсяв разделе “Фоностилистические средства стилістики”, но ему, как правило,
не уделяется должного внимания. Представлен кратний обор проблемы на
современном этапе развития самого термина”аллитерация”. Поскольку аллитерация
как стилисический прием используется в английском языке на протяжении нескольких
веков – от античності досовременности, история возникновения этого явления и
основне модели аллитеративного стихотворения, раскрытые в статье, дают
возможность понять популярность использования этого феномена в поэзии, прозе,
газетних заголовках, названих книг, пословицах.
Статтю присвячено проблемі алітерації в англійській мові. Цей феномен
вивчається у розділі “Фоностилістичні засоби стилістики”, але йому, як правило, не
приділяється належної уваги. Подано короткий огляд проблеми на сучасному етапі
розвитку лінгвістики, висвітлено труднощі формулювання самого
терміну”алітерація”. Оскільки алітерація як стилістичний прийом використовується
в англійській мові протягом багатьох століть - від античності до сьогодення, то
історія виникнення цього явища та основні моделі алітеративного вірша,розкриті в
статті, дають можливість зрозуміти популярність використання даного феномену в
поезії, прозі, газетних заголовках, назвах книг, прислів`ях тощо
The article is devoted to the problem of alliteration in English. This phenomenon is
studied in the section “Photostylistic Means of Stylistics” but, as a rule, it`s not paid proper
attention to. A brief view on the problem at the modern stage of development of Linguistics is
presented the difficulties of defining the term “alliterations” are highlighted. As a stylistic
device alliteration has been used in English during several centuries – beginning with the
ancient times till nowadays, the history of the phenomenon emerging and main models of
alliteration poem dwelled upon in the article make it possible to realise the popularity of the
use of this phenomenon in poetry, prose, newspaper headlines, titles of books and proverbs
|
| first_indexed | 2025-12-02T05:29:53Z |
| format | Article |
| fulltext |
СОДЕРЖАНИЕ 65
ALLITERATION AS LINGUISTIC PHENOMENON
Tatayna Nikolaevna Suvorova
Статья посвячена проблеме аллитерации в английском языке. Этот феномен
изучаетсяв разделе “Фоностилистические средства стилістики”, но ему, как правило,
не уделяется должного внимания. Представлен кратний обор проблемы на
современном этапе развития самого термина”аллитерация”. Поскольку аллитерация
как стилисический прием используется в английском языке на протяжении нескольких
веков – от античності досовременности, история возникновения этого явления и
основне модели аллитеративного стихотворения, раскрытые в статье, дают
возможность понять популярность использования этого феномена в поэзии, прозе,
газетних заголовках, названих книг, пословицах.
Ключевые слова: аллитерация, ассонанс, аллитеративное стихотворение,
силлабо-тоническая система, ритм, метр
Статтю присвячено проблемі алітерації в англійській мові. Цей феномен
вивчається у розділі “Фоностилістичні засоби стилістики”, але йому, як правило, не
приділяється належної уваги. Подано короткий огляд проблеми на сучасному етапі
розвитку лінгвістики, висвітлено труднощі формулювання самого
терміну”алітерація”. Оскільки алітерація як стилістичний прийом використовується
в англійській мові протягом багатьох століть - від античності до сьогодення, то
історія виникнення цього явища та основні моделі алітеративного вірша,розкриті в
статті, дають можливість зрозуміти популярність використання даного феномену в
поезії, прозі, газетних заголовках, назвах книг, прислів`ях тощо.
Ключові слова: алітерація, асонанс, алітеративний вірш, силабо-тонічна система,
ритм, метр
The article is devoted to the problem of alliteration in English. This phenomenon is
studied in the section “Photostylistic Means of Stylistics” but, as a rule, it`s not paid proper
attention to. A brief view on the problem at the modern stage of development of Linguistics is
presented the difficulties of defining the term “alliterations” are highlighted. As a stylistic
device alliteration has been used in English during several centuries – beginning with the
ancient times till nowadays, the history of the phenomenon emerging and main models of
alliteration poem dwelled upon in the article make it possible to realise the popularity of the
use of this phenomenon in poetry, prose, newspaper headlines, titles of books and proverbs.
Key words: alliteration, assonance, alliteration poem, syllabo-tonic system, rhythm,
meter
The present paper is devoted to the problem of alliteration. This phenomenon is studied in Stylistics,
a branch of general Linguistics.
Many scholars have made an attempt to describe this phenomenon in terms of Stylistics. The former
Soviet linguists l.R.Galperin and V.A. Khuharenko have treated alliteration as phonetic stylistic device.
But the Western scholars Paul Dean, Jeanne Le Vasseur, Hopkings and others have considered alliteration
to be a unit of rhythm in poetry. Each of the scholars has formulated the term alliteration according to his
understanding. Thus, the definition of alliteration is still questionable. Neither the former Soviet linguists
nor the Western scholars have yet found a complete definition of the term. The former Sovuet scientists
considered that alliteration is the phenomenon characteristic of Old English poetry and which sometimes
occurs in works of modern writers. But in fact, the Western scholars proved that alliteration has been
widely used during different periods of the English language development as emphasis, linkage and
rhythm in poetry, prose, proverbs, headlines, advertisements.
In phonostylistics alliteration is regarded as a specific type of sound instrumentation, however, there
is no unanimous definition of the term.Some scholars do not distinguish between alliteration and
consonance regarding them as the repetition of consonants close together, particularly at the beginning of
words or stressed syllables.Nevertheless, most scholars delimit these two terms. While consonance is
considered to be the repetition of consonant sounds in any position, alliteration is the repetition of initial
consonantal or vocalic sounds or letters.
The question of origin of alliteration is beyond any doubt an extremely important one to perform the
right interpretation of that phenomenon.
Alliterative verse came to England via the conquering Germanic tribes. The earliest surviving work
in this rhythm is the Beowulf, probably composed in the eighth century. By Chaucer's day, almost seven
hundred years after the Beowulf, alliterative verse was in a state of decline. Exactly why, when, and how
this happened is a matter of some conjecture. The accident of survival or loss of antique manuscripts
provides us with a questionable basis to determine answers to these questions. The existing corpus of
66
СОДЕРЖАНИЕ
early English poetry, invaluable in providing us with the knowledge we do have of prosodic techniques of
the earliest English poets, may mislead us if we apply modern statistical analysis to measure the seeming
increase of one type of verse and the apparent decrease of another.
We guess that the growing influence of non-Germanic neighbours, the Norman-French conquest,
England's own insular quality, expediency dictated by economic and political survival, and-of course-the
passage of many centuries widened the breach between England and its Germanic forbears. In his
Canterbury fragment, Chaucer gives us a view of 14th century England, an England far removed from
its Germanic origins and peopled by Englishmen whose concerns lay not with a disappearing national
heritage, but with contemporary events, problems, and customs. We feel no loss in the absence of
alliterative verse in Chaucer's writing. Instead, what he borrows from contemporary influences or creates
to meet current needs gives his poetry the vitality of life in his age.
Alliterative accentual verse is not either poetry written in a strict rhythm. It has a rhythm of its own,
but that rhythm is based not on the arrangement of the syllables, but the regular repetition of the strong
beats in each line. The difference is simple. To make it more understandable we will take as an example a
classical English poem, which has a regular rhythm, like the insistent lines of Blake's poem:
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In alliterative accentual verse the rhythm is much freer, for what really matters is the number of
strong beats per line. The weak syllables can be arranged as sense and art dictate.
At the lowest level, we can divide a word, phrase, sentence, or line of verse into syllables. For
instance, we can count 14 syllables in the following sentence from a nursery rhyme:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
The king is in his counting-house, counting out his money.
But not all syllables are the same. Some syllables are heavy, and stressed; others are light, and
unstressed, and there is a strong tendency to alternate between the two. This alternation can be analysed
as a sequence of beats and off-beats. The heavier, more strongly stressed syllables become beats: the
lighter, less stressed syllables become off-beats. In our nursery rhyme example, there is an almost exactly
even pattern of beats and offbeats, though some of the beats are far stronger than others:
The king is in his counting house, counting out his money.
Beat and off-beat is essentially what is measured in accentual-syllabic verse. But there are several
layers of rhythmic organization above it.
Linguistically, we have to distinguish four levels of stress: primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary
stress, and lack of stress. These four levels are not an absolute degree of loudness; they simply measure a
scale from the strongest stresses to the weakest unstressed syllables. We can use S to mark primary stress,
s to mark secondary stress, W to mark tertiary stress, and w to mark lack of stress. Then our nursery
rhyme example would be marked:
w S w W w S w s S w W w S w
The king is in his counting-house, counting out his money.
Alliterative accentual verse ties alliteration and rhythm together. It is the strong beats that alliterate.
In Beowulf, the first and third beats almost always repeat the same consonant, tying the first and second
halves of the line together. Often the first three beats alliterate.
Old English examples:
gehéde under heofenum
gewát þá ofer wæ'gholm
ongeat þá se góda
ne gewéox hé him tó willan
The result can sound strange to ears used to rhyme and meter, and even stranger to ears used to free
verse. Like free verse, the rhythm is (relatively) free, and there is no need for a rigid rhyme scheme. There
is freedom to arrange in alliterative accentual verse but it is not free verse. It imposes a discipline on the
mind (and by its rhythms and repetitions, an enchantment on the ears) as strong as Homer's
hexameters.Alliteration (when not overdone) makes the alliterated words stand out. When two words
alliterate, they are drawn closer together mentally. When the alliterated words stand out because their
meanings are important, when they stand out also because they are natural bearers of stress, when the
linkage between them seems important, and natural, then they define a rhythm.
A line of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse is metrically correct if it meets the following constraints:
СОДЕРЖАНИЕ 67
1. Each line contains two half-lines. Each half line must be a prosodic phrase containing one or
more strong stresses.
2. Only strong stresses can bear (metrically relevant) alliteration.
3. The first strong stress in the first half-line must alliterate with the first strong stress in the second
half-line.
4. The pivots (one of the strong stresses that satisfy the metrical requirements for alliteration) must
be more prominent rhythmically than any non-pivot syllables in the line.
5. The final foot of the line cannot contain an alliterating strong stress.
Almost any theory of alliterative verse will contain something very close to this list of rules.
After the transition from Old English to the actually readable Middle English, the metres we are
concerned with here began to be used for longer works, and in an even more relaxed way: the number of
beats can indifferently be four or five, (in the latter case the caesura, still mandatory) and the patterns of
alliteration within the verse offer many more choices than before, including ones that involve separate
alliterative groups within the same line; a list, probably incomplete, could be this:
1. Traditional: aa|ax
Clannesse who-so kyndly cowthe comende (Cleanness)
2. Overdone: aa|aa
In a somer seson, when softe was the sonne (Piers Plowman)
3. Obtained by cramming one more beat in the scheme:
Alliterating: aaa|ax
On rode rwly torent with rybaudes mony (Patience)
Non alliterating: aay|ax
Kynde hath closed therinne craftily withalle (Piers Plowman)
4. The last two together: aaa|aa
And lene thee lede thi lond so leaute thee lovye (Piers Plowman)
5. With a switch: aa|xa
And heven my happe and al my hele (Pearl)
6. Plainly screwed up: aa|bb
To pay the Prince other sete saghte (Pearl)
7. Screwed up and prolonged: aaa|bb
And bisegede, soothly, with sevene grete geaunts (Piers Plowman)
8. (Lo and behold) Screwed twice: ab|ab
And whoso bummed thereof, he boughte it therafter (Piers Plowman)
In fact most of the structures above are quite rare in comparison to the traditional ones, but the seed
of anarchy, in a sense, was cast. In addition to that, an increasing interest turned, in the age of Middle
English, towards the end of the verse: Langland's Piers Plowman has only feminine lines, while the
anonymous Pearl is heavily rhymed.
Alliterative verse had been the product of its own providing its audience with the impact of the life
of its time and conveying to us today something of the moving spirit of that age: its strife and sorrow, its
happiness and cheer, its courage and arrogance, its anxiety and care. The Beowulf style has deep roots.
When ancient German, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon bards sat by the hearthfire of a night-dark hall, holding
their harps and singing of heroes, monsters, and gods mastered by fate, this is the style that they used.
Alliterative verse is a highly complex, highly sophisticated system of prosody. The surviving manuscripts
reveal that simply repeating initial consonants or vowels was not all there was to this rhythm. Indeed,
were it simply a matter of alliteration, we should not designate it a rhythm at all, but a form of rhyme,
"front rhyme"-because, in essence, the rhyming occurs at the front end rather than the back end of words.
Scholars have long applied themselves to the task of carefully studying the Old English poems to decide
what ground rules those ancient poets followed to construct their poems.
|
| id | nasplib_isofts_kiev_ua-123456789-109064 |
| institution | Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| issn | 1562-0808 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-12-02T05:29:53Z |
| publishDate | 2002 |
| publisher | Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | Suvorova, T.N. 2016-11-20T14:40:02Z 2016-11-20T14:40:02Z 2002 Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon / T.N. Suvorova // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2002. — № 34. — С. 65-67. — англ. 1562-0808 https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/109064 Статья посвячена проблеме аллитерации в английском языке. Этот феномен изучаетсяв разделе “Фоностилистические средства стилістики”, но ему, как правило, не уделяется должного внимания. Представлен кратний обор проблемы на современном этапе развития самого термина”аллитерация”. Поскольку аллитерация как стилисический прием используется в английском языке на протяжении нескольких веков – от античності досовременности, история возникновения этого явления и основне модели аллитеративного стихотворения, раскрытые в статье, дают возможность понять популярность использования этого феномена в поэзии, прозе, газетних заголовках, названих книг, пословицах. Статтю присвячено проблемі алітерації в англійській мові. Цей феномен вивчається у розділі “Фоностилістичні засоби стилістики”, але йому, як правило, не приділяється належної уваги. Подано короткий огляд проблеми на сучасному етапі розвитку лінгвістики, висвітлено труднощі формулювання самого терміну”алітерація”. Оскільки алітерація як стилістичний прийом використовується в англійській мові протягом багатьох століть - від античності до сьогодення, то історія виникнення цього явища та основні моделі алітеративного вірша,розкриті в статті, дають можливість зрозуміти популярність використання даного феномену в поезії, прозі, газетних заголовках, назвах книг, прислів`ях тощо The article is devoted to the problem of alliteration in English. This phenomenon is studied in the section “Photostylistic Means of Stylistics” but, as a rule, it`s not paid proper attention to. A brief view on the problem at the modern stage of development of Linguistics is presented the difficulties of defining the term “alliterations” are highlighted. As a stylistic device alliteration has been used in English during several centuries – beginning with the ancient times till nowadays, the history of the phenomenon emerging and main models of alliteration poem dwelled upon in the article make it possible to realise the popularity of the use of this phenomenon in poetry, prose, newspaper headlines, titles of books and proverbs en Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України Культура народов Причерноморья Вопросы духовной культуры – ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon Article published earlier |
| spellingShingle | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon Suvorova, T.N. Вопросы духовной культуры – ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ |
| title | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| title_full | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| title_fullStr | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| title_full_unstemmed | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| title_short | Alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| title_sort | alliteration as linguistic phenomenon |
| topic | Вопросы духовной культуры – ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ |
| topic_facet | Вопросы духовной культуры – ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ |
| url | https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/109064 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT suvorovatn alliterationaslinguisticphenomenon |