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A StudyinProseStyles:
Edward Gibbonand ErnestHemingway
I. INTRODUCTION
5The readermaywishtoexaminetheformalandmoredetailedrulesoftrans-
formational I suggest
grammar. thathe consult
theworksofNoamChomsky, es-
peciallySyntacticStructures("S-Gravenhage,1957) and Aspectsof the Theory
of Syntax(Cambridge, 1965); RobertB. Lees, especiallyhis
Massachusetts,
"Grammarof EnglishNominalizations," I JAL,XXVI, Part 2 (1960; revised,
March,1961); and CarlottaA. Smith,"A Class of ComplexModifiersin Eng-
lish,"Language,XXXVII (July-September, 1961), 342-365and "Determiners
and RelativeClausesin a Generative
Grammar of English,"
Language,XXXX
(January-March, 1964),37-52.
Subject: question-wordclause
1 2
(Nominal) + (was a surprise)
3 4
(He went) + (there)
1+ 2
Transformation:
> where-3+ 2 > wherehe
3+4 wentwasa surprise.
"Non-Action" VerbObject
1
(I know) + (Nominal: it)
3
(He didit)
: 1+ 2
Transformation
> 1 + that-3 > I knowthat
3 he did it.
A sentence(NP + VP) mayfillan adverbslotand the processis
knownas "adverbialization." Forexample,inthesentence,hekilledthe
man+ (Adv), theAdvslotmaybe filledbyeithera singlelexicalitem,
a phrase,orbya clause(a "crippled"sentence):
He killedtheman+ (quickly)
He killedtheman+ (in thedark)
He killedtheman+ (whilethecityburned)
The constituent sentence whichfillstheAdvslotinsentence
threeis em-
beddedthrough theseoperations:
1 2
Matrix: (He killedtheman) + (Adv)
Constituent: ( thecityburned) .
: 1+ 2
Transformation
> 1 + while-3(Right-branching)
3j
The constituentsentenceand itsslotmaybe optionally to
permuted
sentence-initial
position(left-branching):
Whilethecityburned, hekilledtheman.
Or theconstruction
maybe self-embedded.
He, whilethecityburned,killedtheman.
The RelativeClause Transformation is an adjective-transformation.
Somelinguists
believethatprenominai adjectivaisareultimately
derived
fromthereduction of therelative-clause
construction.The red of the
redhouse,theyposit,canbe derivedinthefollowing way:
N
>N-f conj + N
NJ
NP
>NP + conj+ NP
NPj
V
> V + conj+ V
V
VP
> VP + conj+ VP
VP
PrepPhrase
> PP + conj+ PP
PrepPhrase
If theexpansionincludesonlytwolexicalitems(e.g., Caesareawas
plundered and burntbythelicentious , thentheconstituents
barbarians)
whichfilltheslotarereferred
tobythegenericname,doublet.
m. STATISTICALMETHODS
A linguist whenselectinga corpusoflinguistic
materialforanalysis
takesfromthatcorpusa samplethathe hopeswillbe typicaland repre-
sentative.
He doesthisbecausea corpusis oftentoolargeforindividual
analysis.Samplingis an economicalprocedureand it is particularly
necessaryin thispaper,sinceitwouldbe uneconomicalto analyzeeach
sentencein The Decline and Fall. Each sampleshouldbe testedfor
To testforreliability
reliability. a linguist statisti-
thefollowing
employs
cal formula:7
A. Reliability:StandardError= '/PQ/N
P equalstheproportion (frequency)ofone oftheitemsbeingcounted;
Q equalstheabsence ofthat item.P + Q = 100%. ¿Vis thetotalnum-
7A complete accountofthestatistical
methods in thispapercan
incorporated
be foundin publications
byDavidW. Reed.See his"The HistoryofInflectional
n in EnglishVerbsbefore1500," University
of CaliforniaPublicationsin English,
VII, iv (1950), especially
pp. 172-180,and "A Statistical
Approachto Quanti-
tativeLinguistic
Analysis,"Word,V (December, 1949),235-247.
SE~V
100
= 4.5%
If theSE shouldexceed5%, moreitemsmustbe selectedto reducethe
error.
EarlierI positedthatstyleis in parta habitualand characteristicuse
of the transformational apparatusof one's language.To determine
whether a definedstylistic
device(transformation) of
is characteristic
oneauthorin comparison to anotherauthor,a linguist musttestforsta-
In a randomly
tisticalsignificance. chosensamplesupposehe findsthat
in authorX 70 sentences outof 100 containdoublets, whilein author
Y the doubletis foundin only60 sentences. He wantsto determine
whether thesetwoproportions (frequencies)can be said to belongto
the same population(no statistical significance)or to belongto dif-
ferentpopulations(statistical significance).To testforsignificance,a
linguist employsthese formulas :
B. Significance: P = NiPi + N2P2
Ni + N2
forthetwosamplescombined.
The value P is simplythe proportion
Thatis,130ofthe200sentences containdoublets.
P= 100 X. 60+ 100 X. 70
100 + 100
= 130/200
= .65
variance(theStandardError
thesampling
Withtheaboveinformation
between
ofthedifference maybe calculated:
twoproportions)
°Pl ?2~V
N,+ N2
_y/.65 X .35 + .65 X -35~
V 100 + 100
=V-00455
= .675 (StandardErroroftheDifference
between
twopro-
portions)
The actualdifference
betweenthetwoproportions is .10 (.70 - .60 =
.10).
in StandardErrors= Actualdifference
Significance
SE differencebetweentwo propor-
tions
= .10
.675
= 1.48 StandardErrors
Consultationof a probabilitytable showsthatdeviationsof thissize
(1.48) areexpectedtooccurbychancealonein 13.88% ofthesamples.
The difference
betweentheproportions is,therefore,notsignificant.
A
of
percentage probabilityabove 5.0% is usually takenby statisticians
to
denotea chancedeviation;a factorotherthanchanceis responsible if
thepercentageof probabilityis below5.0%; e.g.,if theSE is 1.96 or
more,thedifference betweentheproportions is significant
at the5.0%
level.Anythinglessthan 1.96 denotesthattheStandardErroris non-
significant.
IV. METHOD OF ANALYSIS
(Laetuswas theirpraefect)
16 17
+
(Theirpraefect) (found, whenit was toolate,thathisnewem-
peror would reward a but
servant, would not be ruledby a
favourite)
Transformation:
15
> 15 + WH-17
16 + 17
5. Right-branch clauseplusdeletionof
embedding:relative
WH + V.
18
(Theirdiscontents
weresecretly
fomented byLaetus)
19 20
+
(Laetus) (was theirpraefect,who found, whenit was toolate,
thathis new emperorwouldrewarda servant, but wouldnotbe
ruledbya favourite)
Transformation:
18
> 18 + WH-20
19 + 20
21
Result: (Their discontents
weresecretlyfomented by Laetus) +
22 23
(whowas) + (theirpraefect, whofound,whenitwastoo
late, thathis new emperor would rewarda servant,but
wouldnotbe ruledbya favourite) .
Deletion:21+22 + 23 > 21 + 23 = Textualsentence
The followingI foundto be typicalofthetypeofsentencethatGibbon
and Hemingway employ:
Gibbon:
A senseof interestattachedthesemoresettledbarbariansto the
allianceofRome,and a permanent interest
veryfrequentlyripensinto
sincereand usefulfriendship.
The wholeforceofConstantine consisted
ofninety thousandfootand
eight thousandhorse;and, as the defenceof the Rhine requiredan
extraordinaryattentionduringtheabsenceof theemperor, it was not
in hispowerto employabovehalfhistroopsin theItalianexpedition,
unlesshesacrificed
thepublicsafetytohisprivatequarrel.
WhilstRomelamentedthefateofhersovereign, thesavagecoldness
Embedding
# S whichhave embeddedelements 64% 20% 6.3
Total # of embeddedstructures 105 24
# S containing1 embeddedstructure 36 16
# S containing2 embeddedstructures18 4
# S containing3 embeddedstructures 7 0
# S containing4 embeddedstructures 3 0
S having Rei. Cl. structures 51% 8% 7.0
Total # of RC structures 77 10
S having1 RG 30 6
S having2 RG 16 2
S having3 RG 5 0
Types of Branching
Right Branching 26 4
Deleted Right Branching 14 4
Self Embedded 19 0
Deleted Self embedded 17 2
S havingAdv Clause structures 23% 12% 2.0
Total # Adv Glauses 28 14
S containing1 AC 19 10
S containing2 AC 3 2
S containing3 AC 1 0
Typesof branching
Right Branching 9 8
in StandardErrors
Significance
Passive Transformation 9.48
Doublet 9.0
InfinitivalNominal 8.9
Relative-clausetransformation 7.0
S havingundergonetransformation 6.5
% of S havingembeddedstructures 6.3
% of S havingdoubletexpansions 6.0
S whichare additive 5.1
% of S havingNominalizations 4.0
GerundiveNominal 2.8
VP expansion 2.6
S having3 conjoinedS 2.5
AdverbialClause 2.0
Transformationswhichdid notshowstatisticalsignificance
(below 1.96)
PrepositionalPhraseExpansion 1.7
FactiveNominal 1.17
VI. CONCLUSION