Paragraph as a compositional and stylistic unit of text

When considering the speech organization of the text, two main semantic-structural units were singled out - utterance and interphrase unity (complex syntactic whole). Both units are units of semantic-syntactic division of the text.

However, the semantic-syntactic segmentation is usually combined with a segmentation of another level - compositional-stylistic. The first is largely subject to the pragmatic setting of the text itself, the second is entirely due to the pragmatic installation of the author. The more standard the text is in its speech organization, the more these levels of division (syntactic and paragraph) approach, the less standard the text, the more discrepancies between them, and sometimes contradictions.

A paragraph is a unit of division of the text, compositional and stylistic; This is the part of the text enclosed between two indents. The internal essence of the paragraph is best comprehended when comparing it with the interphrase unity (complex syntactic integer). These are units in something similar, according to external signs, but not identical in essence.

A complex syntactic integer is a subject-rhematic sequence that opens with a starting phrase (or a core phrase containing the content of the whole). It is the beginning phrases of complex integers that, when pulled together, form a substantial outline of the text. In the paragraph may not be the beginning as such. The key phrase of a paragraph (main in thematic, logical, meaningful terms) can be at the beginning of a paragraph, at the end of a paragraph, or it can itself act as a separate paragraph. Moreover, in a paragraph there can be several key phrases if it is large in volume and contains a number of subject-rhematic sequences. A paragraph can break one theme-rhematic union (one complex syntactic whole). The volume and structure of a paragraph are entirely connected with the will of the author, his installation (with orientation, of course, on the specific and genre features of the text), finally, his personal preferences, a special manner of writing.

Parts of a complex syntactic integer can easily be combined into a complex sentence, if other symbols are put in place of points — commas, periods with commas, dashes, ellipsis. A paragraph does not lend itself to such experiments, since it is not essentially syntactic (if, of course, it does not coincidentally coincide with a complex integer).

The boundaries of the paragraph and the complex syntactic may not coincide: a paragraph may contain one sentence (and even part of the sentence; for example, in an official business text: in the text of laws, charters, diplomatic documents, etc.). In one paragraph there may be two or more complex syntactic integers, when separate microthemes are linked to each other.

Here are some examples.

One complex syntactic integer - four paragraphs:

All love is beautiful. And only she is beautiful.

Because on earth, the only “true in itself” is love.

Love rules out a lie: the first “I have lied” means: “I don’t like you anymore”, “I love less”.

Love is extinguished - and the truth is extinguished. Therefore, “to be true on earth” means to constantly and truly love (VV Rozanov. Solitary).

One sentence sentence is four paragraphs:

Processing operations are:

sensor output values;

measurement results (output of measuring devices);

preliminary preprocessing results

(AI Voronkov, EV Mukhin. Measuring information systems).

Three complex syntactic integers - one paragraph:

In Kozmodemyansky lane on Pokrovka, where now stands the Lutheran church of Sv. Peter and Paul, was once the home of the Little Russian hetman Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa, the famous adventurer of the time of Peter the Great. / He was born in the village of Mazepintsy in the Kiev province and came from Little Russian nobles. His ancestor, being a colonel, was burned by the Poles in a copper tank with hetman Nalivaykoy. Mazepa was raised by a Jesuit in Poland and knew many foreign languages ​​perfectly; in his youth, he was distinguished by his pleasant appearance and liked by Polish ladies. / There is a legend that one Polish magnate found him with his wife, ordered him to undress, throw tar in it, sprinkle with fluff, tie him with ropes to a wild horse and let him go into the steppe. It happened on the border of Little Russia; Cossacks saved him from certain death. Such a cruel punishment did not cure Mazepa from courting others' wives and girls. Subsequently, we see among many women deceived by him the matress (named Pushkin Marie), the daughter of the general judge Kochubey and a relative of King Leschinsky, Princess Dulsky, for which Mazepa wanted to bring Little Russia into the hands of the Polish (MP Pylyaev. Old Moscow) ).

In the following excerpt from K. Paustovsky’s Golden Rose, there are six paragraphs, but they are all connected by the concept of a “book”, which serves as the only object of description, and therefore the whole text reveals one micromeme:

Much of this work is pronounced abruptly and, perhaps, not clear enough.

Much will be considered controversial.

This book is not a theoretical study, much less a guide. These are just notes about my understanding of writing and my experience.

Huge layers of ideological substantiations of our literary work are not touched upon in the book, since in this area we do not have much disagreement. The ironic and educational value of literature is clear to all.

In this book, I have told so far only the little that I managed to tell.

But if I managed, at least in a small fraction, to convey to the reader an idea of ​​the beautiful essence of writing, then I will assume that I have fulfilled my duty to literature.

The following passage, representing one paragraph, includes three micro-themes: the presentation of two characters; Woland description; Azazello description:

At sunset, high above the city on the stone terrace of one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow , a building built about 150 years ago, there were two: Woland and Azazello. They were not visible from below, from the street, as they were covered from the unwanted eyes by a balustrade with plaster vases and plaster flowers. But they could see the city almost to the edges. Woland was sitting on a folding stool, dressed in his black soutane. His long and wide sword was stuck vertically between the two cut plates of the terrace so that the sundial turned out. The shadow of the sword slowly and steadily lengthened, creeping up to the black shoes on the legs of Satan. Putting a sharp chin on a fist, crouching on a stool and pressing one leg underneath, Woland stared at the immense gathering of palaces, giant houses and small shacks. Azazello, having parted with his modern outfit, that is, jacket, bowler hat, varnished shoes, dressed like Woland in black, stood motionless not far from his sovereign, just as he did not take his eyes off the city (M. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita). Such a paragraph can be divided into either three or two, combining in the latter case the description of Woland and Azazello. As you can see, the paragraph volume is quite subjective. And although it is tied to a complex syntactic whole with its content, it does not necessarily fit into its framework.

So, the compositional division of the text, paragraph by paragraph, is qualitatively different from the semantic-syntactic division, although they have much in common. The main difference is the share of subjectivity and objectivity in the division of the text: paragraphs are more connected with the author's will, therefore the same text can be divided into paragraphs in different ways. At the same time, the semantic and structural structure of the text (and, consequently, the division into interphrase unity) remains unchanged, it is inherent in the text itself.

In semantic and structural terms, the text has units - a statement, an interphrase unity (a complex syntactic whole), a fragment (the union of a number of text components).

In the compositional and stylistic plan paragraphs stand out; at this level, the division may be absent altogether if the author chooses a similar literary method of presenting textual material. But such a text (conditionally it is possible!) Will retain its internal structure - it will consist of utterances and interphrase unity in their various combinations.