Types of thematic (classical) paragraph

So, the boundaries of interframe unity and paragraphs may not be the same. The length of the paragraphs varies with different authors. It is known, for example, that L.N. Tolstoy preferred long multi-paragraph paragraphs, and A. Chekhov and K. Paustovsky divided the text into smaller passages. This difference once again shows that the division into paragraphs is included in the author's style. But this does not mean that paragraph and syntactic division can not be combined. There are coincidences, and quite often. The degree of frequency of such coincidences primarily depends on the type and genre of the literary text. We find more rigor and predictability in paragraph division in the texts of educational, scientific, official business. Less predictable paragraphing in a fiction text. The reasons for this are quite natural. And in the artistic text coincidences are quite possible, although not so principled.

Paragraph and interphrase unity coincide in cases where the presentation of the material (whether scientific or artistic), according to the principle of logical and semantic, when the boundaries of paragraphs and interfrasional unions mark the transition from one microtheme to another. Such a paragraph, coinciding with a complex syntactic integer, is called thematic or classical, i.e. as if compiled according to strict rules, the scheme of such a paragraph varies, but remains within certain limits - there is always a core phrase and an explanatory part, or there is only a core phrase that links different pieces of text, defining a thematic transition between them.

Since the moment of predictability in thematic paragraphs is quite obvious, it is also possible to approximate their classification from the point of view of construction [1].

The analytical-synthetic paragraph contains the analytical part (explanatory, explanatory) in the first position, and summarizing, the final - in the second.

For example: The rule of life is that children should respect their parents, and parents should love children, you should read the opposite: parents should respect children - respect their peculiar little world and their ardent, ready to be offended every minute, nature; and children should only love their parents - and by all means they will love them, once they feel respect for themselves. How deep and how new it is (VV Rozanov. Solitary).

A synthetic-analytical paragraph begins with a generalizing, core phrase, the meaning of which is revealed in subsequent messages.

For example: London was especially beautiful on this gray, sunny August day. The light, festive sky was reflected in the smooth streams of asphalt, postal pedestals on the corners glowed with rosy varnish, the tapestry green of the park rolled up the brilliance and the rustle of cars — the whole city sparkled, breathed with the warmth of warmth, and only below, on platforms of underground roads, it was cool Nabokov. Return Chorba).

The frame paragraph has a combined structure: the beginnings outlines the topic, then the explanatory part, and the paragraph ends with a general phrase. The first and last statements echo lexically, and thus the topic is “closed”.

For example:

Wind blows at midnight and carries sheets ... So life in fleeting time disrupts exclamations from the soul of ours, sighs, half-thought, half-feelings, which, being sound scraps, have that significance that they "descended" straight from the soul, without processing, without goals, without premeditation, without all the outsider ... Simply, the soul lives ... "that is," lived ", breathed" ... For a long time, for some reason I liked these "unintentional exclamations". Actually, they flow into us continuously, but they do not have time (there is no paper at hand) to bring in - and they die. Then never to remember. However, I managed to put something on paper. Recorded all accumulated. And so I decided to collect these fallen sheets.

What for? Who needs it?

Simply - I need (V.V. Rozanov. Solitary).

In the first and last statements of a large paragraph (the phrase-beginning and the core final phrase), as we see, the same words are used: the fallen leaves (natural) and the fallen leaves (portable, metaphor) at the end.

In the same passage there is a paragraph “Why? Who needs it? ”- this is a paragraph-link, compositional joint (see the next phrase-answer -“ Just - I need it ”).

Another example of the paragraph-compositional joint:

We previously talked about some of the Moscow gates, no longer existing at the present time. Now we will talk about the Spassky Gate in the Kremlin, especially honored in the ancient capital (MI Pylyaev. Old Moscow).

The first part of such a paragraph refers to the upstream context, and the second - points to the following text.

Finally, a paragraph-rod phrase (logical conclusion, synthesis or presentation of a new topic).

For example: Here is a birch on the coastal bevel of the Poksha river. In the flood, icy water covers it almost to the tops, sharp broken ice floes hit the trunk hard, and it will be cut, pushed or injured. She holds on. Having endured everything, he decorates himself in time: with green foliage and earrings; and the whiteness of the graveyard. In the summer, in its shade cast aside on the river, the shurik-eyed swimmers love to perch a nap.

I love this birch tree for its quiet courage (V. Bocharnikov. Birch).

The main reasons forcing the writer to use paragraph division are as follows [2]:

1) the novelty of information, a new microtheme;

2) the importance of information within this text;

3) emotional release details;

4) the impossibility of further presentation of information without violating the meaning and consistency (as a result of the linear incompatibility of phrases).

Some examples are:

1. The transition from one microtheme to another.

The girls for thinness called Mitya greyhounds, he was from that breed of people with black, as if constantly widened eyes, with which almost no mustache or beard grow even in mature years - only something rare and tough is curled. However, the day after the conversation with the elder, he had shaved in the morning and put on a yellow silk shirt, which strangely and beautifully illuminated his gaunt and as if inspirational face.

At the eleventh hour he slowly, trying to give himself a little bored, having nothing to do with a walking look, went into the garden.

He emerged from the main porch facing north. In the north, above the roofs of the coach house and the barnyard, and above that part of the garden, from behind which the bell tower always looked, stood a scab of murk. And everything was dim, the air soared and smelled from the human pipe. Mitya turned behind the house and headed towards the linden alley ... (I. Bunin. Mitya's love).

2. The importance of the summary information, summarizing the maxim.

And then everything changed by leaps and bounds. Greening pasture, greening willows in front of huts, greening birch ... It rained, hot June days flowed, flowers bloomed, funny hayfields came ... I remember how the summer wind gently and carelessly roared in the silky birch foliage, confusing this foliage and bending the ears of corn are thin, flexible branches; I remember a sunny morning on the Trinity, when even bearded men, like true descendants of Rusich, smiled from under huge birch wreaths, I remember rough, but powerful songs on Spirits the day when we went to the nearest oak grove and set porridge there, arranged it in the shards on the knolls and the "begging cuckoo" to be a merciful little thing; I remember the "games of the sun" under Petrov's day, I remember great songs and noisy weddings, I remember touching prayers before the mild intercessor of all those who mourn - in the field, under the open sky ...

Life does not stand still, - the old leaves, and we see off him often with great sadness. Yes, but not so good and life is that it is in constant renewal (I. Bunin. Epitaph).

3. Emotional underlining.

... Looking at him, I could not believe that mothers have such hoarse and foul words. I could not believe that Anis was his mother. Yes, and it was impossible to believe (I. Bunin. Merry Yard).

4. Incompatibility of statements in the sequential presentation of new information.

At the passage through the heavy barricade lined with rough adder, a policeman checked my pass to exit the besieged city.

He advised me to drive up to the first line on the passing car.

Dark. Far away on the other side, the company commander woke up. He hears this fire and thinks about his intelligence. She is scheduled for midnight.

In the first case, it is necessary to break the contact location of the pronoun he and the city in front; in the second case, there is no such need, since the chain dependence can be traced clearly.

Incompatibility may occur not only when pronouns are used in the reference function; It happens that the whole statement of meaning can not communicate with each other. It is necessary to separate them, pause.

A paragraph, for example, may emphasize a logical or meaningful gap in the text, when an incompatibility of the chronological plan occurs, or in the description of different states of the author or character, or when meaningfully pieces of text are opposed as private and general. To help paragraph in such cases comes an additional punctuation mark - ellipsis, separating this paragraph from the front context:

But only the wheels knocked in the black void: Ka-shadow-ka, Ka-shadow-ka, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course ...

... Sharply, as if having flown into a dead end, the car stopped, brakes squealed with an iron howl, chains rattled, windows rang out, several suitcases fell heavily from the top shelf (A. Tolstoy. Going on agony).

He looked at Olga Nikolaevna’s proud head in a landing, which had been knotted with hair, answered out of place, and soon, citing fatigue, went into the room allotted to him.

... And so the days stretched, sweet and dreary (M. Sholokhov).

The pause was too long, and the administrator in a bowler hat with a painted mustache signaled the orchestra to play something else. The orchestra reluctantly played a potpourri from the Merry Widow operetta.

... Datsarill did not appear (V. Kataev).

[1] See, for example: N. Yushina. The paragraph, its structural-semantic types and their functioning in the works of V.I. Lenina: Author. Cand. diss. M., 1972.

[2] See: Losev LM How to build a text. M., 1980.

See also

• Paragraph as a compositional and stylistic unit of text
• Types of thematic (classical) paragraph
• Paragraph functions