Epithet. Figures of replacement: figures of quantity. Oxymoron. Epithets are opposed to logical attributes which indicate to generally recognized qualities of the phenomena. For example: green meadows, round table. The epithet makes a strong impact on the reader, and he begins to see and evaluate things as the writer wants him to see. F/e: formidable waves, heartburning smile; О dreamy, gloomy, friendly trees! Epithets may be classified from different standpoints: semantic and structural. Semantically, epithets may be divided into two groups: those associated with the noun following and those unassociated with it. Associated epithets are those which point to a feature that is essential to the objects they describe. E.g.: dreary midnight, fantastic terrors. Unassociated epithets are attributes used to characterize the object by adding a new feature, i.e. a feature which may be so unexpected as to strike the reader by its novelty, as, for instance, heartburning smile, bootless cries, sullen earth, voiceless sands, etc. It is also possible to speak about language epithets and speech epithets. The first group includes traditional epithets, and the author does not create his own epithets (deep feeling, sweet smile, pitch darkness). Speech epithets could be unexpected and struck by their novelty (sleepless bay, slavish knees). Structurally, epithets may be divided into simple, compound, and phrase epithets. Simple epithets are ordinary adjectives (e.g., see: examples above). Compound epithets are built like compound adjectives. Examples are heart-burning sighs, sylph-like figures, cloudsharpen giants, curly-headed good-for-nothing, and mischiefmaking monkey from his birth. Here are some examples of phrase epithets: the shadow of a smile, a devil of a job, a doll of a baby, a ghost of a smile. Figures of replacement: figures of quantity Figures of replacement studied by paradigmatic semasiology deal with renaming: in figures of replacement one notion is replaced by another (one denomination is used instead of another). Two classes of figures of replacement are figures of quantity and figures of quality. Figures of quantity demonstrate the most primitive type of renaming based on the disproportion of the object and its verbal evaluation. It is either overestimating or underestimating the properties, size, importance, etc of the object or phenomenon. Hyperbole is a deliberate overstatement of a feature essential to the object or phenomenon. It is not meant to be taken literally: the speaker doesn’t expect to be believed, he is merely adding emphasis to what he really means. F/e: a thousand pardons; immensely obliged; Haven’t seen you for ages. Meiosis (understatement) implies saying less than one means. In understatement, the size, shape, dimensions, and characteristic features of an object are intentionally underestimated. F/e: This looks like a good bite; He knows a thing or two; It will cost you a pretty penny. The specific structural type of meiosis is litotes. In litotes, the understatement is achieved by substituting the affirmative with a negation of the contrary. Litotes is a two-component structure in which two negatives give a positive evaluation (not hopeless, not unlikely; not without his help; not bad). An oxymoron is a combination of two words (mostly “an adjective + a noun” or “an adverb + an adjective”) whose meanings are opposite and incompatible, for example, low skyscraper, sweet sorrow, nice rascal, pleasantly ugly face, horribly beautiful, a deafening silence, peopled desert, populous solitude, proud humility. If the primary meaning of the qualifying word changes or weakens, the stylistic effect of the oxymoron is lost. This is the case with what were once oxymoronic combinations, for example, awfully nice, awfully glad, terribly sorry, and the like, where the words awfully and terribly have lost their primary logical meaning and are now used with emotive meaning only, as intensifies. In the above-mentioned structural model of an oxymoron (“adjective + noun”), the resistance of the two component parts to fusion into one unit manifests itself most strongly. In the structural model “adverb + adjective” the change of meaning in the fist element, the adverb, is more rapid, and the resistance to the unifying process is not so strong.
