英语修辞与写作·7.4　省略句和重复句

7.4　省略句和重复句

7.4A　省略句

1） 省去句中某个成分，因而从语法上看句子结构不算完整，但从上下文看意义是清楚的，这种句式称为省略句（Elliptical sentence）。省略句在口语中最为常见。例如下面一段对话中都是省略句：

— Hi!

— Morning!

— Got troubles?

— Sure have.

— Lost a friend?

— No, just tired.

— Up late last night?

— Yeah. Big party.

2） 省略是简洁文体（Laconic style）的一个特色，在警句、格言、谚语中尤为常见。有一种称为Asyndeton的省略句主要省去连词and，适用于描写快速的连续动作。例如：

I came, I saw, I conquered.

（Julius Caesar）

As a boy, he recalls, he tried to break up a fight, got a drubbing for his pains.

（TIME）

3） 略语或缩写（Abbreviation）也是一种省略，主要用于对人的称呼，一些拉丁语短语，知名的组织、机构名称、地址，等等。例如：

Mr. T. Fingar （Mister的缩略式）

Dr. E. Laine （Doctor的缩略式）

NATO （The North Atlantic Treaty Organization的缩略式）

e.g. （for example的缩略式）

i.e. （that is的缩略式）

etc. （and so forth的缩略式）

422 S Main St, Slippery Rock, PA 16057, USA （美国的通讯地址，其中有不少缩略式，如开头直书门牌号，s表示south, St或ST表示Street, PA表示Pennsylvania，等）

现代英语——尤其美国英语中缩略语有增多的趋势，但使用时注意不要让读者费解，如在文章中正式提到名称、日期等时不应当用缩略式。例如：

The first lady is visiting Pennsylvania this weekend.

（句中Pennsylvania不能用PA替代。）

On Tuesday, February 26, the editor of the Plainviez Herald announced the paper would no longer advertise X-rated films.

（句中Tuesday, February, editor等不应改缩略式。）

7.4B　重复句

1） 重复句一般是写作中应避免的东西，但它却是种常见的修辞手法。散文中的重复往往具有两个方面的目的，即为了更加连贯，或为了强调。例如：

Those of us who came to know baseball when there was little television and no big-time professional football or baseball talked its language, heard its lore, and were taken with its special sense before we had ever played an organized game or pondered its beautiful mystery. There were giants on the field, men of legend whose voice we had ever heard, whose faces we knew only from newspaper photographs or from the murky images on our bubble-gum cards, and whose records — batting average, home runs, runs battled in — suggested meaning beyond anything we understood. “Facts” supported myth, and myth magnified the facts on which it was supposed to be based.

（Peter Schrag）

上面这段文章中its和whose重复使用，加上平行结构，加强了句间的连贯和呼应，使整个段落浑然一体。

下例中no的重复及由此构成平行句式，使语气加强：

Kurtz, he realized, had “looked over the edge” and had seen the “inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraints, no faith, and no fear yet was struggling, blindly with itself.”

（Norma Youngbirg）

下例中empty的重复既加强了作家笔下描写的空旷气氛，又构成了上下句间的自然连贯：

Across the boulevard where a milk truck scurries to more lucrative fields lies the sea and miles of empty beach on which thousands come to bask and bathe in summer. The empty life-guard towers look out to sea; their boats are gone; no human being is in sight.

（John Rowlands）

2） 古罗马修辞学家昆廷利安（Quintilian）曾论及两种修辞重复：Reduplication和Synonymy（或Interpretation）。

前一种重复是相同词语的重复，例如：

“You are promoting riots, Gaius Gracchus, yes, civil and internal riots.”

“You were not moved when his mother embraced your knees? You were not moved?”

“You now even dare to come into the sight of these citizens, traitor to the fatherland? Traitor, I say, to the fatherland, you dare come into the sight of these citizens?”

在演说和辩论中的这种重复如同重锤反复敲击听话者的心灵，如同利剑连续点击敌方的痛处，具有很强的力度。

后一种重复是利用含义相同的词语，如：

“You have overturned the republic from its roots; you have demolished the state from its foundations.”

“You have impiously beaten your father; you have criminally laid hands upon your parent.”

一句话刚说完，接着跟上一句含义相同的话，使原话的力量增强，势必给听话者以深刻的印象。