A Stylistic Study of Postposing in Knowers Monologue of Al-Imam Al-Sajjad (Peace be upon him)

Abstract

Literary language has long held a distinctive status, characterized by its style and distinct from ordinary linguistic conventions. Such style, manifested through various forms of linguistic variation, is a core feature of literary language. One notable syntactic device in literary language is postposing, which involves delaying an element to the end of a clause to achieve stylistic effects such as emphasis and textual effectiveness. This study examines postposing stylistically in The Knowers’ Monologue of Al-Imam Al-Sajjad (peace be upon him), attempting to identify the purposes served by this construction. An eclectic analytical model is adopted, combining Huddleston and Pullum’s (2002) syntactic framework with Oliva and Serrano’s (2013) stylistic approach. Hence, the study aims at exploring the role of the postposing constructions in Knowers’ Monologue, identifying the types of postposing constructions, and discovering the most common type of postposing employed in that Monologue. The study concludes that Knowers’ Monologue employs two types of postposing construction, subject postposing and verb postposing and uses powerful and diverse rhyme.