VERBLESS CONSTRUCTION AS A STYLO-SYNTACTIC DEVICE IN ADEMOLA DASYLVA’S “THE WORKER” AND “OF WO-MAN”

Abstract

Literary writers, especially poets, usually improvise language resources at every linguistic level through a departure from language norms to negotiate meanings. However, readers’ inability to perceive such improvisations, especially at the syntactic level, is a major factor that makes poetry seemingly a challenging text to appraise among literary genres. The descriptive method in this study therefore employed the tools of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar to unveil how Ademola Dasylva utilises a syntactic device of verbless construction in his “The worker” and “Of wo-man” which were purposely selected for the study. To achieve this aim, the study attempted to: investigate what elements of the clause were organised into meaningful patterns in the structures of the two poems; identify the syntactic device essentially used through the elements of the clause that are used for production of meanings in the poems; and discover how elements in the structures of the poems were functionally used for the conveyance of messages. Findings from the study revealed that, elements used within the structures of the poems are predominantly co-referential descriptive Nominal Phrases organised into appositive constructions. Similarly, the configuration of the various phrases at the clausal unit of each poem was basically devoid of verbal element; thereby, generating the device of verbless construction. Also, this device of verbless construction was functionally used to achieve descriptive effects and provide textual imitation of messages. It is thus concluded that Ademola Dasylva possessed some poetic style for the formation of structures that consistently align with the message of his works. Keywords: syntactic device, verbless construction, appositive Nominal Groups, verbal element.