| This dissertation takes as its primary focus the value of underlying principles of language structure in the interpretation of literature. Operating under a model of language in accordance with Noam Chomsky's Generative Grammar, this analysis addresses how three 20th-century "American" authors---Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, and Vladimir Nabokov---direct the functional (non-lexical) characteristics of language to express aspects of a text. This dissertation argues that these authors employ a literary style that manipulates the "functional context" of novels and short stories to parallel and support themes introduced through more traditional literary methods.;An analysis of Native Son demonstrates Richard Wright's application of argument suppression in a predicate to convey themes of disconnection from a bleak and oppressive existence. Social and familial dissociations experienced by characters parallel exactly grammatical elisions in the core structures of predicates, while suppressions of agency and volition allude to repression on a larger scale. The translational conceit of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls creates a marked linguistic environment that facilitates interpretive distance and objectivity, while effecting a broad verisimilitude despite the inaccuracy of individual details. Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor introduces conflicting and contrasting narrative elements to subvert elements of textuality, highlighting the absurdity of an unconstrained text and effecting a bounded objectivity that balances between narrative dependence and interpretive distance.;Taken together, these analyses suggest that at least some of the stylistic consequences of marked functional context operate as interpretational anchors, offering literary content in a descriptive and "concrete" manner that defies subjective or open readings of the text. |
