Tang Blank Structure Of Rhetoric

Poem blank means what the poem doesn't literally displays and needs to be filled up through the readers'consideration and imagination with the help of their experience. This thesis tries to make a research on the phenomena of poem blank with a perspective of rhetoric and place an emphasis on the language itself. In order to avoid the generalization of the research on blank, we put forward the concept of "blank structure". The research object of this thesis is the blank structures in Tang poetry. Blank structure must meet the requirement of two indispensable conditions: First, it should be a common language phenomenon of omission and implication and embodies the rhetoric value of blank. Second, it must have the characters in structure, which means it should have the blank structural mark.Chapter Two to Chapter Seven are the main part of this thesis and elaborate respectively on six blank structures in Tang poetry:nominal sentence, intertextual sentence, interrogative sentence, negative sentence, only-have sentence and time-contrast sentence.Nominal sentence is the poetic sentence that is totally composed of nouns and nominal phrases. The blank structural mark of nominal sentence is that all the components of the sentence are nouns and nominal phrases. The nominal sentences in Tang poetry can be divided into three types:the nominal sentences composed of one nominal structure, the nominal sentences composed of two nominal structures and the nominal sentences composed of three or more nominal structures.Intertextual sentence is the sentence form in which the meaning of the words in the corresponding places echo and complement each other in the two parallel phrases or clauses that have the same or similar structures. The blank structure of intertextual sentence in Tang poetry may be described as the following formula: ABCD^ABD+CBD (or ACB+ACD). A and C are the counterparts. B and D are the counterparts. The intertextual sentences in Tang poetry have four main types which are the interior-sentence intertext, the solo-sentence intertext, the parallel-sentence intertext and the special intertext.The blank structural mark of interrogative sentence is the interrogative or the interrogative structure. The interrogative sentences of blank structure in Tang poetry chiefly have three types which are the question-answer style, the rhetorical question style and the solo-question style. The blank structural marks of negative sentences are the negative words such as "Bu", "Wu1", "Fei" and "Wu2". The most special negative blank structures in Tang poetry are the exclusive negation, the personification negation and the not-know negation.Some sentences with such words as "Wei1", "Wei2" and "Dan" in Tang poetry literally mean only having something, but actually there isn't this substance alone. These sentences say no words about other things and set off the environment to express sentiments with this substance alone because of the typicality of this substance. This kind of sentence is called only-have sentence. The blank structural marks of the only-have sentences are the characters such as "Wei1", "Wei2" and "Dan". There are two main types of only-have sentences:Wei Sentence and Dan Sentence.Representing the conversion of time and space, the time-contrast sentences are the verses depict the circumstances in the past and present or in the morning and evening in the fore-and-aft sentences with the mark of such words as "Jin", "Xi", "Zhao" and "Mu". The blank structural marks of the time-contrast sentences are the words as "Jin", "Xi", "Zhao", "Mu", etc. The time-contrast sentences in Tang poetry can be divided into two types:the present-past one and the morning-evening one.The blank structures in Tang poetry show unique rhetoric effects respectively due to the difference in forms, while they have rhetoric commonness because of the similar blank value. Generally speaking, the blank structures in Tang poetry have three main rhetoric functions:First, they are unique in form. Second, they increase the volume of the sentences in the aspect of content. Third, they convey connotation in poetic flavor.The deep reason why the blank structures in Tang poetry have unique rhetoric functions can be explained by Gestalt psychology theories and rhetoric acceptance theories. Blank can be understood and accepted by readers because of readers'Gestalt psychology. After the poems are composed by the poets, the rhetoric value of the blank structures can fully be realized only through the readers'acceptance.