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5.2 Devices for grammatical cohesion in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (PH), Half of a

5.2.1 Additive conjunction

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[iii] On Lekki Express Way, the traffic moved swiftly in the waning rain and soon Gabriel was pressing the horn in front of the high gates of his home. [iv]

Mohammed, the gateman, wiry in his dirty white caftan, flung open the gates and raised a hand in greeting…

This is a nomination and predication discourse strategy which has evoked tribal/ethnic affirmatives therein suggesting national solidarity in the case of the Nigerian scene. The nominal ‘Mohammed’ is described as ‘the gateman, wiry in his dirty white caftan’, and Gabriel, in this instance, ‘the boss’ whose gate is manned by Mohammed. These names suggest where the characters are from and the nature of the roles assigned to them activates ethnic affirmatives therein set the pace for sentiments.

Apparently, with these syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, Adichie has built a narrative network with a rich textual quality. This must have informed Joyce Carol Oates’ description of HOAYS in her preface to it as ‘vividly written, thrumming with life…’ Adichie’s use of these style devices does not only enhance and enriched the textual quality but has also contributed to the semantic quality of expressions in these novels as well. Apparently, some of these linguistic proximate do not only underline issues of power and ideology, neither do they concern only gender and religion nor are they just a simple historical account of human experiences, like the Nigeria’s civil war, but have, within the lexical and grammatical confluences, projected concerns for social solidarity as well.

5.2 Devices for grammatical cohesion in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (PH), Half

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Adichie’s novels, for instance, situates the various sentential components into grammatically cohesive features, and in like manner, functions as intensification and or mitigation discursive strategies which foreground solidarity in the various sequences of events within and between sentences in the narration of the story. Consequently, the use of additive conjunction ‘and’, in the first sentence in Purple Hibiscus leads us into a tradition of events which later evolve in the novel. The narration begins thus:

Extract [37]: (a)Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and (b) Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and (c) broke the figurines on the étagère ... We had just returned from church (PH, 2003: p.11).

This first sentence consists of three clauses which are linked together with the additive conjunction ‘and’. These clauses include: (a) ‘Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion’ [and] (b) ‘Papa flung his heavy missal across the room’ [and] (c) ‘broke the figurines on the étagère’. The insertion of additive conjunction ‘and’, as demonstrated in extract [37], provides a conducive grammatical environment for the various phases of information within the sentence and the preceding sentences, especially ‘we had just returned from church’ to be cohesively integrated.

Apparently, ‘and’, does not only facilitate the cohesiveness of the clauses within the sentence but also intensifies inter sentential flow of information in the sentence. The function of the additive conjunction ‘and’, in the above extract [37] is so prevailing such that even with the introduction of a sequence conjunctive element ‘when’, in the first clause [a], the occurrence of ‘and’ which joins the first [a] and second [b] clauses together overshadows its presence and functions as a sequential grammatical element.

It is from this angle that Adichie opens her narration and then intensifies the thrust of her story which she hinges on this very first sentence that offers useful insights and dictates the pace of narration in Purple Hibiscus. Apparently, ‘Things started falling apart at home…’ which is in the first clause [a] of the first sentence like an expository signal that climax in the second segment of the clause: ‘…when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion…’ The second clause which is joined to the preceding clause by the additive conjunction ‘and’ further intensifies the manner of how things are falling apart at home and the destructive nature of the turn of events. Accordingly, just because, ‘…her brother, Jaja, did not go for the communion …’ Papa Eugene throws the ‘heavy missal’ at him; it misses him and smashed ‘the figurines on the étagère’. Within these grammatically

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cohesive ties, lies a discourse strategy which steps up and foregrounds why ‘things have started to fall apart at home’ that Sunday. In other words, just as the insertion of the additive conjunction ‘and’ which coordinates the intra-sentential relation, it also replicates intensification discourse strategy as the proceeding clauses amplify the turn of events at home as Jaja did not go to receive the Holy Communion that faithful Sunday.

The use of additive conjunction is discourse strategy to pile up action and have aided allusions to the family and the church in the narration, thus creating an enabling narrative environment for familial and religious solidarity in the story. The sequences of events are tied around the first sentence and the subsequent clauses do not only cohere with the first clause but build up and expand the circumference of the event that is set off in the first clause of the first sentence in the novel.

Consequently, at various points in the narration, Adichie achieves two things with the application of grammatical resources of additive conjunction. On the one hand, she links the different phases of incidences in the story into meaningful cohesive grammatical units, and on the other hand, each clause that results from this connection further amplifies details about the social implications of the themes that are expounded in the preceding clause. As a discourse strategy, what marks the opening of this story stretched to further units in the narration; as a result, things that started to fall apart at home generate to a full scale familial crisis, and Adichie informs us much later in the narration that:

Extract [38]: [a] Everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday. [b] Howling winds came with an angry rain, uprooting frangipani trees in the front yard. [c] They lay on the lawn, their pink and white flowers grazing the grass, their roots waving lumpy soil in the air… [d] Even the silence that descended on the house was sudden, as though the old silence had broken and left us with sharp pieces (PH. 2006: p.261).

Going by analysis of sentential relations, Extract [38], which is situated at a later portion in the narration of PH, therefore, shares inter-sentential cohesive relation with the first sentence as demonstrated in Extract [37] and also suggests how Adichie uses the first sentence to set the pace for all the events which are subsequently unveiled in the narration. This, she has effectively done with the use of additive conjunction that coordinates and stacks strands of information to build up her narration. With additive conjunction, Adichie provides and projects turn of events in her narration. So, in order to

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discursively cater for the aggressive turn of events as she assert at the beginning of the narration that ‘things started to fall apart at home’ additive conjunctions are deployed so as to creative a narrative atmosphere to show how ‘things fall apart at home’. As a discourse strategy, the actions resulting from Jaja and Papa’s interactions have now grown to affect the entire family in view of the fact that ‘even the silence that descended on the house was sudden as though the old silence had broken and left us with sharp pieces’. As a style device to foreground familial solidarity, the agent(s) which were put as

‘Jaja’ and ‘Papa ‘at the beginning becomes ‘us’; indicating self and others and therefore, the entire family.

This piling of information through the use of additive conjunction also provide insights into how the events are going to be; the ‘heavy missal’ which contained the readings for all the three cycles of the church are flung across the room, a style that amplifies discursive features that foreground religious solidarity. And as she reiterates that‘…everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday…’ this signifies how nature’s elements are compounding the destructive nature and confirming how ‘things are falling apart’ and, therefore, ‘… the old silence had broken and left us with sharp pieces’.

Therefore, with the reiteration of these lexical items that signify the family and the church in the structures; the perspectives that sprout from these syntagmata, therefore, foreground familial and religious solidarities.

Usual of Adichie’s narrative style, the very first sentence in Half of a Yellow Sun is also heaped with a lot of information which is made possible through the use of additive conjunction. The opening sentence in the novel is an example.

Extract [39]: Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair (HOAYS: p.1).

This first sentence contains five clauses which are subdivided into: [a] ‘Master was a little crazy’, [b] ‘…He had spent too many years reading books overseas…’ [c] ‘… [He]

talked to himself in his office…’ [d] ‘… [He] did not always return greetings…’ and [f]

‘… [He] had too much hair.’ The last clause in the above structure marked as [f]; ‘… had too much hair’ which is introduced by the coordinating additive conjunction ‘and’, serves as an intensifier of the perspective about Master. This syntagmatic situation amplifies the fact that aside from the other personal traits ‘…too much hair’ has finally nailed Master as a being ‘a little crazy’, an obvious appearance of a mad man; a strategy that elicit the

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personality and consequently, the quality solidarity of Master, as a character, in the narration.

It is also remarkable to note that, in the above sentence, as illustrated in Extract [39], the semi-colon and the colon are employed as cohesive means to expand the various frontiers in the sentence by piling up information about how ‘crazy Master is.’ However, the use of additive conjunction, ‘and’, cohesively ushered in a complementary clause:

‘…had too much hair’, which finally intensify the foreclosed intention of the first clause

‘Master was a little crazy’. And all the other attributes: ‘…reading too much books’,

‘…talked to himself…’, and ‘…did not return greetings’ cohere and provide evidence to confirm that ‘Master was a little crazy’, but the insertion of another clause which is introduced by additive conjunction, ‘and’, explicates a narrative situation which describes and further strengthens Ugwu’s perspective that ‘Master was indeed crazy’(HOAYS, p.12). Thus, at the micro analysis of linguistic elements CDA adapts from SFL, the application of additive conjunction functions as a grammatical means for textual cohesion. However, at the macro levels of discourse analysis, the strategy of piling up of information within the clauses through additive conjunction is a syntagmatic feature that enhances not only grammatical cohesion but functions as an intensification discourse strategy that amplify perspectives as it is being observed in Adichie’s narration. In fact, it is a narrative technique which she uses to faithfully craft the social relevance in the various strands of incidences in her stories into a meaningful whole. For instance, the following illustration in extract [40] demonstrates how the social implications in Adichie’s narration saturate in the grammatical configurations:

Extract [40]: The following weeks, when she started teaching a course in introductory sociology, when she joined the staff club and played tennis with other lecturers, when she drove Ugwu to the market and took walks with Odenigbo and joined the St Vincent de Paul Society at St Peter’s Church she slowly began to get used to Odenigbo’s friends (HOAYS: p.51).

In extract [40] above, the first clause: ‘the following weeks…’ could easily have gone with the last clause ‘…she slowly began to get used to Odenigbo’s friends’, or it would have been ‘…the following weeks, when she started teaching a course in introductory sociology… she slowly began to get used to Odenigbo’s friends…’ However, the insertion of the additive conjunction in-between the third clause ‘‘…when she joined the staff club…’ and the fourth clause ‘…played tennis with other lecturers…’, makes stronger the perspective and has provided a grammatical environment which ropes other

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pieces of information to expand the horizon of the temporal conjunctive marker in the introductory clause: ‘the following weeks…’ to fit into the social relevance of the syntactic elements going by CDA’s macro interpretations of structures.

The following extract [41] further illustrates the intricate nature in which additive conjunction links the various episodes in Adichie’s narration into meaningful cohesive grammatical units, and then provides enough details that deepen the semantic intensity and social value of the various strands of information by offering useful clues about her character’s perspectives in the narration.

Extract [41]: [i] Ugwu watched her go back indoors and wondered how she had felt about being offered to a stranger and what had happened after she was pushed into his room and who was to blame more, her parents or the officer. (ii) He didn’t want to think too much about blame, though, because it would remind him of Master and Olanna during those weeks before Baby’s birth, weeks he preferred to forget (HOAYS: p.200).

The first sentence[i] in Extract [41]: ‘Ugwu watched her go back indoors and wondered how she felt about being offered to a stranger and what had happened after she was pushed into his room and who was to blame more, her parents or the officer’ reveals how four separate sentences, containing different information, are fasten together by the additive conjunction ‘and’. For the purpose of analysis, the sentence is subdivided into the following clauses: [a] ‘… Ugwu watched her go back indoors’, [b] ‘…wondered how she felt about being offered to a stranger’, [c] ‘...what happened after she was pushed into his room’, and [d] ‘…who was to blame more, her parents or the officer’. The first clause in the sentence [a] gives some kind of admiration of Eberechi by Ugwu, and sets the pace which compels the information contained in the second segment [b] which is joined together by additive conjunction ‘and’. The inclusion of the third [c] and fourth [d]

segments, aside from stirring grammatical cohesion, provides further information that reinforces Ugwu’s perspective about Eberechi; an outlook that indicates familial solidarity, the concern about the welfare of members by members of a particular social group.

A similar grammatical relation is established in the occurrence of the additive conjunction, ‘and’, in the textual network of AMERiCANAH. The very first sentence in the novel as shown in Extract [42] below, like in Adichie’s other novels, contains additive conjunction which has not only facilitated cohesion but stock-piled the information and amplification of social solidarity from the events in the novel.

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Extract [42]: Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her… (AH:

p.3)

Like in Extract [41], the sentence examined in Extract [42] above contains four different clauses which are joined together with an additive conjunction ‘and’, each preceding clause reinforces Ifemelu’s perspective about how Princeton smells in the summer: [a]

‘…smelled of nothing’, [b] ‘…Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets’, [c] ‘…stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops’, and [d] ‘... the quiet, abiding air of earned grace ...the lack of a smell...’ The first clause ‘Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing...’, and the second clause: ‘…although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets...’, the third clause: ‘…stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops’ and the fourth clause: ‘…the quiet, abiding air of earned grace…’, linked by the additive conjunction ‘and’, serves as a signal of additional information to substantiate how ‘Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing’, although these other qualities ‘…most appealed to her...’ This grammatical relation, aside from enhancing textual cohesion, has again reiterated the functions of additive conjunction in Adichie’s narration as an intensification discourse strategy to curve in the various perspectives that foreground solidarity in the textual networks of her novels.

The following Extract [43], drawn from AMERiCANAH (2013), also demonstrates how additive conjunction serves not only as a grammatical means for textual cohesion but as a discourse strategy which makes explicit certain perspectives that provide for the macro interpretation of social solidarity undertone of this novel.

Extract [43]: [a] He had transferred from the University secondary school in Nsukka, and only days after, everyone knew of the swirling rumours about his mother. [b] She had fought with a man, another Professor at Nsukka, a real fight; punching and hitting, and she had won, too, even tearing his clothes, and so she was suspended for two years and had moved to Lagos until she could go back. (AH: p.53)

For the purpose of this analysis, the above Extract [43] is divided into two sentences. The first sentence which marked as [a] is the first sentence in the extract: ‘He had transferred from the University secondary school in Nsukka, and only days after, everyone knew of the swirling rumours about his mother …’ The sentence can further be

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subdivided into two clauses. The first clause: ‘He had transferred from University secondary school in Nsukka...’ provides a useful clue that is intensified with the insertion of additive conjunction ‘and’ which links the second clause to the first clause. The second clause foregrounds and amplifies the much needed details as to why he had to transfer from ‘University secondary school in Nsukka’.

The second sentence marked as [b]: ‘She had fought with a man, another Professor at Nsukka, a real fight…and she had won, too, even tearing his clothes, and so she was suspended for two years and had to move to Lagos…’, consists of four clauses.

The first clause: ‘She had fought with a man, another Professor at Nsukka, a real fight;

punching and hitting…’ provides the opening which is backed by the subsequent clauses as additional information to intensify the reason behind his movement to Lagos. The second clause: ‘…she had won, too, even tearing his clothes…’ is linked to the preceding clause with an additive conjunction ‘and’ to usher in the first resultant effects of Obinze’s mother’s action: ‘she had won, too, even tearing his clothes…’ The insertion of ‘and’ to link the second and third clauses together provides the consequence of his mother’s action which is: ‘two years suspension from the University’. The fourth clause: ‘… had moved to Lagos until she could go back’. The second sentence which consists of four clauses linked together by the grammatical device of additive conjunction discursively ties in useful information which heightens the reasons why Obinze had to relocate from University secondary school in Nsukka to Lagos. Furthermore, the insertion of an additive conjunction in: ‘… and she had won’, at this point is a discourse scheme with explicit familial solidarity undertone that stresses Obinze’s perspectives about her mother’s bravery; she did not only fight a man, but she won the fight; a usual manner in which, members of particular social groups, are ever ready to defend and praise the excelling qualities of their members. Therefore, as the deployment of an additive conjunction at this moment makes the clause to be emphatic, it also foregrounds familial solidarity.

The following extract [44] drawn from AMERiCANAH further demonstrates this literary accomplishment in which information is introduced in the opening sentence and then additive conjunction is inserted to coordinate and build up the sequence of actions into meaningful units.

Extract [44i]: [a] During the week, Aunty Uju hurried home to shower and wait for The General and, on weekdays she lounged in her night dress, reading or

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cooking or watching television, because The General was in Abuja with his wife and children. [b] She avoided the sun and used creams in elegant bottles, so that her complexion, already naturally light, became lighter, brighter, and took on sheen. [c] Sometimes, as she gave instructions to her driver, Sola, or her gardener, Baba flower, or her two house helps, Inyang who cleaned and Chikodili who cooked, Ifemelu would remember Aunty Uju, the village girl brought to Lagos so many years ago, who Ifemelu’s Mother mildly complained was so parochial she kept touching the walls, and what was it with all these village people who could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palm on a wall? Ifemelu wondered if Aunty Uju ever looked at herself with the eyes of the girl she used to be.

[d] Perhaps not. [e] Aunty Uju had steadied herself into her new life with a lightness of touch, more consumed by The General himself than by her new wealth (AH: p.74).

Extract [44] contains five sentences which offer something unique about Adichie’s use of additive conjunction, which seems to discursively strategize the vitality in the narration of events. The first sentence [a] consists of four clauses which are joined together by the additive conjunction ‘and’. The first clause, which is situated in the first sentence [a]:

‘During the week, Aunty Uju hurried home to shower...’ introduces and raises information which with the use of additive conjunction, ‘and’, in the second clause in first sentence [a]: ‘wait for The General’ substantiates as to why she hurries home during the week. The third clause in the first sentence [a]: ‘and on weekends, she lounged in her night dress, reading or cooking or watching television, because The General was in Abuja with his wife and children’, provides a further information as to what goes on during her weekends when ‘The General’ is in Abuja with his family. The insertion of additive conjunction ‘and’ in-between ‘wife and children’ in the third clause of the first sentence [a] is also worth noting; its occurrence at this instance stresses the fact that, ‘The General’ is not only having a wife, but has children as well. The second sentence [b]:

‘She avoided the sun and used creams in elegant bottles…’ comprises two clauses which strengthen the information disclosed in the first clause of the first sentence [a] ‘...Aunty Uju hurried home to shower…’ Apparently, with the insertion of ‘and’, the third sentence [c] offers vital information that does not only link and substantiates the information provided in the preceding sentence but within it, with the use of additive conjunction, the sentence provides information that builds up the various strands in her narration:

Extract [44ii]: Sometimes, as she gave instructions to her driver…or her gardener…or her two house help…Ifemelu would remember Aunty Uju, the village girl…who Ifemelu’s mother mildly complained was so parochial she kept touching the walls, and what was it with all those village people who

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could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palms on a wall? Ifemelu wondered if Aunty Uju ever looked at herself with the eyes of the girl she used to be (AH: p.74).

Aunty Uju’s past timid way of life in which she is referred to as a ‘‘village girl’’ who has a parochial way of behaving comes up, and with additive conjunction, the second clause in the extract [44ii]: ‘…what was it with all those village people who could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palms on a wall?’ This has provided more insights and clues not only about Aunty Uju’s past way of life but the entire background from where she comes from and as to why she is now behaving the way she is doing which makes Ifemelu to wonder ‘… if Aunty Uju ever looked at herself with the eyes of the girl she used to be’ (AH, p.74). The application of additive conjunction intensifies and cues in information about character by providing details about their characterisation and perspectives that amplify solidarity.