I want to discuss syntactical SDs as litotes, polysyndeton and asyndeton because I often use them in my speech.
Litotes is a kind of understatement, where the speaker or writer uses a negative of a word ironically, to mean the opposite. Litotes is to be found in English literature right back to Anglo-Saxon times.
Examples:
- The food is not bad.
- It is no ordinary city
- "We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all." (Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 20, 1989)
- They aren't the happiest couple around. (they're unhappy)
My examples:
- It is not a good theme for conversation.
- This project is not so awful, some points are showed very well.
Polysyndeton is a list or series of words, phrases, or clauses that is connected with the repeated use of the same conjunction. The most common conjunctions used with polysyndeton are and/or.
Examples:
- We lived and laughed and loved and left.
- They read and studied and wrote and drilled. I laughed and played and talked and flunked.
- He ran and jumped and laughed for joy.
- I want to eat pizza, or hamburger, or hot dog, or just to drink Coke.
- My little brothers usually draw cars, and planes, and robots, and soldiers.
- "He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
- "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!" (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953)
- He received applause, prizes, money, fame.
- He provided her education, allowance, dignity.
- I received from her money, documents,contracts to get a loan.
- He didn't go to scholl,he was ill.
http://fos.iloveindia.com/
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/A/asyndeton.htm
http://www.uhv.edu/ac/grammar/pdf/Polysyndeton.pdf
http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/litotesterm.htm
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/litotes.html