Inversion, ellipsis, parcelling, repetition, rhetorical questions - the devices that make written Belarusian carry a voice.
I can use inversion, ellipsis, parcelling and repetition deliberately, and judge when not to.
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
Цяжка было маўчаць у той дзень.
It was hard to keep quiet that day.
Ён - направа, я - налева.
He went right, I went left.
Ён вярнуўся. Праз дваццаць гадоў. Адзін.
He came back. Twenty years later. Alone.
Хіба гэта справядліва?
Is that supposed to be fair?
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
By C1 your sentences are correct. What they may lack is force. These are the standard devices for supplying it, and they are learnable in the same way grammar is.
Moving a word out of its neutral slot puts weight on it. Because the neutral order already puts new information last, inversion usually means fronting: Цяжка было маўчаць. - Was it ever hard to keep quiet.
Leaving out what the reader can supply, most often the verb: Ён - направа, я - налева. The dash marks the gap, and the sentence gains speed.
Breaking off part of a sentence into its own: Ён вярнуўся. Праз дваццаць гадоў. Адзін. Grammatically the last two are fragments; rhetorically each is a separate blow. Used sparingly this is powerful, used constantly it is exhausting.
The staple of the journalistic style: Хіба гэта справядліва? The particle хіба marks the question as one expecting the answer no, and няўжо marks disbelief - Няўжо ён не ведаў? Neither has a single clean English equivalent.
Direct address to the reader, with the vocative if you want warmth, and exclamatory structures built on які and колькі: Які прыгожы дзень!, Колькі тут людзей!
Every device here works by contrast with a neutral baseline. A text made entirely of parcelled fragments and rhetorical questions has no baseline left, and the devices stop doing anything. Use one at a time.
Apply this grammar in C1 course exercises
Practice ExercisesTypical errors: using several devices at once until the baseline disappears, and parcelling in registers that do not admit it.
Stacking devices until the baseline is gone
One at a time; contrast is what makes them work.
Parcelling in official or academic prose
It belongs to journalism and fiction.
Using Russian particles in rhetorical questions
Хіба and няўжо.
Omitting the dash that marks an ellipsis
The mark is what signals the gap.
Цяжка было маўчаць у той дзень.
It was hard to keep quiet that day.
Inversion puts the weight on <em>цяжка</em>.
Ён - направа, я - налева.
He went right, I went left.
Ellipsis of the verb, marked by dashes.
Ён вярнуўся. Праз дваццаць гадоў. Адзін.
He came back. Twenty years later. Alone.
Parcelling: each fragment lands separately.
Хіба гэта справядліва?
Is that supposed to be fair?
<em>Хіба</em> marks a question expecting the answer no.
Ішоў-ішоў і нарэшце дайшоў.
He walked and walked and finally got there.
Doubling for duration - idiomatic rather than rhetorical.
Practice in course
Apply this grammar in C1 course exercises