Aesthetic Functions of Grammatical Markers in Contemporary Poetry

Grammatical markers are those types of words by which the function of other words in the sentence is recognized. At first glance, grammatical words have no task except linking other words together, and are not amongst words towards which poets have any special concern. But studying them in poetry shows that they have various artistic functions and can be counted as effective tools by poet for constructing the language of his poem. This study aims at analyzing the aesthetic functions of grammatical words in contemporary poetry, and with an inductive method delineates that they are as essential as other words in the structure of poetic language and the effectiveness and foregrounding of speech. This category words influence the foregrounding of poetry both semantically and syntactically, and are employed as instruments for the emphasizing and foregrounding meaning, emotion and thought, and also as elements in creating music, irregularity, building of new linguistic forms, creativity and innovation in the field of poetry. Beginning or ending poems or lines of poems by some of these conjunctions, creative clustering or omitting of these words, and emphasizing the meaning by the proper employment of these words in the syntactic context of the poems are examples of the most significant aesthetic functions of grammatical markers in contemporary poetry.