Ellipsis and paralipsis in rhetoric and in narratology

The purpose of the proposed article is an attempt to understand what the figures ellipsis and paralipsis are in rhetoric and narratology as two close but different philological disciplines. It is pointed out that “simple” ellipsis in narratology can be divided into explicit, or labeled, and implicit, or unlabeled, ellipsis. The “lateral ellipsis”, or paralipsis, is of particular interest as it is a narrative figure of deliberate omission in the narration of such semantic information which, unlike the ellipsis information, is not insignificant but important or even crucial. One of the controversial issues of the theory of narrative figures of silence is briefly considered: can the ellipsis be considered one of the types of ellipsis or is it another, independent figure of silence? It is pointed out that the ellipsis and the paralipsis have different functions in the narrative: the function of the figure of ellipsis, marked or unmarked, is saving the narrator’s linguistic efforts, whereas the function of the figure of paralipsis is hiding the most important part of the semantic information of diegesis, but hiding it imperceptibly, disguised. This analysis allows us to approach the solution of a general theoretical question - the question about the function of figures. In rhetoric, the use of rhetorical figures solves purely stylistic issues. In narratology, the use of narrative figures of the same name is a powerful narrative-generating mechanism, because a narrative figure, by its input, motivates a certain subsequent episode(s), located in relation to the figure either in contact or distantly.