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Information about Hyperbaton

Hyperbaton is a figure of speech in which words that naturally belong together are separated from each other for emphasis or effect. This kind of unnatural or rhetorical separation is possible to a much greater degree in highly inflected languages, where sentence meaning does not depend closely on word order. In Latin and Ancient Greek, the effect of hyperbaton is usually to emphasize the first word. It has been called "perhaps the most distinctively alien feature of Latin word order."[1]

Species of hyperbaton

The term may be used in general for figures of disorder (deliberate and dramatic departures from standard word order). Donatus, in his work On tropes, thus includes under hyperbaton five species: hysterologia, anastrophe (for which the term hyperbaton is sometimes used loosely as a synonym), parenthesis, tmesis, and synchysis. Apposition might also be included.

Etymology

"Hyperbaton" is a word borrowed from the Greek hyperbaton (ὑπέρβατον), meaning "transposition," which is derived from hyper ("over") and bainein ("to step"), with the -tos verbal adjective suffix.

Examples

Hyperbaton in English

  • Word order reversal in "Cheese I love!"
  • One of the most popular examples - "Size matters not! Judge me by my size, do you?" - Yoda in "The Empire Strikes Back"
  • "Object there was none. Passion there was none." - Edgar Allan Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"
  • "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." - Attributed[2] to Winston Churchill skewering the rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition.

Hyperbaton in highly inflected languages

  • ὑφ' ἑνὸς τοιαῦτα πέπονθεν ἡ Ἑλλὰς ἀνθρώπου (Demosthenes 18.158, "Greece has suffered such things at the hands of one person": the word "one", henos, occurs in its normal place after the preposition "at the hands of" [hypo], but "person" [anthrōpou] is unnaturally delayed, giving emphasis to "one.")
  • πρός σε γονάτων (Occurs several times in Euripides, "[I entreat] you by your knees": the word "you" [se] unnaturally divides the preposition "by" from its object "knees.")
  • ab Hyrcanis Indoque a litore siluis (Lucan 8.343, "from the Hyrcanian woods and from the Indian shore": "and from the Indian shore" is inserted between "Hyrcanian" and "woods" [siluis])

Notes

1. ^ Andrew M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens, Latin Word Order: Structured Meaning and Information (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 524 (as cited by M. Esperanza Torrego in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.09.33).
2. ^ "Plain Words", by Ernest Gowers, 1948

See also

References

  • Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). Greek Grammar. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, p. 679. ISBN 0-674-36250-0. 

External links

A figure of speech, sometimes termed a rhetoric, or elocution, is a word or phrase that departs from straightforward, literal language. Figures of speech are often used and crafted for emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use.
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    Official status
    Official language of: Vatican City
    Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
    Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
    Roman Catholic Church
    Language codes
    ISO 639-1: la
    ISO 639-2: lat
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    Ancient Greek refers to the second stage in the history of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Greece.
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    Aelius Donatus (fl. late 4th century AD) was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. The only fact known regarding his life is that he was the tutor of St. Jerome.

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    The hysteron proteron ("latter before") is a rhetorical device in which the first key word of the idea refers to something that happens temporally later than the second key word. The goal is to call attention to the more important idea by placing it first.
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    Anastrophe is a figure of speech involving an inversion of the natural order of words; for example, saying "echoed the hills" to mean "the hills echoed." In English, with its settled word order, departure from the expected word order emphasizes the displaced word or phrase:
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    Interlocked word order, in the form A-B-A-B; a favorite with Latin poets.

    Synchyses often display change and difference. They are often employed to demonstrate such change within the event in which they are situated; on occasion, there are synchyses within a poem which were not
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    Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be in apposition.
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    Star Wars character
    colspan="2" style="font-size: larger; color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #32CD32
    text-align:center;" | Yoda


    Position Jedi Master, Jedi Council Member, Jedi High General, Grand Master of the Jedi Order

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    This daguerreotype of Poe was taken in 1848 when he was 39, a year before his death.
    Born: January 19 1809(1809--)
    Boston, Massachusetts U.S.
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    The Tell-Tale Heart

    Illustration by Harry Clarke, 1919.
    Author Edgar Allan Poe
    Country United States
    Language English
    Genre(s) Horror short story
    Publisher The Pioneer
    Publication date January 1843
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    Euripides (Ancient Greek: Εὐριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens (the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles).
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    Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (November 3, 39 AD – April 30, 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in the Hispania Baetica.
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    Plain Words is a style guide for British English written in 1948 by Sir Ernest Gowers, and expanded and reissued in 1954 as The Complete Plain Words (ISBN 0-14-051199-7).
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    Anastrophe is a figure of speech involving an inversion of the natural order of words; for example, saying "echoed the hills" to mean "the hills echoed." In English, with its settled word order, departure from the expected word order emphasizes the displaced word or phrase:
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    Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be in apposition.
    ..... Click the link for more information.
    A figure of speech, sometimes termed a rhetoric, or elocution, is a word or phrase that departs from straightforward, literal language. Figures of speech are often used and crafted for emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use.
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