hyperbaton n : reversal of normal word order (as in `cheese I love')

English

Etymology

Latin hyperbaton, from Greek ὑπερβατον ‘overstepping’, from ὑπερβαινειν, from ὑπερ- + βαίνειν ‘walk’.

Pronunciation

/haɪˈpɜ:bətɒn/

Noun

hyperbaton

1. In the context of "grammar|rhetoric": An inversion of the usual or logical order of words or phrases, for emphasis or poetic effect.

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."

Etymology

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

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.

Examples

Hyperbaton in English

• Word order reversal in "Cheese, I love it!"
• "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 to Winston Churchill skewering the prescriptivist rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition.
• “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” - Yoda, "Star Wars"

Hyperbaton in highly inflected languages

• (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.")
• (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

See also

• Anastrophe
• Apposition
• Figure of speech
• Parenthesis
• Split infinitive

References

• Greek Grammar

External links

• Silva Rhetoricae entry