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Anacoluthon

Unexpected change in the syntactical structure of the sentence

Unexpected change in the syntactical structure of the sentence

An anacoluthon (; from the Greek anakolouthon, from an- 'not', and akólouthos 'following') is an unexpected discontinuity in the expression of ideas within a sentence, leading to a form of words in which there is logical or grammatical incoherence of thought. Anacolutha are often sentences interrupted midway, where there is a change in the syntactical structure of the sentence and of intended meaning following the interruption. As rhetorical or literary device, anacoluthon may be used to demonstrate emotion or the natural patterns of spoken discourse.

An example is the Italian proverb "The good stuff – think about it." This proverb urges people to make the best choice. When anacoluthon occurs unintentionally, it is considered to be an error in sentence structure and may result in incoherent nonsense. However, it can be used intentionally as a rhetorical technique to challenge the reader to think more deeply, or in stream-of-consciousness literature to represent the disjointed nature of associative thought.

Anacolutha are very common in informal speech, where a speaker might start to say one thing, then break off and abruptly and incoherently continue, expressing a completely different line of thought. When such speech is reported in writing, an em dash (—) or ellipsis (...) is often included at the point of discontinuity. The listener is expected to ignore the first part of the sentence, although in some cases it might contribute to the overall meaning in an impressionistic sense.

Examples

In Paradise Lost, John Milton uses an anacoluthon with Satan's first words to illustrate his initial confusion:

Additionally, Conrad Aiken's Rimbaud and Verlaine has an extended anacoluthon as it discusses anacoluthon: Discussing, between moves, iamb and spondee Anacoluthon and the open vowel God the great peacock with his angel peacocks And his dependent peacocks the bright stars ...

Etymology

The word anacoluthon is a transliteration of the Greek ἀνακόλουθον (anakólouthon), which derives from the privative prefix ἀν- an- 'not', and the root adjective ἀκόλουθος akólouthos 'following'. This, incidentally, is precisely the meaning of the Latin phrase non sequitur in logic. However, in classical rhetoric, anacoluthon was used both for the logical error of non sequitur and for the syntactic effect or error of changing an expected following or completion to a new or improper one.

Use of the term

The term anacoluthon is used primarily within an academic context. It is most likely to appear in a study of rhetoric or poetry. For example, the 3rd edition of The King's English, a style guide written by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, mentions it as a major grammatical mistake:

The word, though not the underlying meaning , has been somewhat popularized due to its use as an expletive by Captain Haddock in the English translations of The Adventures of Tintin series of children's books.

The poet and critic Rachel Blau DuPlessis defines anacoluthon as "the grammatical switching of horses in midstream of a sentence: beginning a sentence in one grammar and ending it in another". She argues that it involves "the employing of multiple discursive ranges and disjunctive transpositions from one to the other[,] hence in any one poem, far from being in one mode, one register, one stable voice, a writer is like an acrobat ... a Barthesean weaver of a wacky fabric, or someone who 'samples', like a certain kind of contemporary DJ".

References

References

  1. (31 August 2012). "Anacoluthon - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". [[Merriam-Webster]].com.
  2. Lanham, Richard A.. (1991). "A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms". University of California Press.
  3. Mawr, E. B.. (1885). "Analogous Proverbs in Ten Languages". Stock.
  4. (1973). "The Complete Plain Words". Penguin.
  5. Aiken, Conrad. (2003). "Selected Poems". [[Oxford University Press]].
  6. (1973). "[[The King's English]]". [[Oxford University Press]].
  7. [[Hergé]], ''[[Destination Moon]]'', p. 46; ''[[The Calculus Affair]]'', p. 31.
  8. DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. (2009). "Agency, Social Authorship, and the Political Aura of Contemporary Poetry". [[Textual Practice]].
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figures-of-speech poetics rhetoric
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