Anacoluthon
An
anacoluthon is a
rhetorical device that can be loosely defined as a change of
syntax within a
sentence. More specifically, anacoluthons (or "anacoluthia") are created when a sentence abruptly changes from one structure to another. Grammatically, anacoluthon is an error; however, in
rhetoric it is a figure that shows excitement, confusion, or laziness. In
poetics it is sometimes used in
dramatic monologues and in verse drama. In prose, anacoluthon is often used in
stream of consciousness writing, such as that of
James Joyce, because it is characteristic of informal human thought.
In its most restrictive meaning, anacoluthon requires that the introductory elements of a sentence lack a proper object or complement. For example, if the beginning of a sentence sets up a subject and verb, but then the sentence changes its structure so that no
direct object is given, the result is anacoluthon. Essentially, it requires a change of subject or verb from the stated to an implied term. The sentence must be "without completion" (literally what "anacoluthon" means). A sentence that lacks a head, that supplies instead the complement or object without subject, is
anapodoton.As a figure, anacoluthon directs a reader's attention, especially in poetry, to the syntax itself and highlights the mechanics of the meaning rather than the object of the meaning. It can, therefore, be a distancing technique in some poetry.
*Agreements entered into when one state of facts exists — are they to be maintained regardless of changing conditions? (
John George Diefenbaker)
*Had ye been there — for what could that have done? (
John Milton in
Lycidas)
*Shakespeare uses anacoluthon in his history plays:
*:"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
*:That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
*:Let him depart. (
William Shakespeare,
Henry V IV iii 346-6).
*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..."
The word 'anacoluthon' comes from the
Greek 'anakolouthon' which derives from the prefix
an (not) combined with the root
akolouthos (following), which, 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.
*
Figure of speech*
RhetoricAnacoluthon is sometimes (wrongly) confused with
anacoloutha, a term that denotes metaphorical substitutions.
The word, though not the underlying meaning, has been popularized, due to its use as an imprecation by
Captain Haddock in the English translations of the
Tintin series of books.
"We can hardly conclude even so desultory a survey of grammatical misdemeanours as this has been without mentioning the most notorious of all. The anacoluthon is a failure to follow on, an unconscious departure from the grammatical scheme with which a sentence was started, the getting switched off, imperceptibly to the writer, very noticeably to his readers, from one syntax track to another. There is little to be said on the matter."
The King's English by
H.W. Fowler and
F.G. Fowler 1931*
Silva Rhetoricae reference*Aiken, Conrad.
Selected Poems. London:
OUP, 2003. 141.
*Brown, Huntington and Albert W. Halsall. "Anacoluthon" in Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, eds.,
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 67-8.
