Hyperbaton , in its original meaning, is a

figure of speech A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or Denotation, literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, et ...

in which a phrase is made discontinuous by the insertion of other words.Andrew M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens, ''Latin Word Order: Structured Meaning and Information'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 524. In modern usage, the term is also used more generally for figures of speech that transpose sentences' natural

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

, which is also called

anastrophe Anastrophe (from the , ''anastrophē'', "a turning back or about") is a figure of speech in which the normal word order of the subject, the verb, and the object is changed. Anastrophe is a hyponym of the antimetabole, where anastrophe only transp ...

Etymology

The word is borrowed from the Greek ''hyperbaton'' (), meaning "stepping over", which is derived from ''hyper'' ("over") and ''bainein'' ("to step"), with the ''-tos'' verbal adjective suffix. The idea is that to understand the phrase, the reader has to "step over" the words inserted in between.

Classical usage

The separation of connected words for emphasis or effect is possible to a much greater degree in highly

inflected In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...

languages, whose sentence meaning does not depend closely on word order. In

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

, the effect of hyperbaton is often to emphasize the first word. It has been called "perhaps the most distinctively alien feature of Latin word order." Donatus, in his work ''On tropes'', includes under hyperbaton five varieties: hysterologia,

(for which the term hyperbaton is sometimes used loosely as a synonym),

parenthesis A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

tmesis In its strictest sense, tmesis (; plural tmeses ; Ancient Greek: ''tmēsis'' "a cutting" < ''temnō'', "I cut") is the dividing of a word into two parts, with another word inserted between those parts, thus forming a

, and synchysis.

Ancient Greek

* () (

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; ; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and cu ...

18.158) :"Greece has suffered such things at the hands of only one person" In the above example, the word "(only) one", ''henos'', occurs in its normal place after the preposition "at the hands of" (''hupo''), but "person" (''anthrōpou'') is unnaturally delayed, giving emphasis to "only one." * () (occurs several times in

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

) :" entreatyou by your knees" Here the word "you" (''se'') divides the preposition "by" from its object "knees." * () (

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

, ''Republic'' 358b) :"What power does it have?"

New Testament Greek

Hyperbaton is also common in New Testament Greek, for example: In all these examples and others in the New Testament, the first word of the hyperbaton is an adjective or adverb which is emphasised by being separated from the following noun. The separating word can be a verb, noun, or pronoun.

Latin

Prose

In Latin hyperbaton is frequently found in both prose and verse. The following examples come from prose writers. Often, there is an implied contrast between the first word of the hyperbaton and its opposite: *''meo tu epistulam dedisti servo?'' (

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

, ''Pseudolus'' 1203) :"You gave the letter to ''my'' slave (i.e. not your own)?" *''duas a te accepi epistulas heri'' (

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

, ''Att.'', 14.2.1) :"I received ''two'' letters (''duas epistulas'') from you yesterday" (not just one). *''hae permanserunt aquae dies complures.'' (

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

, ''B.C.'' 1.50.1): :"This flood (''hae aquae'') lasted (''permanserunt'') several days" (unlike the earlier one). *''ille sic dies'' (Cicero, ''Att.'' 5.1.3) :"So (passed) ''that'' day (''ille dies'')" In all the above examples, the first word of the hyperbaton can be said to be emphasised. The following is different, since the emphasis seems to be on the word in the middle: *''sum enim ipse mensus'' (Cicero, ''ad Quintum fratrem'', 3.1.4) :"for I measured () it myself ()" In the following an adjective of size is brought to the front, emphasising the whole phrase: *''pro ingenti itaque victoria id fuit plebi.'' (Livy 4.54.6) :"The people saw this, therefore, as an enormous victory." *''magnam enim secum pecuniam portabat'' (

Nepos Nepos is a Latin word originally meaning "grandson" or "descendant", that evolved with time to signify " nephew". The word gives rise to the term nepotism. It may also refer to: * Cornelius Nepos, a Roman biographer * Julius Nepos, sometimes consi ...

, ''Hannibal'', 9.2) :"for (''enim'') he was carrying a large sum of money (''magnam pecuniam'') with him (''secum'')". *''magno cum fremitu et clamore'' (Cicero, ''to Atticus'', 2.19.2) :"with (''cum'') a great deal of roaring and shouting" The first word of the hyperbaton can also be an adverb, as in the following example: *''aeque vita iucunda'' (Cicero, ''de Finibus'' 4.30) :"a life (''vita'') equally pleasant (''aeque iucunda''). It is also possible for the noun to come first ("postmodifier hyperbaton"), as in the following: *''dies appetebat septimus'' (Caesar, ''B.G.'' 6.35.1) :"The seventh day was approaching" *''Antonius legiones eduxit duas.'' (Cicero, ''ad Fam.'' 10.30.1) :"Antonius led out two legions." A hyperbaton can also be used to demonstrate a kind of picture shown in the text: * (Caesar, ''Bel. Gall.'' 5.30) :"With this dispute having been held favouring either side" (showing the dispute being on either side of the accusative prepositional phrase) Another kind of hyperbaton is "genitive hyperbaton" in which one of the words is in the

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive ca ...

: *''contionem advocat militum'' (Caesar, ''Bellum Civile'' 2.32) :"He called a meeting of the soldiers." The following even have a double hyperbaton: *''cum ipse litteram Socrates nullam reliquisset.'' (Cicero, ''de Orat.'' 3.60) :"When Socrates himself didn't leave a single line of writing." * (Caesar, ''Bell. Gall.'' 5.29.7) :"their one (hope of) salvation rested in speed ()" (with emphasis on ''one'' and ''speed'') *''praeda potitus ingenti est'' (Livy 40.49.1) :"he took possession of an enormous amount of booty". In the following, a genitive hyperbaton and an adjectival hyperbaton are interleaved: *''magnus omnium incessit timor animis'' (Caesar ''Bellum Civile'' 2.29) :"Great fear (''magnus timor'') overcame the minds of all of them (''omnium animis'')." Another kind of hyperbaton (called "conjunct hyperbaton" by Devine and Stephens) is found when a phrase consisting of two words joined by ''et'' ("and") is separated by another word: *''Aspendus, vetus oppidum et nobile'' (Cicero, ''Verr.'' 2.1.53) :"Aspendus, an old town, and a noble one". *''Faesulas inter Arretiumque'' (Livy, 22.3.3) :"Between Faesulae and Arretium".

Poetry

In poetry, especially poetry from the 1st century BC onwards, hyperbaton is very common; some 40% of

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

's adjectives are separated from their nouns. Frequently two hyperbata are used in the same sentence, as in the following example: *''quam Catullus unam/ plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes'' (Catullus 58a) :"whom alone (''quam unam'') Catullus loved (''amavit'') more than himself and all his own (''suos omnes'')." Often two noun phrases are interleaved in a double hyperbaton: *''saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram'' (

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

, ''Aeneid'', 1.5) :"on account of the mindful anger (''memorem iram'') of cruel

Juno Juno commonly refers to: *Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods * ''Juno'' (film), the 2007 film Juno may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters *Juno, a character in the book ''Juno of ...

(''saevae Iunonis'')". The type in the examples below, where two adjectives are followed by a verb and then two nouns in the same order as the adjectives, is often referred to as a "

golden line The golden line is a type of Latin dactylic hexameter frequently mentioned in Latin classrooms and in contemporary scholarship about Latin poetry, but which apparently began as a verse-composition exercise in schools in early modern Britain. Def ...

": *''lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae'' (

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, ''Metamorphoses'', 1.147) :"Fearsome stepmothers (''terribiles novercae'') mix lurid aconites (''lurida aconita'')." * (Catullus 64.55) :"abandoning his useless promises () to the windy storm ()" Occasionally (but rarely) three separate noun phrases can be interleaved, for example: * (Ovid, ''Ex Ponto'' 4.9.65–6.) :"Martial Rome () sees no higher command () than supreme Consul ()" In the following line, a conjunct hyperbaton is interleaved with another noun phrase: :''venator cursu canis et latratibus instat'' (Virgil, ''Aeneid'' 12.751) :"the hunting dog (''venator canis'') threatens him with running and barking (''cursu et latratibus'')." In other cases one hyperbaton is inserted inside another: *''in nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora'' (Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 1.1) :"My spirit leads me to tell of forms transformed (''mutatas formas'') into new bodies (''nova corpora'')." *''ab Hyrcanis Indoque a litore silvis'' (

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November AD 39 – 30 April AD 65), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, Hispania Baetica (present-day Córdoba, Spain). He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imper ...

8.343) :"from the

Hyrcanian Hyrcania (; ''Hyrkanía'', Old Persian: 𐎺𐎼𐎣𐎠𐎴 ''Varkâna'',Lendering (1996) Middle Persian: 𐭢𐭥𐭫𐭢𐭠𐭭 ''Gurgān'', Akkadian: ''Urqananu'') is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian Sea ...

forests (''Hyrcanis silvis'') and from the Indian shore (''Indo litore'')." The following example is from

's ''Metamorphoses''. Here the clause "which patient bullocks might cultivate", which already contains a hyperbaton of the phrase "patient bullocks", is in turn is split up by the words : : (Ovid, ''Met.'' 3.584) :"My father did not leave me any fields () which patient bullocks () might cultivate" In some cases, the placing of two adjectives together may highlight a contrast between them, for example, in the following sentence from

, where the fragility of the boat is contrasted with the roughness of the sea: *''qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem'' (Horace, ''Odes'', 1.3.10f) :"who committed a fragile boat (''fragilem ratem'') to the rough sea (''truci pelago'')" Similarly in the example from Ovid below "transparent" is contrasted with "dense": *''et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aere caelum'' (Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 1.23) :"and He separated the transparent heaven (''liquidum caelum'') from the dense atmosphere (''spisso aere'')." Sometimes pretty effects are obtained by apparently switching the order of the adjectives: : (Ovid, ''Amores'', 3.4.46) :"thus great influence () comes with very little labour ()" Usually the adjective in a discontinuous noun phrase comes first, as in the above examples, but the opposite is also possible: *''cristāque tegit galea aurea rubrā'' (Virgil, ''Aeneid'' 9.50) :"And a golden helmet with a red crest (''crista rubra'') covers him." *''silva lupus in Sabina'' (Horace, ''Odes'', 1.22) :"a wolf (''lupus'') (lurking) in the

Sabine The Sabines (, , , ; ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided int ...

forest (''silva Sabina'')." The above example illustrates another occasional feature of hyperbaton, since the word "wolf" (''lupus'') is actually inside the phrase "Sabine forest" (''silva Sabina''). This kind of word-play is found elsewhere in Horace also, e.g. ''grato, Pyrrha, sub antro'' "Pyrrha, beneath a pleasant grotto", where Pyrrha is indeed in a grotto; and in the quotation from Horace ''Odes'' 1.5 below, the girl is surrounded by the graceful boy, who in turn is surrounded by a profusion of roses: *''quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa'' (Horace, ''Odes'', 1.5) :"what graceful boy (''gracilis puer'') (is embracing) you (''te'') amidst many a rose (''multa rosa'')?" In

, hyperbaton or dislocated word order is particularly common in his elegiac poetry. Kenney quotes the following. Here the words "I was afraid lest I might be captured", which are already dislocated into , are interleaved with the phrase "if I had gone out in the night": * (Ovid, ''Her.'' 3.19) :"If I had gone out () at night (), I was afraid I might be captured" Housman comments: "the dislocation of together with its juxtaposition with lends emphasis to riseis'sfears of getting lost in the dark."

Other languages

The classical type of hyperbaton is also found in Slavic languages like Polish:Spevak (2010), p. 23, citing Siewierska, A. (1984). Certain conditions are necessary for hyperbaton to be possible in Polish: discontinuous noun phrases typically contain just one modifier, and the noun and modifier must be separated by a verb (and not, for example, by the indirect object ''Markowi'' alone). Similar constructions are found in other languages, such as Russian, Latvian, and Modern Greek from which the following example comes: Ntelitheos (2004) points out that one condition enabling such constructions is that the adjective is in contrastive focus ("the red dress, not the blue one").

English usage

In English studies, the term "hyperbaton" is defined differently, as "a figure of speech in which the normal order of words is reversed, as in ''cheese I love''" (Collins English Dictionary) or "a transposition or inversion of idiomatic word order (as ''echoed the hills'' for ''the hills echoed'')" (Merriam-Webster online dictionary).Merriam-Webster online dictionar
"hyperbaton"
Some examples are given below: * "Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end" —

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

in ''

Richard III Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Boswor ...

'', 4.4, 198. * "Object there was none. Passion there was none." —

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

, ''

The Tell-Tale Heart "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator's sanity while simultaneously describing a murder the nar ...

''. * "The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; / Yet never a breeze up blew" —

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

, ''

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere''), written by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of '' Lyrical Ballads'', is a poem that recounts th ...

'' * "For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, / Seem here no painful inch to gain" —

Arthur Hugh Clough Arthur Hugh Clough ( ; 1 January 181913 November 1861) was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough, who both becam ...

, ''Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth''. * "Arms and the man I sing" — Opening words of

's ''Aeneid'', translated by E. F. Taylor (1907). * "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind." —

Wolcott Gibbs Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody ...

's 1936 parody of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine. * "Alone with Christ, desolate else, left by mankind." —

Lionel Johnson Lionel Pigot Johnson (15 March 1867 – 4 October 1902) was an English poet, essayist, and critic (although he claimed Irish descent and wrote on Celtic themes). Life Johnson was born in Broadstairs, Kent, England in 1867 and educated at Win ...

, The Church of a Dream (1890)

Bibliography

*Aubrey, Mike
''Discontinuous Syntax in the New Testament'' part 3.
*Devine, Andrew M. & Laurence D. Stephens (1999)
''Discontinuous Syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek''
Oxford University Press
Review by M.C. Beckwith
*Devine, Andrew M. & Laurence D. Stephens (2006), ''Latin Word Order. Structured Meaning and Information''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xii, 639. : Ch. 7 "Hyperbaton", pp. 524–610. *Kenney, E. J. (2002). "Ovid's language and style". In ''Brill's Companion to Ovid'' (pp. 27-89). Brill. *Nisbet, R. G. M. (1999)
"The Word-Order of Horace's ''Odes''"
''Proceedings of the British Academy'', 93, 135-154. *Ntelitheos, Dimitrios (2004)
''Syntax of Elliptical and Discontinuous Nominals''
University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. thesis. *Powell, J. G. (2010) "Hyperbaton and register in Cicero", in E. Dickey and A. Chahoud (eds.), ''Colloquial and Literary Latin'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 163–185. *Siewierska, A. (1984). "Phrasal Discontinuity in Polish", ''Australian Journal of Linguistics'' 4, 57–71. *Spevak, Olga (2010). ''Constituent Order in Classical Latin Prose''. Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) 117. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010. Pp. xv, 318. : pp. 23–26.

References

External links

{{Figures of speech Rhetorical techniques Word order Obfuscation Latin-language literature New Testament Greek literature (post-classical)