Prosiopesis (from

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 ...

'becoming silent') is a term coined by

Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who worked in foreign-language pedagogy, historical phonetics, and other areas, but is best known for his description of the grammar of the English language. Ste ...

for pronouncing a word or phrase without its initial sounds. Jespersen introduced the idea in ''Negation in English and Other Languages'' (1917):

. . . the phenomenon for which I venture to coin the term of ''prosiopesis'' (the opposite of what has been termed of old aposiopesis): the speaker begins to articulate, or thinks he begins to articulate, but produces no audible sound (either for want of expiration, or because he does not put his vocal chords in the proper position) till one or two syllables after the beginning of what he intended to say. The phenomenon is particularly frequent, and may become a regular speech-habit, in the case of certain set phrases, but may spread from these to other parts of the language.

Among the English examples Jespersen gives are (Good) ''morning'', (I'm a)''fraid not'', and (The) ''fact is''; among the French examples, (Est-ce) ''convenu?'', (Par)''faitement'', and (Je ne me) ''rappelle plus''. He also introduces it in ''The Philosophy of Grammar'' (1924): " osiopesis . . . sometimes becomes habitual in certain stock exclamations like ''Thank you'' ,

erman Erman may refer to: Given name * Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer * Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka * Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer * Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer * Erman Kunter (born ...

''danke'' ,

''bitte'' , ''Bless you'' , ''Confound it!'' Cf. also ''Hope I'm not boring you.''" This is similar to

aposiopesis Aposiopesis (; Classical Greek: ἀποσιώπησις, "becoming silent") is a figure of speech wherein a sentence is deliberately broken off and left unfinished, the ending to be supplied by the imagination, giving an impression of unwillingness ...

, where the ending of a sentence is deliberately excluded.

David Crystal David Crystal, (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist who works on the linguistics of the English language. Crystal studied English at University College London and has lectured at Bangor University and the University of Reading. He was aw ...

writes, "In rhetorical terminology, an elision in word- position was known as '' aphaeresis'' or ''prosiopesis'', in word- position was known as '' syncope'', and in word- position as ''

apocope In phonology, apocope () is the omission (elision) or loss of a sound or sounds at the end of a word. While it most commonly refers to the loss of a final vowel, it can also describe the deletion of final consonants or even entire syllables. ...

''." (

Richard A. Lanham Richard Alan Lanham (born April 26, 1936) is an American literary scholar. He has written on writing style and rhetoric. Early life and education Richard Alan Lanham was born on April 26, 1936, in Washington, D.C. He attended Yale University (AB ...

similarly defines ''aphaeresis'' more narrowly than Jespersen defines ''prosiopesis'', a term that Lanham does not mention.) Other synonyms include ''aphesis'', ''procope'', and ''truncation''. Prosiopesis and aposiopesis are studied as sources of interjections.

References

Historical linguistics Otto Jespersen Phonetics Pragmatics Syntax {{historical-linguistics-stub