Structural/Syntactical Terms

Active voice:The subject of the sentence is the “doer” of the action, ex.: Bill threw the ball. Anadiplosis: Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause; Ex.--He endlessly discussed his hobbies. Hobbies, however, seems an odd word to describe his interest in catching alligators by the tail. Anaphora: Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses; Ex.: The wind tore the trees. The wind blew the sand in my face. The wind forced itself into our lives. Anastrophe: Inversion of the natural or usual word order of a sentence; Ex.-- “Backward run the sentences, till reels the mind.” --parody of the style of Time magazine. Antecedent: The word or phrase to which a pronoun refers. Antimetabole: reversing the grammatical order of repeated words or phrases (a loosely chiastic structure, AB-BA) to intensify the final formulation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast: All work and no play is as harmful to mental health as all play and no work. Ask not what you can do for rhetoric, but what rhetoric can do for you. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Antithetical parallelism (antithesis): The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure Ex. AWe will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” --Martin Luther King, Jr. Asyndeton: Deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related words, phrases or clauses: principal effect is to produce a hurried rhythm; Ex. I came, I saw, I conquered. Balanced sentence: Hinges in the middle, usually split by a semi-colon, the second half of the sentence paralleling the first half, but changing one or two key words or altering the word order. In the same sense, the second half of the sentence can be thought of as a kind of mirror-image of the first half. Chiasmus: Reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses; It is hard to make money, but to spend it is easy. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Declarative sentence: Conveys statements; simply states a fact or argument, without requiring either an answer or action from the reader; avoids any special emotional impact. Digression: Insertion of material not closely related to the work or subject. Ellipsis: The deliberate omission of a word or of words which are readily implied by the context; Ex. --And he to England shall along with you. Hamlet, III, iii, 4 Epistrophe: Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses; Ex. --Writing this many fragments is unacceptable. Writing without an authentic voice is unacceptable. Copying from the encyclopedia is unacceptable. In short, the essay is unacceptable. Ethos: The character or emotions of the writer reflected in the speech of the writings. Exclamatory sentence: Conveys intense emotion; a more forceful version of a declarative sentence, marked at the end with an exclamation mark; if used sparingly, will jolt the reader. Imperative sentence: Conveys commands; can remind readers of a point established earlier, give advice, or exhort with special urgency or intensity; When you do use an imperative sentence, it should usually contain only a mild command, and thus, end with a period; makes it clear that you want the reader to act right away. Interrogative sentence: Asks a direct question and always ends in a question mark; forces the reader to think about what you are writing. Loose sentence: A sentence with its main clause at the beginning, followed by all subordinate clauses and elements; ex. The dog ran out the door, down the stairs, across the street, and into the bushes. This is the most common sentence construction in the English language; tells the reader in advance how to interpret your information. Narrative Devices: The ordering of events, withholding information until a climactic moment, and all the other tools the storyteller uses to progress the storyline. Narrative Technique: The “style” of the story, concentrate on the writer=s order of events and details. Parallelism: Similarity of structure in a pair or series or related words, phrases, or clauses. Parataxis: Marked by the juxtaposition of clauses or sentences, without the use of connecting words. Has the effect of abruptness. I’ll go, you stay here. Passive voice: The subject of the sentence is receiving the action: consists of a form of the verb “be” and a past participle, ex.: The ball was thrown by Bill. Periodic sentence: A sentence with its main clause at the end, following all subordinate clauses and elements; ex. Out the door, down the stairs, across the street, into the bushes ran the dog; leaves the reader in suspense until the very end. Phrase: A group of related words that acts as a single part of speech and that does not contain a subject and a verb; unable to stand alone. Polysyndeton: The opposite of asyndeton; the deliberate use of many conjunctions: principal effect is to slow the rhythm, producing a solemn feeling; Ex. This semester I am taking English and history and biology and sociology and physical education. Rhetoric: The art of persuasion and employing the devices to persuade, extending to the construction of a work so that you believe it to be true even though it is fiction. Rhetorical Shift: Changing from one tone, attitude, or distance to another. Rhetorical questions: Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely Rhyme: The repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. End Rhyme: Occurs at the ends of lines. Internal Rhyme: Occurs within a line. Slant Rhyme: A partial or imperfect rhyme, often using assonance or consonance only, as in dry and died. Also called off rhyme. Eye Rhyme: A rhyme consisting of words that have similar spellings but different sounds, such as lint and pint. Rhyme Scheme: The pattern of end rhymes. Stanza: The unit of a poem that is longer than a single line. Subplot: A secondary story within a story. Syllogism: A formula for presenting a logical argument. Syntax: The arrangement of words within sentences and sentences within paragraphs. Tricolon parallelism: A series of three words, phrases, or clauses in parallel structure Ex. “Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant attention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.” --Samuel Johnson, Life of Milton Two-part parallelism: A pair of parallel words, phrases, or clauses Ex. “Shakespeare’s noblest characters express sentiments of patriotic or personal honor which to young modern ears sound flamboyant or unconvincing.” --Madeleine Doran, Something About Swans