Hyperbaton


Hyperbaton in its original meaning is a figure of speech where a phrase is made discontinuous by the insertion of other words. In modern usage, the term is also used more generally for figures of speech that transpose the natural word order in sentences.

Etymology

"Hyperbaton" is a word borrowed from the Greek hyperbaton, meaning "stepping over", which is derived from hyper and bainein, 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 languages, where sentence meaning does not depend closely on word order. In Latin and Ancient 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, anastrophe, parenthesis, tmesis, and synchysis.

Greek

In the above example, the word " one", henos, occurs in its normal place after the preposition "at the hands of", but "person" is unnaturally delayed, giving emphasis to "only one."
Here the word "you" divides the preposition "by" from its object "knees."
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, both in 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:
Sometimes the hyperbaton merely emphasises the adjective:
The first word of the hyperbaton can also be an adverb, as in the following example:
In all the above examples, the first word of the hyperbaton can be said to be emphasised. The following is different, since there is no emphasis on sum "I am". Instead, the effect of emphasis is achieved by reversing the expected order ipse sum mensus to sum ipse mensus:
It is also possible for the noun to come first, as in the following:
The following even have a double hyperbaton:
A hyperbaton can also be used to demonstrate a kind of picture shown in the text:
  • Hac in utramque partem disputatione habita"
"With the dispute being held unto either side"
Another kind of hyperbaton is "genitive hyperbaton", in which one of the words is in the genitive case:
  • contionem advocat militum
In the following, a genitive hyperbaton and an adjectival hyperbaton are interleaved:
Another kind of hyperbaton is found when a phrase consisting of two words joined by et is separated by another word:
In poetry, especially poetry from the 1st century BC onwards, hyperbaton is very common; some 40% of Horace's adjectives are separated from their nouns.
Frequently two hyperbata are used in the same sentence, as in the following example:
Often two noun phrases are interleaved in a double hyperbaton:
The above type, 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".
In the following line, a conjunct hyperbaton is interleaved with another noun phrase:
In other cases one hyperbaton is inserted inside another:
  • in nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas / corpora
  • ab Hyrcanis Indoque a litore silvis
In such cases, the placing of two adjectives together may highlight a contrast between them, for example, in the following sentence from Horace, where the fragility of the boat is contrasted with the roughness of the sea:
  • qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem
Similarly in the example from Ovid below "transparent" is contrasted with "dense":
  • et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aere caelum
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
  • silva lupus in Sabina
The above example illustrates another occasional feature of hyperbaton, since the word "wolf" is actually inside the phrase "Sabine forest". 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:
The classical type of hyperbaton is also found in Slavic languages such as Polish:
Certain conditions are necessary for hyperbaton to be possible in Polish: Discontinuous noun phrases typically contain just one modifier; The noun and modifier must be separated by a verb.
Similar constructions are found in other languages too, such as Russian, Latvian, and modern Greek :
Ntelitheos points out that one condition enabling such constructions is that the adjective is in contrastive focus.

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" or "a transposition or inversion of idiomatic word order ". Some examples are given below: