Hyperbaton/haɪˈpɜːrbətɒn/, in its original meaning, is a figure of speech in which a phrase is made discontinuous by the insertion of other words.[1] In modern usage, the term is also used more generally for figures of speech that transpose sentences' natural word order,[2][3] which is also called anastrophe.[4]
Etymology
The word is borrowed from the Greek hyperbaton (ὑπέρβατον), 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 languages,[5] whose 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."[1]Donatus, in his work On tropes, includes under hyperbaton five varieties: hysterologia, anastrophe (for which the term hyperbaton is sometimes used loosely as a synonym), parenthesis, tmesis, and synchysis.
"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."
πρός σε γονάτων (prós se gonátōn) (occurs several times in Euripides)
"[I entreat] you by your knees"
Here the word "you" (se) divides the preposition "by" from its object "knees."
Hyperbaton is also common in New Testament Greek, for example:[7]
οὗτος
hoûtos
ὁ
ho
ἄνθρωπος
ánthrōpos
πολλὰ
pollà
ποιεῖ
poieî
σημεῖα
sēmeîa
(John 11:47)
οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος πολλὰ ποιεῖ σημεῖα
hoûtoshoánthrōpospollàpoieîsēmeîa
"This man is performing many signs" (not merely a few)
διὰ
dià
τὸ
tò
ἐγγὺς
engùs
εἶναι
eînai
Ἰερουσαλὴμ
Ierousalḕm
αὐτόν
autón
(Luke 19:11)
διὰ τὸ ἐγγὺςεἶναι Ἰερουσαλὴμ αὐτόν
diàtòengùseînaiIerousalḕmautón
"because of him being near Jerusalem" (not far)
ἴδετε
ídete
πηλίκοις
pēlíkois
ὑμῖν
humîn
γράμμασιν
grámmasin
ἔγραψα
égrapsa
τῇ
têi
ἐμῇ
emêi
χειρί
kheirí
(Paul, Galatians 6:11)
ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί
ídetepēlíkoishumîngrámmasinégrapsatêiemêikheirí
"See, I have written to you with big letters in my own hand" (not small ones)
ταλαίπωρος
talaípōros
ἐγὼ
egṑ
ἄνθρωπος
ánthrōpos
(Paul, Romans 7:24)
ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος
talaípōrosegṑánthrōpos
"I (am) a wretched man" (not a fortunate one)
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.[8]
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:[9]
meo tu epistulam dedisti servo? (Plautus, Pseudolus 1203)
"You gave the letter to my slave (i.e. not your own)?"
duas a te accepi epistulas heri (Cicero, Att., 14.2.1)
"I received two letters (duas epistulas) from you yesterday" (not just one).
hae permanserunt aquae dies complures. (Caesar, 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 (sum mensus) it myself (ipse)"
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."[10]
magnam enim secum pecuniam portabat (Nepos, 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:[11]
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:[12]
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:
hac in utramque partem disputatione habita (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:[13]
contionem advocat militum (Caesar, Bellum Civile 2.32)
"He called a meeting of the soldiers."
The following even have a double hyperbaton:
cum ipselitteramSocratesnullam reliquisset. (Cicero, de Orat. 3.60)
"When Socrates himself didn't leave a single line of writing."
unamesse in celeritate positamsalutem (Caesar, Bell. Gall. 5.29.7)
"their one (hope of) salvation rested in speed (celeritate)" (with emphasis on one and speed)
praedapotitusingentiest (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:
magnusomnium incessit timoranimis (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)[14] 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's adjectives are separated from their nouns.[15]
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:
saevaememoremIunonis ob iram (Virgil, Aeneid, 1.5)
"on account of the mindful anger (memorem iram) of cruel Juno (saevae Iunonis)".
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:
"from the Hyrcanian forests (Hyrcanis silvis) and from the Indian shore (Indo litore)."
The following example is from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Here the clause quae duri colerent iuvenci "which patient bullocks might cultivate", which already contains a hyperbaton of the phrase duri iuvenci "patient bullocks", is in turn is split up by the words pater arva:
non mihi quae duri colerent pater arva iuvenci ... reliquit (Ovid, Met. 3.584)[16]
"My father did not leave me any fields (arva) which patient bullocks (duri iuvenci) might cultivate"
In some 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:[17]
qui fragilemtruci commisit pelagoratem (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 liquidumspisso secrevit ab aerecaelum (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:
gratia sic minimomagnalabore venit (Ovid, Amores, 3.4.46)
"thus great influence (gratia magna) comes with very little labour (minimo labore)"
Usually the adjective in a discontinuous noun phrase comes first, as in the above examples, but the opposite is also possible:
"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 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:[18]
quismultagracilis te puer in rosa (Horace, Odes, 1.5)
"what graceful boy (gracilis puer) (is embracing) you (te) amidst many a rose (multa rosa)?"
In Ovid, hyperbaton or dislocated word order is particularly common in his elegiac poetry. Kenney quotes the following. Here the words timebam ne caperer "I was afraid lest I might be captured", which are already dislocated into caperer ne timebam, are interleaved with the phrase si progressa forem nocte "if I had gone out in the night":[19]
si progressa foremcaperer nenoctetimebam (Ovid, Her. 3.19)
"If I had gone out (progressa forem) at night (nocte), I was afraid I might be captured"
Housman[20] comments: "the dislocation of nocte together with its juxtaposition with timebam lends emphasis to [Briseis's] fears of getting lost in the dark."
Other languages
The classical type of hyperbaton is also found in Slavic languages like Polish:[21]
Piękny
beautiful
Markowi
for Mark
kupili
they bought
obraz
painting
Piękny Markowi kupili obraz
beautiful {for Mark} {they bought} painting
"They bought a beautiful painting for Mark."
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).[21]
Similar constructions are found in other languages, such as Russian, Latvian, and Modern Greek from which the following example comes:[22]
Το
To
κόκκινο
kókkino
είδα
eída
το
to
φόρεμα.
phórema.
Το κόκκινο είδα το φόρεμα.
Tokókkinoeídatophórema.
"It is the red dress (το κόκκινο φόρεμα) that I saw."
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)[23] or "a transposition or inversion of idiomatic word order (as echoed the hills for the hills echoed)" (Merriam-Webster online dictionary).[24] Some examples are given below:
Devine, Andrew M. & Laurence D. Stephens (2006), Latin Word Order. Structured Meaning and Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xii, 639. ISBN0-19-518168-9: 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.
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. ISBN9789027205841: pp. 23–26.
References
^ abAndrew M. Devine, Laurence D. Stephens, Latin Word Order: Structured Meaning and Information (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 524.