Hyperbaton


Hyperbaton, in its original meaning, is a figure of speech in which 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 sentences' natural word order, which is also called anastrophe.

Etymology

The word is 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, 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." Donatus, in his work On tropes, includes under hyperbaton five varieties: hysterologia, anastrophe, parenthesis, tmesis, and synchysis.

Ancient Greek

  • ὑφ' ἑνὸς τοιαῦτα πέπονθεν ἡ Ἑλλὰς ἀνθρώπου
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."
  • πρός σε γονάτων
Here the word "you" divides the preposition "by" from its object "knees".
  • τίνα ἔχει δύναμιν;

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?
  • duas a te accepi epistulas heri
  • hae permanserunt aquae dies complures. :
  • ille sic 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
In the following an adjective of size is brought to the front, emphasising the whole phrase:
  • pro ingenti itaque victoria id fuit plebi.
  • magnam enim secum pecuniam portabat
  • magno cum fremitu et clamore
The first word of the hyperbaton can also be an adverb, as in the following example:
  • aeque vita iucunda
It is also possible for the noun to come first, as in the following:
  • dies appetebat septimus
  • Antonius legiones eduxit duas.
A hyperbaton can also be used to demonstrate a kind of picture shown in the text:hac in utramque partem disputatione habita
Another kind of hyperbaton is "genitive hyperbaton" in which one of the words is in the genitive case:
  • contionem advocat militum
The following even have a double hyperbaton:
  • cum ipse litteram Socrates nullam reliquisset. unam esse in celeritate positam salutem
  • praeda potitus ingenti est
In the following, a genitive hyperbaton and an adjectival hyperbaton are interleaved:
  • magnus omnium incessit timor animis
Another kind of hyperbaton is found when a phrase consisting of two words joined by et is separated by another word:
  • Aspendus, vetus oppidum et nobile
  • ''Faesulas inter Arretiumque''

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.
Frequently two hyperbata are used in the same sentence, as in the following example:
  • quam Catullus unam/ plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes
Often two noun phrases are interleaved in a double hyperbaton:
  • saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram
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":
  • lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae
  • irrita ventosae linquens promissa procellae
Occasionally three separate noun phrases can be interleaved, for example:
  • nullum Martia summo / altius imperium consule Roma videt
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
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:
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:
  • 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
Sometimes pretty effects are obtained by apparently switching the order of the adjectives:
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:
  • quis multa gracilis te puer in 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":
  • si progressa forem caperer ne nocte timebam
Housman comments: "the dislocation of nocte together with its juxtaposition with timebam lends emphasis to fears of getting lost in the dark."

Other languages

The classical type of hyperbaton is also found in Slavic languages like Polish:
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.
Similar constructions are found in other languages, such as Russian, Latvian, and Modern Greek from which the following example comes:
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: