Syllepse
The Syllepse or Syllepsis ( ancient Greek σύλληψις sýllēpsis "summary") is a rhetorical figure based on a saving of words ( brachylogy ), comparable to the ellipse . A part of a sentence ( subject , object , etc.) or a grammatical form or function that is used once is supplemented several times in different senses in the Syllepse, so that it also creates different grammatical relationships with regard to person , case and gender .
In contrast to the Zeugma (in more recent terminology), a semantic fuzziness is not intended here, only a syntactic shortening. The Syllepse was less of a stylistic device of ancient rhetoric than of poetry .
Examples are:
- You seek your advantage, we seek ours.
- You can read - I think.
In slightly different, perhaps older terminology, Syllepse means a figure according to which the common verb is only used once in a compound sentence , although in its sense this only fits one subject, but a related or modified term must be added to the other, e.g. . B.
Here the exuberant hearing is represented by the synonymous seeing .
In this sense, which is now more attributed to the Zeugma, the Syllepse is particularly popular for grammatically correct, meaningful but meaningless, usually ironic formulations. A common verb is used, which is formally identical, but polysemous in meaning . In the first example below, the common verb strike has both an actual and an improper meaning; but since the two sub-clauses would require the actual and the improper interpretation of the verb, an illogical, and therefore ironic, whole results. In the second example, too, the verb take on a different meaning, which can no longer be expressed separately because the verb is only used once.
- He hit the window and hit the road home.
- Take your time, and not life.