The structural classification of parallelism.

The structural classification of parallelism

Syntactic parallelism consists in either the juxtaposed recurrence of different words of the same part of speech in the identical syntactic function in the sentence, or in the juxtaposed recurrence of words belonging to different parts of speech but performing the same syntactic function in the sentence, or in the echoing of syntactic patterns in proximate lines, stanzas, utterances and paragraphs. Accordingly, three groups of syntactic rhetorical figures can be distinguished: series, syntactic reduplication and parallel patterns.

Series are lexical units of the same part of speech in a coordinate phrase with a joint syntactic function in relation to some part of the sentence; series can be modified by other words ( expanded coordinate phrase ); they can be linked by conjunctions (syndetic coordinate phrase); when series are not linked by conjunctions they form asyndetic co-ordinate phrase). Two rhetorical terms should be introduced in this connection, polysyndeton and asyndeton.

Polysyndeton is a marked repetition of a conjunction before each parallel word; asyndeton is a marked avoidance of conjunctions.

Series can be divided into three types: binomials consisting of two members; trinomials consisting of three members; and catalogues, four or more members.

Syntactic reduplication is also known as syntactic tautology or prolepsis. It consists in repetition of the noun-subject in the form of a pronoun. The noun thus separated from the real of the sentence becomes detached and emphasized. Syntactic reduplication is often used in folklore, old nursery rhymes or in those literary works which imitate folklore.