Talk:Anacoluthon

The reference to Shakespeare seems a bit odd. It is questionable whether anacoluthon is applied in that passage at all, and, in any event, Shakespeare brims with far more abrupt examples. Also, why distinguish the history plays, as if they deployed the technique in some distinct way? By far the best examples are to be found in such works as Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, or The Tempest, long known for Shakespeare's recourse to deliberately compressed, shifting and interrupted sentence structures.

Order of Clauses and Figures of Speech

The article currently contatins the sentence:

"Anacoluthons (or "anacolutha") are for example created when the grammatically correct order of clauses is circumvented.[2][3]

Can anyone explain how an anacoluthon can be formed by rearranging the order of clauses? Neither of the citations explains this, or offers any relevant examples.

Regarding the list of figures of speech at the end of the article: None of these figures are ungrammatical, so none of them are forms of anacoluthon. Can anyone find a citiation indicating otherwise?

All of this material should be removed, unless it can be supported with reliable citations.UnvoicedConsonant (talk) 17:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I might have misunderstood what Anacoluthon is. Go ahead and delete what you percieve to be wrong, but it would off course be preferable if you could replace it with a concise, correct, easily comprehendable, examplified and sourced definition. --Spannerjam 08:54, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Attack of the The Eye Creatures (sic)

I have added (perhaps restored from an earlier, subsequently "corrected" version) the duplicate article "the" to the following, to make it clear what the error was:

Due to a poor cut-and-paste job of a new title onto the original, the film Attack of the Eye Creatures (originally just The Eye Creatures) appears to be Attack of the The Eye Creatures. When the film was shown on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel identifies the mistake as an anacoluthon.

Frankly, though, I fail to understand how this meets the definition of anacoluthon stated at the beginning of the article. It's not "a rhetorical device"; it's just an unconscious error. No? 850 C (talk) 15:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Changes to article

I agree with all the above comments, and would like to go ahead and make changes accordingly. This means:

• better examples of anacolutha
• changing the definition provided for two reasons:
  • anacolutha do not have to be intentional, they can be a rhetorical device, or they can just be a glitch in your writing
  • an anacoluthon is not "wording ignoring syntax", but more so wording that contains a shift in syntax

I am going to go ahead and rewrite the definition of anacoluthon as "an unexpected shift in grammar", and I will also start looking for some notable examples to add to the article. Feel free to revert me if you don't like any of my changes and we can discuss on talkpage :) AioftheStorm (talk) 06:31, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree also ! But I still find the definition to be quite unhelpful. So I have made further changes. I doubt whether a "shift in grammar" (whatever that might be - it means nothing to me) should be a part of a correct definition. I think that a sentence which includes anacoluthon could be perfectly correct in terms of grammar & syntax, but could still include a shift in the line of thought, which would make it illogical or nonsensical, and this might be the crucial point of the definition. Perhaps anacolouthon is a situation where an author loses track of his line of thought, but continues writing as if on autopilot, the grammatical and syntactical parts of his mind continuing to function, but the part that deals with meaning having gone to sleep, or having made an inadvertent logical leap; consequently he writes incoherent nonsense. In the definition, emphasis should be placed on a discontinuity of meaning, one thought not following coherently from another within the same sentence. I like the explanation given here, but not the examples. http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/anacoluthon-definition-examples.html#lesson

The Italian proverb is obscure, and its explanation even more so. "This proverb urges us to choose the most qualitative alternative." What does "qualitative" mean in this context ? Is it just a complicated way of saying "best" ? And "alternative" to what ? Is "make the best choice" intended ? The other examples do not help my understanding of this either. The difficulty appears to be that anacoluthon makes nonsense of a sentence, so examples using archaic language, which even if they followed "correct" syntax would be difficult to understand, obscure the essential character of anacoluthon rather than illustrating it. We need several examples which use modern language. g4oep

"Additionally, Conrad Aiken's Rimbaud and Verlaine has an extended anacoluthon as it discusses anacoluthon:

Discussing, between moves, iamb and spondee

Anacoluthon and the open vowel

God the great peacock with his angel peacocks

And his dependent peacocks the bright stars..."

How is this an anacoluthon? It is not a shift in syntax, and to see it as a shift in line of thought (rather than just a variegated, surprising list) would require more context.

144.200.0.157 (talk) 07:50, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

External links modified

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