Amphibole (from the Greek. Ἀμφιβολία - ambiguity, ambiguity) - the duality or ambiguity obtained from a particular arrangement of words or from their use in different senses, a confusion of concepts, usually associated with the division of sentences [1] .
An example of amphibole is the phrase “ You can’t be pardoned ”, where the meaning changes depending on the place of the pause after or before the word “you can’t”. Numerous examples of amphiboles give Greek legends about oracles . Amphibole can arise in such a sentence construction, when the subject in the nominative case is difficult to distinguish from the direct complement in the accusative case . For example:
Brega Aragva and Chickens
We saw the Russian tents.- A.S. Pushkin . “ Eugene Onegin ” (Excerpts from Onegin's Journey)
The wind asks the mother:
"Where did you like to disappear?"- A.N. Maykov . " Lullaby " (1860)
- What is written there, Tan? Asked Alexei Ivanovich.
“ Feeding the Khufu crocodile ,” Tanyusha translated.
“Khufu is the name of the crocodile?”
- No. Khufu is the name of the pharaoh.
- Pharaoh Khufu feeds a crocodile? - asked Igor. “ Or is the crocodile fed Pharaoh Khufu?”
Tanyusha laughed.
“No,” she said. - If by the structure of the phrase, the crocodile belongs to the pharaoh Khufu, and an unidentified person feeds this crocodile . And what they feed him, in my opinion, is clear.- Victor Pelevin . "Feeding the Khufu Crocodile"
Usage
Amphibole in the headings can be used in advertising to focus on a product or service (due to the ambiguity of the offer), in journalism and other areas. For example, a phrase like “Salesmen chased a thief with an iron” [2] can be understood in two ways. Such turns attract attention by their ambiguity, interest, increase the likelihood of reading additional (clarifying) information.
See also
- Anacoluthon
- Solecism
- Namerek
- Polysemy
- Ambiguity
Notes
- ↑ amphibole . // Dictionary of linguistic terms, 2012.
- ↑ Sellers chased a thief with an iron for half an hour
Links
- Amphibole // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- Kvyatkovsky's Poetic Dictionary
- The article uses the text from the Literary Encyclopedia of 1929-1939 , which passed into the public domain , since it was published anonymously and the name of the author did not become known until January 1, 1992.