Syntax Flashcards
Term: Sentence Length
Meaning: Involves placing the parts of a sentence in the right place and using proper grammar. Number of words in a sentence.
Example #1: She was a good cook. People remember that about her. Oh yes, yes, she wrote several novels, received critical acclaim, battled cancer, and raised five children. But she was a good cook.
Example #2: The whole family gathered around the computer waiting for my sister to say the words we’d been waiting to hear for fifteen months—that she was coming home.
Term: Anaphora
Meaning: Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines
Example #1: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
Example #2: This happy breed of men, this little world
Term: Antithesis
Meaning: Juxtaposition (Two things together) of contrasting words or ideas. (often although not always, in parallel structure).
Example #1: Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing.
Example #2: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Term: Asyndeton
Meaning: One or several conjunctions (connecting words) are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses.
Example #1: I came, I saw, I conquered.
Example #2: The dog ran, bounded, and leapt across the field.
Term: Polysyndeton
Meaning: The repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses.
Example #1: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers.
Example #2: They read and studied and wrote and drilled. I laughed and played and talked and flunked.
Term: Parallel Sentence
Meaning: Using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance.
Example #1: Mary likes hiking, swimming, and riding a bicycle.
Example #2: The coach told the players that they should get a lot of sleep, that they should not eat too much, and that they should do some warm-up exercises before the game.
Term: Loose sentence
Meaning: A sentence in which the principal clause comes first and subordinate modifiers or trailing elements follow.
Example #1: I went to the movies yesterday, bought candy, and shopped at the mall.
Example #2: I knew I had found a friend in the woman, who herself was a lonely soul, never having known the love of man or child.
Term: Periodic sentence
Meaning: A usually complex sentence that has no subordinate or trailing elements following its principal clause
Example #1: In spite of heavy snow and cold temperatures, the game continued.
Example #2: Yesterday while I was walking down the street, I saw him
Term: Rhetorical question
Meaning: A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer.
Example #1: Who wouldn’t want to be a millionaire?
Example #2: Wouldn’t you feel happier if you could wear what you wanted to school?
Term: Inverted syntax
Meaning: A style of writing that places unexpected emphasis on objects or verbs in sentences.
Example #1: Down the street lived the man and his wife without anyone suspecting that they were really spies for a foreign power.
Example #2: Never again will you do that.
Term: Alliteration
Meaning: Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often, repeated initial consonants.
Example #1: Why not waste a wild weekend at Westmore Water Park?
Example #2: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Term: Assonance
Meaning: Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words.
Example #1: The seargant asked him to bomb the lawn with hotpots.
Example #2: He eats the sweet treats.
Term: Consonance
Meaning: The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ).
Example #1: I will crawl away with the ball.
Example #2: Mike likes his new bike.
