Definition:
A figure of syntactic substitution in which one grammatical form (person, case, gender, number, tense) is replaced by another, usually ungrammatical form. See also:
.Etymology:
From the Greek, "change, exchange"Examples and Observations:
- "Emphasis is what enallage can give us; it draws reaction by shifting the function of a word from that of its usual part of speech to an uncharacteristic function, thereby thwarting the predictable. . . .
"Here's a classic case of enallage: When a credit agency identifies a deadbeat debtor, the nonpayer is referred to not merely as a 'bad risk' or 'bad person,' but as a 'bad.' Shifting the adjective 'bad' into a noun is like saying, 'once a bad, always a bad, and bad through and through.'"
(Arthur Plotnik, Spunk & Bite. Random House, 2005) - "In narrative texts, a substitution of the past tense by the present tense (praesens historicum) takes place, when the intended effect is a vivid representation (enargeia). Not merely a solecism or a grammatical mistake, enallage is employed with a functional intentionality, which gives it the status of a rhetorical figure."
(Heinrich F. Plett, "Enallage," Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, edited by Thomas O. Sloane. Oxford Univ. Press, 2002) - "Enallage, which is Greek for 'interchange,' refers to a syntactic device that is fairly common in the Old Testament, where an author intentionally shifts from the singular to the plural (or vice versa) for rhetorical effect."
(Kevin L. Barney, "Further Light on Enallage." Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 1997)
Also Known As: figure of exchange,
