Prosiopesis
Prosiopesis (from Ancient Greek προσιώπησις prosiṓpēsis 'becoming silent') is a term coined by Otto Jespersen for pronouncing a word or phrase without its initial sounds. Among the examples Jespersen gives are "Morning" for "Good morning" and "'Fraid not" for "I'm afraid not". Jespersen introduced the idea in a 1917 book;[1] he also mentioned it in a later work.[2]
This is similar to aposiopesis, where the ending of a sentence is deliberately excluded. David Crystal writes, "In rhetorical terminology, an elision in word-INITIAL position was known as aphaeresis or prosiopesis, in word-MEDIAL position was known as syncope, and in word-FINAL position as apocope."[3] (Richard Lanham similarly defines aphaeresis more narrowly than Jespersen defines prosiopesis, a term that Lanham does not mention.[4])
Other synonyms include aphesis and procope.[5]
Prosiopesis and aposiopesis are studied as sources of interjections.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1917). Negation in English and Other Languages. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab: Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser I, 5. Copenhagen: Andr. Fred. Høst og søn. p. 6. OCLC 457568567 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1924). The Philosophy of Grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin. pp. 142, 310. OCLC 19939152 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Crystal, David (2008-06-23). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-5297-6.
- ^ Lanham, Richard A. (1991). A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms: A Guide for Students of English Literature (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07669-9.
- ^ Bussmann, Hadumod (1998). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge. p. 71. ISBN 0-203-98005-0. (Also ISBN 0-415-02225-8 and ISBN 0-415-20319-8.)
- ^ Nishikawa, Mayumi (15 October 2004). "Secondary interjections in English". 9th International Pragmatics Conference. International Pragmatics Association. Archived from the original on 25 April 2005.
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