Schemes and Tropes

Schemes

a deviation from the ordinary pattern or arrangement of words

trope

a deviation from the ordinary and principal signification of a word

Parallelism

similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phases, or clauses

isocolon

parallel structure in which the parallel elements are similar not only in grammatical structure, but also in length. ex "to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous" (hurston, their eyes were watching god).

Antithesis

the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas, often in parallel structure

Anastrophe

inversion of the natural or usual word order

Parenthesis-

insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentence

Apposition

placing side by side two co-ordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first

Ellipsis

the deliberate omission of a word or of words readily implied by the context

Asyndeton

deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series

Polysyndeton

deliberate use of many conjunctions

Alliteration

repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words

Assonance

the repetition of similar vowel forms, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words

Anaphora

repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses

Epistrophe

repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses

Epanalepsis

repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause

Anadiplosis

repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause

Climax

arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance

Antimetabole

repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse gram?matical order

Chiasmus

reversal of grammatical structures in a successive clauses (but no repetition of words)

Polyptoton

repetition of words derived from the same root

Metaphor

implied comparison between two things of unlike nature

Simile

explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature

Synecdoche

figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole

Metonymy

substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant

Antanaclasis

repetition of a word in two different senses

Personification

investing abstractions for inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities

Hyperbole

the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect

Litotes

deliberate use of understatement

Rhetorical question

asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely

Irony

--use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word

Onomatapoeia

use of words whose sound echoes the sense

Oxymoron

the joking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory

Paradox

an apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth