O anacolutton is figure of speech related to syntax from the utterance, that is, to the structure of the sentence and the relation of the words that compose it. Is construction figure (or syntax figure) characterized by the “topicalization” of a term at the beginning of the utterance, which makes this term disconnect from the other elements that compose it.
Read too: Metaphor - figure of speech that makes an implicit comparison
Use of anacolutton
The anacolutton is commonly used in oral language and colloquial, as well as in some prose and poetry. This stylistic feature interrupts the logical sequence of a thought, highlighting a term at the beginning of the statement and forming a kind of topic with the highlighted element. The remainder of the sentence restarts a line of reasoning about the disconnected element at the beginning of the period.
In addition to highlighting the element, the anacoluto can convey the idea of informality or improvisation, characteristic of oral language, when interrupting and reorganizing an idea in the middle of its expression.
examples of anacolutton
“On TV, the movies that pass in it are not believable.”
In this example, the element “Na TV” appears isolated at the beginning of the utterance and loses its syntactic function when the element “nela”, which makes reference to “Na TV” appears. The element "in it" becomes the indirect object of prayer and, “On TV”, becomes just an abandoned topic at the beginning of the speech.
“a jaguar
AND your accurate shot
left my nerves
Steel on the floor"
(Alceu Valença)
In the example above, taken from the song “Como two animals”, by Alceu Valença, the expression “Uma pegança” is disconnected from the rest of the utterance, being, however, the His topic: in the construction “your accurate shot left my nerves of steel on the ground”, the accurate shot is from the jaguar, which was replaced in the utterance by the pronoun "your".
“And her imagination, like the storks that an illustrious traveler saw take flight from the Ilisso to the African shores, despite the ruins and the times, — this lady's imagination it also flew over the wreckage present to the shores of a youthful Africa” (Machado de Assis)
In this excerpt from The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, the narrator-character begins the utterance with “And her imagination”, which is interrupted by a digression. When resuming, “this lady's imagination” assumes the position that it would have originally been from the first occurrence. This is topicalized at the beginning of the paragraph, disconnected from any statement, losing its syntactic function.
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Difference between Anacoluto and Hyperbate
Like the anacoluto, the hyperbate is a construction figure widely used in the Portuguese language and has to do with the change of position of some elements of the speech. There are, however, differences between them.
O hyperbatic occurs when there is a element highlighted in the middle of another statement. It also breaks the structure of a sentence, but the element that interrupts the speech has its own function, and the interrupted speech is resumed in sequence. Thus, there is no prejudice between the utterances, with hyperbatic being just a reallocation of ideas. Watch:
"The company, everyone agreed, it grew a lot with the new leadership.”
Note that, unlike the anacolute, the elements that form the hyperbate have a syntactic function within their own structure. In the case of the anacoluto, the elements would have no syntactic function.
Read too:What are syntax pictures?
solved exercises
question 1 – Quadrix
little miner
Yes, I suppose it is me, as one of our representatives, that I must look for why the death of a thug is hurting. And why is it more useless for me to count the thirteen shots that killed Mineirinho than his crimes. I asked my cook what she thought about the matter. I saw in your face the small convulsion of a conflict, the discomfort of not understanding what you feel, of needing to betray contradictory feelings for not knowing how to harmonize them. Irreducible facts, but irreducible revolt too, the violent compassion of revolt. Feeling divided in his own perplexity at not being able to forget that Mineirinho was dangerous and had already killed too much; and yet we wanted him alive. [...]
But there is something that, if it makes me hear the first and second shots with a safety relief, in the third it makes me alert, in the fourth restless, the fifth and sixth cover me with shame, the seventh and the eighth I hear with my heart pounding with horror, in the ninth and in the tenth my mouth is trembling, in the eleventh I say in astonishment the name of God, in the twelfth I call my brother. The thirteenth shot kills me—because I am the other. Because I want to be the other one. This justice that watches over my sleep, I repudiate it, humiliated for needing it. Meanwhile I sleep and falsely save myself. We, the essential ones. For my house to work, I demand from me as a first duty that I be silly, that I do not exercise my rebellion and my love, guarded. If I'm not sly, my house shakes. [...]
In Mineirinho my way of life was broken. [...] Your frightened violence. His innocent violence—not in the consequences, but innocent in itself like that of a child whose father has not taken care of. Everything that was violence in it is furtive in us, and one avoids the other's eyes so that we don't run the risk of understanding each other. So that the house doesn't shake. The violence erupted in Mineirinho that only another man's hand, the hand of hope, resting on his head dazed and sick, she could soothe and cause her startled eyes to lift up and finally fill with tears. [...]
Prior justice, that would not shame me. It was time, irony or not, to be more divine; if we guess what the goodness of God would be, it is because we guess the goodness in us, that which sees man before he is a victim of crime. But I still hope that God will be the father, when I know that a man can be another man's father. And I still live in the weak house. This house, whose protective door I lock so well, this house will not withstand the first wind what will fly a locked door through the air. [...] what sustains me is knowing that I will always manufacture a god in the image of what I need to sleep peacefully and that others will furtively pretend that we are all right and that there is nothing to be done. [...] Like mad, we know him, this dead man where the radium grass had caught fire. But only like crazy, and not as silly, we know him. [...]
Until justice came a little crazier. One that took into account that we all have to speak for a man who despaired because in this one human speech has already failed, he is already so mute that only the raw disjointed scream serves as a signal. A previous justice that remembers that our great fight is that of fear, and that a man who kills a lot is because he was very afraid. Above all, a justice that looked at itself, and that saw that we all, living mud, are dark, and therefore not even the One man's wickedness can be handed over to another man's wickedness: so that he cannot freely and approvedly commit a crime of shooting.
A justice that does not forget that we are all dangerous, and that when the vigilante kills, he is not more protecting us or wanting to eliminate a criminal, he's committing his private crime, a long saved. [...]
Clarice Lispector
(Available at ip.usp.br. Adapted.)
See this definition: "Period beginning with a word or phrase, followed by a pause, which is continued by a prayer in which this word or phrase is not directly integrated, although it is integrated by the sense and, in some way, resumed syntactically". In the text presented, there are some occurrences of this structure, called anacolutton. Check the alternative that contains a period of the text in which this happens.
a) The thirteenth shot kills me—because I am the other. Because I want to be the other one.
b) This justice that watches over my sleep, I repudiate it, humiliated for needing it.
c) Everything that was violence in it is furtive in us, and one avoids the other's gaze.
d) If we guess what the goodness of God would be, it is because we guess the goodness in ourselves.
e) A justice that does not forget [...] that when the vigilante kills, [...] he is committing his private crime.
Resolution:
Alternative B. The element “This justice that watches over my sleep” loses its syntactic function when it is taken up by the pronoun “a”, which becomes the direct object of the prayer “I repudiate it”.
question 2 – PR4-UFRJ
Consider the following text:
“The country went, without scale, from the anacolutons of Dilma Rousseff to the mesoclises of Temer. From a (let's say) psychic-grammatical point of view, the change does the disfavor of suggesting that there is no middle ground for being Brazilian: or we stumble at every step in the logical and syntactic destructuring, trying to make words and things fit with sledgehammer blows, or we fall into the bachelor's tackiness that oils the It gears discourse while pulling it away from popular speech and making it mischievously difficult, designed less to communicate with citizens than to mesmerize crowds. Somewhere deep in our mentality, there is a bronze plaque on which, under an effigy of Rui Barbosa and with a note of footer informing that it is a translation from Latin, this lie is engraved: ‘Speaking slurred is a sign of intelligence higher'."
excerpt from Temer and mesoclisis: the pronominal man, by Sérgio Rodrigues. May 30, 2016. http://www.melhordizendo.com/ fear-and-mesoclisis-the-pronominal-man/
Mark the alternative that correctly defines the figure of speech associated by the author with the mode of expression of the then retired president, Dilma Rousseff.
a) Repetition of word(s) at the beginning of each sentence.
b) Omission of easily understood terms.
c) Breaking the syntactic structure, whereby terms in the sentence have no syntactic function.
d) Ideological agreement, which is done by the idea, and not word for word.
e) Attenuation, softening of certain shocking expressions.
Resolution:
Alternative C. Anacoluto is characterized by breaking the syntactic structure of the utterance, leaving the term isolated in its beginning without syntactic function.
By Guilherme Viana
grammar teacher
