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Parallelism (grammar)

Concept in grammar From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure.[1] The application of parallelism affects readability and may make texts easier to process.[2]

Parallelism may be accompanied by other figures of speech such as antithesis, anaphora, asyndeton, climax, epistrophe, and symploce.[3]

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Examples

Compare the following examples:

More information Lacking parallelism, Parallel ...

All of the above examples are grammatically correct, even if they lack parallelism: "cooking", "jogging", and "to read" are all grammatically valid conclusions to "She likes", for instance. The first nonparallel example has a mix of gerunds and infinitives. To make it parallel, the sentence can be rewritten with all gerunds or all infinitives. The second example pairs a gerund with a regular noun. Parallelism can be achieved by converting both terms to gerunds or to infinitives. The final phrase of the third example does not include a definite location, such as "across the yard" or "over the fence"; rewriting to add one completes the sentence's parallelism.

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In rhetoric

Parallelism is often used as a rhetorical device. Examples:

  • "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." — Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 22 October 1945[4]

See also

References

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