Parallelism (grammar)
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 improves writing style and readability, and is thought to make sentences easier to process.[2]
Parallelism is often achieved using antithesis, anaphora, asyndeton, climax, epistrophe, and symploce.[3]
Examples[edit]
Compare the following examples:
| Lacking parallelism | Parallel |
|---|---|
| "She likes cooking, jogging, and to read." | "She likes cooking, jogging, and reading."
"She likes to cook, jog, and to read." |
| "He likes baseball and running." | "He likes playing baseball and running."
"He likes to play baseball and to run." |
| "The dog ran across the yard, jumped over the fence, and sprinted away." | "The dog ran across the yard, jumped over the fence, and sprinted down the alley." |
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 two nonparallel examples have a mix of gerunds and infinitives. To make them parallel, the sentences can be rewritten with all gerunds or all infinitives. The final clause of the third example does not include a location, such as "across the yard" or "over the fence"; rewriting to add one completes the sentence's parallelism.
In rhetoric[edit]
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
- "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." — John F. Kennedy[3]
- "...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." — Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address[3]
- "We have petitioned and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer. We entreat no more. We petition no more. We defy them." — William Jennings Bryan[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly, The Elements of Technical Writing, pg. 71. New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1993. ISBN 0020130856
- ^ For the point about processing, see Carlson, Katy. Parallelism and Prosody in the Processing of Ellipsis Sentences. Routledge, 2002, pp. 4–6.
- ^ a b c d "Parallelism", americanrhetoric.com.
External links[edit]
- Faulty Parallelism, Nipissing University
