[Lexicog] Re: When Semantics Doesn't Matter

[John Roberts]

bolstar1 wrote:
> John: I'm still chuckling over your example with Popeye. It seems 
> that word order here is the order of the day, rather than function 
> per se. 
antistrophe:

Merriam Online:
1 a : the repetition of words in reversed order b : the repetition of
a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses

chiasmus:

Encarta:
inverted word order in phrase: a rhetorical construction in which the
order of the words in the second of two paired phrases is the reverse
of the order in the first. An example is "gray was the morn, all
things were gray."

If we take the above as standard definitions for antistrope and chiasmus 
does it have to be inversion of the same words or just vaguely similar 
words? If it has to be the same words, then I would say your original 
example does not fulfill this requirement.

"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit."

For me (being a linguist and not a poet) "witty" is not the some word as 
"wit" and "fool" is not the same word as "foolish". They don't have the 
same form, nor the same function, nor even the same meaning.

John R


-- 
********************
John R Roberts
SIL International Linguistics Consultant
dr_john_roberts at sil.org
********************


 
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