Periphrasis. Antonomasia

Periphrasis - is a trope whereby a word or a word group directly naming a thing, person or phenomenon (the tenor) is replaced by a circumlocutory descriptive phrase (the vehicle) that mentions some characteristic features of this thing (person, phenomenon); is a SD which consists of using a roundabout form of expression instead of a simpler one i.e. of using more or less complicated syntactical structure instead of a word.

The origin of periphrasis can be traced in k e n n i n g, a conventional poetic phrase used for the usual name of a per­son or thing in Anglo-Saxon poetry, as "wave traveller" for "boat", "ring-giver" for "king", "cavern-warder" for "monster", etc.

Periphrasis is a subtle and effective way of creating ima­gery: depending on the features it foregrounds it can be pa­thetic, accusatory, humorous, lofty, etc.

Very often periphrasis has euphemistic implications, i. e. is a mild or vague substitution for a harsh or blunt expres­sion. A striking example of euphemistic periphrasis is the following quotation from Shakespeare's Macbeth:—

He that's coming must be provided for... — a grim hint that King Duncan should be murdered.

Depending on the mechanism of this substitution P.cb:

1) figurative(metonymic or metaphoric) made of phrase- metonymies/ metaphors.

"the hospital was crowded with surgically interesting products of the fighting in Afrika" -extended metaphor stands for"wounded"

2) logical(phrases synonymic with the words which were substituted by P.)

"Mr. Du Pont was dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires"

the conventional disguise-the suit

the shame of...-the belly

Functions of P.:

-to convey a purely individual perception of the described object

-the often repeated P. becomes trite and serve as universally accepted periphrastic synonyms: "the gentle/soft/weak sex=woman";"my better half=my spouse"; "millions of Law=police"

The very source and fount of day

Is dashed with wandering isles of night. (Tennyson)

Outside was one of those crowded streets of the east side, in which, as twilight falls, Satan sets up his recruiting office. (O`Henry)

Antonomasia - is a trope whereby the proper name of a person who was dis­tinguished by a particular characteristic is put for a person or a group of persons having the same characteristic. Antono­masia has the merit of brevity and picturesqueness. It des­cribes a person's features and qualities through those com­monly associated with the name of some historic figure or of some mythological, religious or literary character; is a lexical SD in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa, or a SD in which the nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning or the logical meaning aquires the new-nominal component.

A. has the merit of brevity and picturesqueness.

A.describes a person's features and qualities through those commonly associated with the name of some historic figure or of some mythological, religious or literary character.

Types of A.:

1-logical meaning denotes concepts, classifies individual objects into groups or classes

Nominal meaning has the aim of signaling the object out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object.

"he took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, smth...=any female".

2-a common noun serves as individualizing name. "there are 3 doctors in an illness like yours. I don't mean only myself, my partner and radiologist who does your X-rays, the 3 i'm referring to are Dr.Rest, Dr.Fresh Air and Dr. Diet".

3-presented by speaking names-names whose origin from common nouns is still clearly perceived.

Mr.Smith=occupation

Mr.Brown=color

Lady Teazle=to tease

Antonomazia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations as in Dr. Fresh Air or phrases Mr. What's-his-name.

In the following frequently quoted extract Conan Doyle describes the strategic genius and the scale of activities of a criminal thus:—

It was then that Holmes told me for the first time of that Napoleon of crime, Professor Moriarty — a man who had secretly organized the underworld of London into a syndicate of evil with himself as the brains.