BREVITAS  

RHETORICAL STYLE which prefers economic use of language.

短言法 Deliberate pregnant brevity of diction. Ant: BREVITAS.

Greek: brachulogia.

Hypernym
  • RHETORICAL STYLE體裁詞格　RHETORICAL DEVICE which is mainly concerned with matters of style of presentation rather than distribution of expressions or semantic structure.
Hyponym
  • PERCURSIOBREVITAS in the form of a summarising quick and short ENUMERATIO. Quick survey of what is not to be gone into in detail or listed for quick convenience.
    Miriam 297 defines differently, as if ASYNDETON were involved: "Brachylogia, or articulus, omits the conjunction between single words, often imparting celerity and vehemence through brevity." I take the liberty to take the term in its broader stylistic meaning.

    EX: By sharpnes, voyce, countenaunce, thou madeste thyne enemyes afrayd. (Miriam)

    REF: Lausberg 881 gives a detailed survey of the doxography on brevity.

    Greek/Latin: Her. 4.54.68: brevitas est res ipsis tantummodo verbis necessariis expedita... The ideal is common, and the matter is currently discussed among the classical rhetoricians.

    Ancient Chinese: Common in pre-Buddhist Chinese, in La3ozi3 approaching the deliberately enigmatic.

    Rhetorical device locations: 8
    • 論語 「巧言令色， 鮮矣仁

      One might be tempted claim ELLIPSIS of a 者 , but it is clear that these constructions without 者 are common. Is one entitled to call this a common ELLIPSIS? Where is the line between the rhetorical device and a grammatical rule? This raises many questions.

    • 論語 孟懿子問孝。 子曰 無違
    • 論語 子曰：
    • 論語 「朝聞道， 夕死可矣
    • 論語 「德不孤， 必有鄰
    • 論語 「學如不及， 猶恐失之
    • 論語 『吾不試， 故藝
    • 論語 子曰： 辭 達而已矣