Hypotaxis is the use of subordinate clauses in writing to express related thoughts and convey logical, temporal, or causal relationships. It amplifies the central impression and is effective for persuasion. It is the opposite of parataxis, which uses short, independent clauses.
In writing, hypotaxis refers to the use of subordinate clauses in sentences to express individual but related thoughts within the sentence. It is also used when the writer conveys logical, temporal, or causal relationships between information in the sentence. As a literary device, subordinate clauses give a precise meaning to the main thought expressed by the sentence. Hypotactic writing is also effective as a persuasion or argumentation tool.
The term hypotaxis comes from the Greek word meaning “submission”. A subordinate clause is subject to an independent clause, in the sense that it helps define the precise meaning of the clause. “The flowers were blooming, we sang songs” are independent clauses. If the first independent sentence is changed to “Because the flowers were blooming,” it becomes a subordinate clause explaining the reason for the song to the reader.
A hypotactic writing style allows a sentence to provide a great deal of background and insight into what is being said and why. Instead of alternating between simple and compound sentences, hypotaxis relies on more complex sentences to explain a thought or observation. The use of subordinate clauses amplifies the central impression.
For example, in Notes of a Native Son, American writer James Baldwin uses it to describe his father’s dealings with white social workers and debt collectors. “It was almost always my mother who looked after them, because my father’s character, which was at the mercy of his pride, was never to be trusted. It was clear that he felt their very presence in his house as a violation: this was conveyed by his almost ludicrously stiff bearing and his harsh, vindictively polite voice.
Using hypotaxis can allow a writer to include ideas about the weather within a description to make it more explicit. American novelist William Faulkner, known for his hypothetical phrases, uses one to describe a period of recovery. “He didn’t feel weak, he was simply basking in that supremely visceral exhaustion of convalescence in which time, haste, doing, did not exist, the accumulated seconds, minutes and hours of which the body, in its state of health , is a slave both waking and sleeping, now upside down and time now servant of the lips and beggar of bodily pleasure instead of the body enslaved by the rushing course of time.”
Hypotaxis is the opposite of parataxis, which uses short, independent clauses. Parataxis is a more direct style of writing and sometimes leaves shades of meaning for the reader. It can also forcefully express an idea in just a few words. The famous phrase of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar “I came, I saw, I conquered” is an example of parataxis.
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