Lecture
Solecism (from Ancient Greek σολοικισμός (Latin soloecismus), from the name of the ancient Greek Soloe)) — a syntactically incorrect turn of phrase that does not distort the meaning of the utterance.
The term “solecism” was coined by ancient rhetoricians from the name of the city of Soloi, a Greek colony in Asia Minor, in Cilicia. The city was founded by settlers from Athens under Solon, but the settlers’ descendants, having mixed with the local population, lost the purity of the Attic dialect of Ancient Greek. The term occurs in Quintilian, Aulus Gellius, and other ancient Roman authors.
In rhetoric, a solecism was the name for any incorrect turn of speech in general. In linguistics a narrower sense is usually used, in which the term denotes an incorrect syntactic construction, an error in the choice of grammatical forms for some syntactic structure.
A solecism, as a rule, arises from a violation of the rules of agreement between the members of a sentence, or the rules of agreement between main and subordinate clauses.
Examples of violations of agreement between the members of a sentence:
“Whoever needs sanatorium treatment, must provide it” (in Russian, an ungrammatical impersonal-for-personal construction, lit. “Who needs sanatorium treatment, [it] is necessary to provide him”, instead of the grammatical “…will be provided for him”).
“Один или два моих товарищей” (lit. “one or two of my comrades[gen. pl.]”, a case-agreement error, instead of “…or two of my comrades[gen. dual/pl. proper]”).
“Сколько время?” (lit. “how much time” with the wrong case, instead of the grammatical “Сколько времени?”, “What time is it?”).
An example of a violation of agreement between clauses:
“Мне совестно, как честный офицер” (lit. “I feel ashamed, as an honest officer” — the participle-like phrase fails to agree with any expressed subject) (A. S. Griboyedov, “Woe from Wit”).
An example of other solecisms in the Russian language:
“Если бы вы захотели бы” (lit. “if you would wanted would” — a doubled conditional particle “бы”).
An unagreed adverbial-participle construction (a dangling participle):
“Приехав в Белев, по счастию попалась нам хорошая квартира” (lit. “Having arrived in Belyov, by good fortune a good lodging turned up for us” — the participle “having arrived” has no grammatical subject to attach to) and others (D. I. Fonvizin, Letters to Relatives)
“Хоть я и не пророк, но, видя мотылька, что он вкруг свечки вьётся, пророчество почти всегда мне удаётся” (lit. “Though I am no prophet, but, seeing a moth circling a candle, my prophecy almost always comes true” — a dangling participle) (I. A. Krylov, “The Little Fish”)
“Вы согласитесь, что, имея право выбирать оружие, жизнь его была в моих руках, а моя почти безопасна: я мог бы приписать умеренность мою одному великодушию, но не хочу лгать” (lit. “You will agree that, having the right to choose the weapon, his life was in my hands, while mine was almost safe” — the participial phrase “having the right” does not agree with its intended subject “I”) (A. S. Pushkin, “The Shot”)
“Сначала он удивлялся и хотел понять, что это значило; потом, убедившись, что понять этого он не может, ему стало скучно” (lit. “At first he was surprised and wanted to understand what it meant; then, having become convinced that he could not understand it, it became boring to him” — the participle “having become convinced” does not agree with the impersonal construction that follows) and others (L. N. Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”)
“Подъезжая к сией станцыи и глядя на природу в окно, у меня слетела шляпа” (lit. “Approaching this station and looking at the scenery through the window, my hat flew off” — the famous dangling participle, since it was not “I” but “my hat” that is the grammatical subject) (A. P. Chekhov, “The Complaints Book”)
“Будучи не в состоянии удержаться в равновесии на лыжах и не обладая никаким опытом для пребывания на льду, его возможности на возвращение к цивилизации были бы весьма невелики” (lit. “Being unable to keep his balance on skis and having no experience of being on ice, his chances of returning to civilization would be very slight” — the participial phrase does not agree with its intended subject) (Roald Amundsen, “The South Pole”, translated from the Norwegian by M. P. Dyakonova, edited by M. A. Dyakonov)
An example in French:
Quoiqu’il est tard, instead of Quoiqu’il soit tard (lit. “although it is late”, using the indicative “est” instead of the subjunctive “soit” required after “quoique”).
An example in English:
Field of Cloth of Gold
Solecisms are characteristic of colloquial speech, popular vernacular, and dialectal speech, but are avoided in the literary language. For this reason, the solecism is used as a rhetorical figure to imitate a low or colloquial style.
Among solecisms in the broad (rhetorical) sense were included pleonasm, ellipsis, enallage, and anacoluthon (the last of which largely coincides with solecism in the linguistic sense).
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