Editing Synesis

{{short description|In linguistics, the change of a word form due to meaning}}

In [[linguistics]], '''synesis''' ({{ety|el|σύνεσις|unification, meeting, sense, conscience, insight, realization, mind, reason}}) is a traditional grammatical/rhetorical term referring to [[Agreement (linguistics)|agreement]] (the change of a [[word form]] based on words relating to it) due to meaning.

A ''constructio kata synesin'' ({{langx|la|constructio ad sensum}}) is a [[grammatical construction]] in which a [[word]] takes the [[grammatical gender|gender]] or [[grammatical number|number]] not of the word with which it should regularly agree, but of some other word ''implied'' in that word. It is effectively an agreement of words with the [[Semantics|sense]], instead of the [[Morphosyntax|morphosyntactic]] form, a type of [[form-meaning mismatch]].<ref name="Bussmann2013">{{cite book|author=Hadumod Bussmann|title=Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O0-9Iw0Qh6EC&pg=PA470|access-date=24 May 2013|date=7 March 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-63038-7|page=470}}</ref>

Examples:
:''One hundred dollars '''is''' the cost of rent.''

:''If the band '''are''' popular, they will play next month.''

Here, the plural pronoun ''they'' and the plural verb form ''are'' co-refer with the singular noun ''band''. One can think of the antecedent of ''they'' as an implied plural noun such as ''musicians''.

Such use in [[English grammar]] is often called '''notional agreement''' (or '''notional concord'''<ref>{{cite book|last1=Quirk|first1=Randolph|author-link1=Randolph Quirk|last2=Greenbaum|first2=Sidney|last3=Leech|first3=Geoffrey| author-link3=Geoffrey Leech|last4=Svartvik|first4=Jan|year=1985|title=A comprehensive grammar of the English language|location=Harlow|publisher=Longman|isbn=0-582-51734-6|url=https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir|url-access=registration}}</ref>), because the agreement is with the ''notion'' of what the noun means, rather than the strict grammatical ''form'' of the noun (the normative formal agreement). The term '''situational agreement''' is also found, since the same word may take a singular or plural verb depending on the interpretation and intended emphasis of the speaker or writer:

:''The government is united.'' (Implication: it is a single cohesive body, with a single agreed policy).
:''The government '''are''' divided.'' (Implication: it is made up of different individuals or factions, with their own different policy views).

Other examples of [[Collective noun#Metonymic merging of grammatical number|notional agreement for collective nouns]] involve some uses of the words ''team'' and ''none''.

Although [[American and British English grammatical differences#Subject-verb agreement|notional agreement is more commonly used]] in [[British English]] than in [[American English]], some amount is [[natural language|natural]] in any variety of English. American [[style guide]]s give advice, for example, on notional agreement for phrases such as ''a number of'', ''a lot of'', and ''a total of''. The ''[[AMA Manual of Style]]'' says,<ref name="AMA_10_7.8.11">{{Citation |last=Iverson |first=Cheryl, et al. (eds) |title=AMA Manual of Style |edition=10th |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford, Oxfordshire |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-517633-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/amamanualofstyle0000unse |section=7.8.11 Number |url-access=registration }}</ref> "''The number'' is singular and ''a number of'' is plural"<ref name="AMA_10_7.8.11"/> (thus ''the number of mosquitoes is increasing'' but ''a number of brands of mosquito repellent are available'') and "The same is true for ''the total'' and ''a total of''"<ref name="AMA_10_7.8.11"/> (thus ''the total was growing'' but ''a total of 28 volunteers have submitted applications'' [not *''has&nbsp;submitted'']). This is the same concept that is covered by [[The Chicago Manual of Style|Chicago style]] (16th ed) at "5.9 Mass noun followed by a prepositional phrase",<ref name="CMOS_16_sect_5.9">{{Citation |author=University of Chicago |title=The Chicago Manual of Style |edition=16th |year= 2010 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press|location= Chicago |isbn=978-0-226-10420-1 |section=5.9 Mass noun followed by a prepositional phrase |url=http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html}}</ref> but not all of the relevant nouns (including "number") are [[mass noun]]s.

==See also==
* [[American and British English grammatical differences#Subject-verb agreement|American and British English grammatical differences: Formal vs. notional agreement]]
* [[Collective noun]]
* ''[[Elohim]]'', a Hebrew word whose number varies.
* {{anli|Pancake sentence}}
* [[Singular they#Examples of generic they|Singular ''they'']]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Grammatical gender]]
[[Category:Grammatical number]]
[[Category:Figures of speech]]