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Parallelism (grammar)


In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. The application of parallelism improves writing style and readability, and is thought to make sentences easier to process.

Parallelism is often achieved using antithesis, anaphora, asyndeton, climax, epistrophe, and symploce.

Compare the following examples:

In the above example, the first sentence has two gerunds and one infinitive. To make it parallel, the sentence can be rewritten with three gerunds or three infinitives.

Note that the first nonparallel example, while inelegantly worded, is grammatically correct: "cooking," "jogging," and "to read" are all grammatically valid conclusions to "She likes." The third nonparallel example is not grammatically correct: "down the alley sprinted" is not a grammatically valid conclusion to "The dog." The final example, which does not attempt to employ parallelism in its conclusion, is grammatically valid; "down the alley he sprinted" is an entirely separate clause.

Parallelism is often used as a rhetorical device. Examples:


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