Syntax & Word Order

Enumeration / Accumulatio

ee-noo-mer-AH-tee-oh

Listing details, examples, or parts of an argument. The list can show the extent of a subject, but the number of items alone does not establish the claim.

Whitman's catalogues of trades and bodies in "Song of Myself"

Don't confuse it with. Simple listing is neutral; enumeratio is a list with rhetorical intent — the pile *is* the point. Congeries is the near-synonym.

Drill its family — Syntax & Word Order

Examples

We checked the doors, the windows, the roof, the drains, and every pipe.

Practice example · written for this exercise

The explicit list presents the scope of the inspection item by item.

hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions

— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice · Act 3, Scene 1 · read the source →

The list enumerates bodily and emotional capacities. Its lack of a final conjunction is also asyndeton.

Often used alongside this device

Explore devices that often appear in the same passages as enumeration / accumulatio.

Litotes 7 Anaphora 7 Asyndeton 6 Hyperbole 6 Polysyndeton 4 Isocolon 4 Antithesis 3 Parallelism 3

The rest of the family

Hyperbaton Anastrophe Periodic Sentence Cumulative (Loose) Sentence Parataxis Parenthesis Apposition / Appositive Zeugma Hendiadys Pleonasm Passive Voice Cleft Sentence