expressions we may suppose an interruption of the sentence, and afterwards an abrupt renewal of it; as the king—he reigns.
The fact of the word he neither qualifying nor explaining the word king, distinguishes pleonasm from apposition.
Pleonasm, as far as the view above is applicable, is reduced to what is, apparently, its opposite, viz., ellipsis.
My banks, they are furnished,—the most straitest sect,—these are pleonastic expressions. In the king, he reigns, the word king is in the same predicament as in the king, God bless him.
The double negative, allowed in Greek and Anglo-Saxon, but not admissible in English, is pleonastic.
The verb do, in I do speak, is not pleonastic. In respect to the sense it adds intensity. In respect to the construction it is not in apposition, but in the same predicament with verbs like must and should, as in I must go, &c.; i. e. it is a verb followed by an infinitive. This we know from its power in those languages where the infinitive has a characteristic sign; as, in German,
Die Augen thaten ihm winken.—Goethe.
Besides this, make is similarly used in Old English.—But men make draw the branch thereof, and beren him to be graffed at Babyloyne.—Sir J. Mandeville.
[§ 477]. The figure zeugma.—They wear a garment like that of the Scythians, but a language peculiar to themselves.—The verb, naturally applying to garment only, is here used to govern language. This is called in Greek, zeugma (junction).
[§ 478]. My paternal home was made desolate, and he himself was sacrificed.—The sense of this is plain; he means my father. Yet no such substantive as father has gone before. It is supplied, however, from the word paternal. The sense indicated by paternal gives us a subject to which he can refer. In other words, the word he is understood, according to what is indicated, rather than according to what is expressed. This figure in Greek is called pros to semainomenon (according to the thing indicated).