ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-HAR9-0015 · ATLAS 260

Antistasis

Repeating the same word with a changed or opposed meaning.

Part of the subject path Rhetoric and Style

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

F · Figure / procedure R1 · Distinct contribution to understanding

A repeated word can turn against its earlier sense. Antistasis binds two uses through their recognisable form while allowing their meanings to pull apart, within one utterance as well as across speakers.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Antistasis repeats the same word while changing its meaning in the second use or turning it in an opposed direction. Stable form initially suggests identity; context then compels reinterpretation and makes semantic dependence immediately perceptible. The figure can reclaim concepts critically, sharpen definitions, or function as wordplay. It may also exploit ambiguity to conceal an invalid inference. Analysis determines the sense activated by each occurrence, reconstructs the contextual turn, and tests whether the point illuminates difference or uses equivocation argumentatively.

Movement of thought

1. All occurrences of the same word form are marked and described in their syntax separately. 2. A distinct sense is assigned to each occurrence from collocation, context, and contrast. 3. The transition shows whether meaning broadens, narrows, is revalued, or turns into its opposite. 4. An unambiguous paraphrase tests whether the point creates insight or conceals a fallacy. 5. Analysis returns both senses to their shared form and describes the productive tension between them.

Scientific use case

Rhetoric, semantics, lexicography, argumentation, and political concept analysis study antistasis through sense annotation and paraphrase tests. These distinguish critical revaluation, slogan formation, and equivocal fallacy.

Example

“A path is not already a path to knowledge merely because everyone calls it a path.” The repeated term shifts among spatial metaphor, convention, and epistemic procedure.

Counterexample

Lexical repetition with stable meaning, polysemy alone, or every pun is not antistasis. The same form must locally recur with a recognisably changed or opposed sense.

Distinction

Antistasis can occur within one utterance or across speakers; speaker change is not a defining requirement. Distinguish antistasis from ploce, polysemy, diaphora, and paronomasia. Antistasis repeats the same form with changed meaning; polysemy is a lexical property, while paronomasia works with similar forms.

Effect on thought and perception

Antistasis exposes the mobility of meaning and can productively disturb familiar concepts. It may also hide semantic differences beneath identical form and thereby encourage specious inference.

Resonance

A word body passes through a contextual node and returns semantically altered. The same form carries two vibrations whose difference becomes clear only in the echo.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Antistasis“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-HAR9-0015. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR9-0015

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR9-0015

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Bullinger records antistasis as a name associated with a word standing against another in an opposite sense, then notes a rhetorical use in which an act is defended by the worse outcome that its omission would have caused. The two descriptions should not be merged without explanation: semantic opposition and counterfactual justification are distinct operations. For the Atlas, this is a case where a learned label carries different classificatory work across traditions. A defence based on an avoided consequence also needs evidence that the consequence was genuinely likely; naming the figure cannot validate the argument. Bullinger’s passage documents that variability in English reception. The present profile’s intended sense must be checked against a direct source before its boundary with antanaclasis or comparative justification is settled.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

When a defence invokes a worse alternative, test its likelihood. The rhetorical label supplies no evidence that the avoided consequence would have occurred.

References for the historical section

  • E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), Cornell scan · PDF p. 343: Antanaclasis and Antistasis

    Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. Uncorrected scan text layer; page numbers are PDF pages. Bullinger’s classifications and theological judgments are historical evidence, not a current consensus.

  • E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), Cornell scan · PDF p. 343: Antanaclasis and Antistasis

    Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. Uncorrected scan text layer; page numbers are PDF pages. Bullinger’s classifications and theological judgments are historical evidence, not a current consensus.

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.