Hypotaxis is the grammatical arrangement of functionally similar but "unequal" constructs (hypo="beneath", taxis="arrangement"), i.e., constructs playing an unequal role in a sentence.

A common example of syntactic expression of hypotaxis is subordination

Subordination (linguistics)

In linguistics, subordination is a complex syntactic construction in which one or more clauses are dependent on the main clause, such as The dog ran home after it had played with the ball. The italicized text is the subordinate clause...

 in a complex sentence

Complex sentence

A complex sentence is a sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.-Examples:* I ate the meal that you cooked....

. Another example is observed in premodification. In the phrase "inexpensive composite materials", "composite" modifies "materials" while "inexpensive" modifies the complex head

Head (linguistics)

In linguistics, the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member, or analogously the stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a component. The other elements modify the head....

 "composite materials" , rather than "composite" or "materials". In this example the phrase units are hierarchically structured, rather than being on the same level, as compared to the example "Cockroaches love warm, damp, dark places." Notice the syntactic difference; hypotactic modifiers cannot be separated by comma

Comma

A comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...

s.

A classical example of verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

al hypotaxis, unobservable in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, is the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 phrase Molon labe

Molon labe

The Ancient Greek phrase ' means "Come and take them". It is a classical expression of defiance reportedly spoken by King Leonidas I in response to the Persian army's demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae...

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