Hypotaxis

Hypotaxis is the grammatical arrangement of functionally similar but "unequal" constructs (from Greek hypo- "beneath", and taxis "arrangement"); certain constructs have more importance than others inside a sentence.

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."

Note the syntactic difference; hypotactic modifiers cannot be separated by a comma.

John Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale" has an example of hypotaxis in the second stanza: "O, for a draught of vintage!

That hath been/ Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, / Tasting of Flora and the country green" (1.