Discontinuous Syntax: article
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
Thanks for the articles, grabbed them for future reading. Wasn't quite sure what Carl's quote from Iliad but it's been eons since I read anything from the Iliad. Very rusty on Homer.
If I return to the original question about the articular participle, it appears that it doesn't perform like an noun phrase in respect to hyperbaton. So my thinking went astray when I expected the same sort of behaviour in respect to the article before a participle. I didn't find participles discussed in the material on hyperbaton. The frame works in the several articles are not immediately recognizable, I can make out portions of the argument but the terminology is somewhat of a challenge.
So what should we say about articular participles in regard to separation of the article from the participle? What are the rules? The classics scholar on the other forum says we will not find the finite verb between the article and the participle.
If I return to the original question about the articular participle, it appears that it doesn't perform like an noun phrase in respect to hyperbaton. So my thinking went astray when I expected the same sort of behaviour in respect to the article before a participle. I didn't find participles discussed in the material on hyperbaton. The frame works in the several articles are not immediately recognizable, I can make out portions of the argument but the terminology is somewhat of a challenge.
So what should we say about articular participles in regard to separation of the article from the participle? What are the rules? The classics scholar on the other forum says we will not find the finite verb between the article and the participle.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
Yeah, most phonologists are still in the "normal science" phase of exploring this theory, working out its implications and testing its limits. There are alternatives out there but it seems that most are content to keep tinkering away at this opaque theory. This will probably continue until the anomalies pile up, which I suspect will be quite a while since the theory, in my view, is far too overpowered (in terms of computational complexity) for the phenomena it purports to explain. But for now, it's pretty much the only game in town -- and one that is virtually impenetrable to classicists.MAubrey wrote:OT is an odd animal for syntax. But it's the standard theoretical model for virtually all phonological analysis these days. It isn't without its problems, but most phonologists use it because no better alternative has been put forward.
OK, it's the same one then as the one that I have, which I inexplicably labeled on my file system as being from 2010. I'll just re-read it then. Thanks.MAubrey wrote:Well, technically you already have back in 2011. But I can send it again, if you'd like.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
The text is a dubious textual variant, most probably a scribal error, this would divert the discussion from the syntax question. The variant reading shows a nominative masculine singular article which could be joined with a nominative masculine singular participle. The article is clause initial the participle clause final. The several other constituents in the clause including the finite verb are all sandwiched between the article and what could be construed as an articular participle if the syntax permits such a construction. The point at issue with the classics scholar is that this syntax isn't permissible Greek. According to him you will not find this syntax in ancient greek texts. [excluding dubious variants which can explained by scribal error, one dropped letter].Stephen Hughes wrote:I find this hard to follow. Should there be some Greek text in here that you are discussing?Stirling Bartholomew wrote:Was talking on another forum with a classics scholar yesterday. He affirmed that the following is impossible greek:
The article separated from it's participle by a finite verb where the articular participle is the subject of that finite verb. I am always wondering about statements made in the NT commentaries and grammars about "impossible" greek syntax. Is this a case of impossible syntax?
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
I am working on a project (actually two projects) that requires reading, understanding and translating textual variants. It isn't sufficient to just throw away every variant that could be a scribal error. The whole question of "impossible syntax" is an open issue with me since I walk on the streets every day and hear all manner of impossible syntax. It happens in a city where there are hundreds of languages and half of the population speaks ESL (broken, minimalist) English. It isn't just spoken language, but language that finds its way into print is nearly as "diverse" as what you encounter on the street. I suspect that the port cities of the ancient world were not unlike this. What managed to survive in documents is a different question.Stirling Bartholomew wrote:The text is a dubious textual variant, most probably a scribal error, this would divert the discussion from the syntax question. The variant reading shows a nominative masculine singular article which could be joined with a nominative masculine singular participle. The article is clause initial the participle clause final. The several other constituents in the clause including the finite verb are all sandwiched between the article and what could be construed as an articular participle if the syntax permits such a construction. The point at issue with the classics scholar is that this syntax isn't permissible Greek. According to him you will not find this syntax in ancient greek texts. [excluding dubious variants which can explained by scribal error, one dropped letter].Stephen Hughes wrote:I find this hard to follow. Should there be some Greek text in here that you are discussing?Stirling Bartholomew wrote:Was talking on another forum with a classics scholar yesterday. He affirmed that the following is impossible greek:
The article separated from it's participle by a finite verb where the articular participle is the subject of that finite verb. I am always wondering about statements made in the NT commentaries and grammars about "impossible" greek syntax. Is this a case of impossible syntax?
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
e. tò méntoi megálōn péri legoménōn nómōn
the.N.AC.SG PRT great.M.GN.PL of spoken.M.GN.PL laws.M.GN.PL
kaì smikrōˆ n ei homoíōs prōimiázdesthai prostáttoimen
and small.M.GN.PL if equal to.preface require.1PL.OPT
‘if we required the (tò) equal prefacing of laws called great and small’
(Plato, Laws 723c7)
Case (e) requires a little explanation: the article tò goes with the infinitive prōimiázdesthai
to form what classicists refer to as an articular infinitive, which we have
translated here as ‘the prefacing’; the separation of tò plus the complement of prōimiázdesthai
on the one hand from prōmiázdesthai itself on the other is what yields the discontinuous
constituent. Exactly the same set of patterns is found with the definite
article.
140 LANGUAGE,VOLUME 86, NUMBER 1 (2010)
PHONOLOGICAL MOVEMENT IN CLASSICAL GREEK
BrianAgbayani Chris Golston p140
Here is an example of hyperbaton involving an articular infinitive. Note there is no finite verb between the article and the infinitive. That doesn't make it a rule. But at least we are in the same neighborhood. I couldn't find anything on participles.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
It has occurred to me that I may be caught up in a fallacy. I was assuming that a constituent which takes the article and appears to occupy the nominative-subject-slot in the clause, this constituent will take on the properties of a noun filling that slot and for that reason behave syntactically like a noun. It appears that this isn't necessarily the case.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
I really think you should quote the exact text to make this discussion more concrete. It's not clear what is sandwiched between the article and the participle, and that could make a big difference. For example, if we're looking at ὁ δὲ X X X finite-verb participle, then we're not really looking at the article per se, but a kind of third person pronoun in a switch topic construction. Or if the constituent that follows the article is a prepositional phrase like ὁ σὺν Παύλῳ, then we're looking at a substantivized prepositional phrase. On the other hand, if the article directly precedes a finite verb like ὁ βαίνει, then yeah it probably nonsense but it could depend on dialect (OK for Homer, I think).Stirling Bartholomew wrote:The text is a dubious textual variant, most probably a scribal error, this would divert the discussion from the syntax question. The variant reading shows a nominative masculine singular article which could be joined with a nominative masculine singular participle. The article is clause initial the participle clause final. The several other constituents in the clause including the finite verb are all sandwiched between the article and what could be construed as an articular participle if the syntax permits such a construction. The point at issue with the classics scholar is that this syntax isn't permissible Greek. According to him you will not find this syntax in ancient greek texts. [excluding dubious variants which can explained by scribal error, one dropped letter].
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
For what it's worth, there are definitions of "impossible [language x]" that still fit within what you're describing here. You'd probably enjoy reading Paul Hopper's 1987 article: "Emergent Grammar." I could e-mail it to you if you're interested.Stirling Bartholomew wrote:The whole question of "impossible syntax" is an open issue with me since I walk on the streets every day and hear all manner of impossible syntax. It happens in a city where there are hundreds of languages and half of the population speaks ESL (broken, minimalist) English. It isn't just spoken language, but language that finds its way into print is nearly as "diverse" as what you encounter on the street. I suspect that the port cities of the ancient world were not unlike this. What managed to survive in documents is a different question.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
here is a very simple example of hyperbaton with an articular participle cited from a corrupt passage in Aeschylus:
I don't think anything controversial is happening here, but so far it is the first discussion I have found of this. Still looking. Obviously this example doesn't illustrate a finite verb nested between the article and the participle. The pattern which "isn't found" in extant greek texts.Nested subject and object hyperbaton about a participle occurs at Choe.985–6, though 986 is probably interpolated: [9]
στέγαστρον ἀνδρὸς δείξαθ', ὡς ἴδῃ πατήρ –
οὐχ οὑμός, ἀλλ' ὁ πάντ' ἐποπτεύων τάδε
Ἥλιος – ἄναγνα μητρὸς ἔργα τῆς ἐμῆς,
[so the father may see], not mine, but the one watching all this, Helios, the unholy deeds of my mother
[9] West (1990b: 262–3) notes that Aeschylus does not elsewhere begin trimeter lines with dactylic words: cf. Ag.7, ajstevra", also generally thought to be corrupt (Fraenkel 1950: 6–9 surveys the textual problems).
Word Order, Focus, and Clause Linking in Greek Tragic Poetry
Bruce Lovat Fraser Darwin College
A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cambridge University January 1999
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstr ... sequence=1
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Discontinuous Syntax: article
Aeschylus, Eumenides 110
καὶ πάντα ταῦτα λὰξ ὁρῶ πατούμενα.
H. W. Smyth Translation: I see all this trampled under foot.
An example of object hyperbaton from the same[1] dissertation. the constituent that forms the object of ὁρῶ is divided by the finite verb. The object constituent includes a participle πάντα ταῦτα λὰξ … πατούμενα.
[1] Word Order, Focus, and Clause Linking in Greek Tragic Poetry
Bruce Lovat Fraser Darwin College
A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cambridge University January 1999
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstr ... sequence=1
καὶ πάντα ταῦτα λὰξ ὁρῶ πατούμενα.
H. W. Smyth Translation: I see all this trampled under foot.
An example of object hyperbaton from the same[1] dissertation. the constituent that forms the object of ὁρῶ is divided by the finite verb. The object constituent includes a participle πάντα ταῦτα λὰξ … πατούμενα.
[1] Word Order, Focus, and Clause Linking in Greek Tragic Poetry
Bruce Lovat Fraser Darwin College
A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cambridge University January 1999
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstr ... sequence=1
C. Stirling Bartholomew