Peculiar Word Order

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at saint.soongsil.ac.kr
Sat Apr 24 22:20:41 EDT 1999


On 04/24/99, ""George Blaisdell" <maqhth at hotmail.com>" wrote:
> >From: "Moon"
> 
> >Recently I encountered two sentences whose word order I could not 
> >understand.  Lk 7:40: ECW SOI TI EIPEIN ( I have something to tell 
> 
> you]
> >Heb 2:8b: NUN DE OUPW ORAMEN AUTWi TA PANTA hUPOTETAGMENA
> >(We are not yet seeing  everything having been subjected to him]
> >
> >Logically speaking, I thought the object of ECW is TI                
> >and the object of ORAMEN is TA PANTA.
> 
> It is...
>                                                                     
> >But the verbs  and the objects are separated by
> >datives SOI and AUTWi, respectively. I wondered why they did not
> >write as ECW TI EIPEIN SOI.  Similarly why not 
> > NUN DE OUPW ORAMEN TA PANTA hUPOTETAGMENA AUTWi?
> >
> >Does  ECW SOI TI EIPEIN intend to  convey a similar thing as
> > "I have something to tell YOU", where YOU is stressed?
> 
> Perhaps the key here is the principle of "enclosure" in Greek word 
> order.  ECW EIPEIN encloses SOI TI, thereby emphasizing it [SOI TI].
> 
> ECW TI EIPEIN SOI would have ECW SOI enclosing TI EIPEIN, thus 
> emphasizing TI EIPEIN.  [and so on...]
> 
> Likwise with AUTWi in Heb., which is enclosed by the whole sentence, 
> being in the middle of it.  Carl's chiastic observations are exactly 
> on point....
>  
> >When the sentence in question is SOI TI EIPEIN, I can understand it.
> >But when it is embedded as an object of a verb, I do not understand 
> >what is going on in ECW SOI TI EIPEIN.
> >
> >I guess I am missing something about Greek word order.
> 
> It is not fixed as in English, but has a fluidity that follows the 
> thought process of its user, working outward from centers that are 
> enclosed.
> 
> 
> 
George, thanks for your comments. But is this principle of enclosure
well investigated and demonstrated sufficiently? I feel like it is too
orderly and too systematic for a human language.

Respectfully
Moon-Ryul Jung
Assistant Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea
>  
> George Blaisdell 
> Roslyn, WA 
> 
> 
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