Participial Salience - Longacre

Joe A. Friberg JoeFriberg at email.msn.com
Tue Feb 29 19:16:32 EST 2000


----- Original Message -----
From: "clayton stirling bartholomew" <c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 3:47 PM

<<<

R. E. Longacre* states that the salience of a preposed participle
(before the finite verb) is relative to the finite verb it is associated
with and less than that verb (see his chart on page 179). This means
that a preposed participle dependent on a finite verb in the imperfect
will have less salience than preposed participles dependent on finite
verbs in the aorist or historical present.

Longacre also states (p, 177) that a postposed participle (after the
finite verb) "is of the same semantic rank as the verb it follows; that
is, it is consecutive on the preceding main verb and continues its
function."

My question is about postposed participles. It seems that Longacre's
scheme makes the postposed participle a completely different animal from
the preposed participle. In other words, he seems to be saying that the
semantic and syntactic function of the participle is dependent on word
order.  Does this wash? Can we say without qualification that the
position of the participle relative to its finite verb determines its
semantic and syntactic function in the discourse?

I am particularly interested in seeing examples where the postposed
participle seems to function like a preposed participle. In other words
I am looking for counter examples to help clarify Longacre's  salience
scheme.

>>>

I (like you) was suprised when you stated that Longacre ranked postposed
participles with teh same salience as the finite verb.  I had to go to the
library today to look at the article to see if there was something that I
was missing, but there wasn't.

As to the distinction between pre- and post-posed participles, I would agree
with Longacre strongly.  They do have different semantic/discourse
functions, and I would be agreeable with assigning them different levels of
salience.

[Please note: I might also consider whether participles of different
tense/aspect exhibit different salience; but for now, let me just consider
Aorist participles--these are all that are considered below.]

I like his label of pre-posed participles as 'preparatory', a term I also
use to describe this function: it leads into the action of the main verb,
frequently in the manner of a step-goal relationship.  Assigning these
preparatory/preposed participles the next lower rung on his
salience/dynamicity cline is appropriate.  In Mt 28.19 we read
POREUQENTES...MAQHTEUSATE: the 'going' is preparatory to the 'discipling',
and is also subordinate to it in prominence.

He labels the post-posed participles as 'consecutive', which may be as good
as any overall lable.  They can be multivalent in function, however.  They
can elaborate on specific aspects of the event of the main verb, describe
circumstantial events on which the main verb logically depends, etc., but in
any event, I take these verbs as having *lower* prominence than the main
verb, and would even be strongly inclined to rank them lower than the
preparatory pariciples!

One consideration to note is that the text he was analyzing (Mk 5.1-43)
contains only a few (3?) consecutive/post-posed participles, all of which
are speech margins: Mk 5.12 PAREKALESAN...LEGONTES.  This is not a lot of
data to draw a conclusion on.   Here, I would identify the aorist
PAREKALESAN as a mainline narrative event, while LEGONTES, which introduces
the direct speech, is filling in the details, which is background, not
foreground information!

Back to Mt 28.20: there are also 2 post-posed participles:
MAQHTEUSATE...BAPTIZONTES...DIDASKONTES: here I understand 'discipling' to
be the umbrella activity, under which 'baptizing' and 'teaching' are
subordinate activities.  If I were drawing up a traditional outline on these
activities, I would structure these as three elements:
I.
    A.
    B.
Longacre uses this verse as an example, but explicitly takes these three
events as three activities of equal prominence.  So, I would (respectfully
of course!) revise his salience scheme as (abbreviated):

1.1 Aorist Indicative
    1.2 Preposed participles (preparatory) dependent on 1.1
        1.3 Postposed participles (consecutive) dependent on 1.1

The reason I place the Preposed higher than the Postposed is that Preposed
encode events distinct from the main verb, while the postposed events are
frequently dependent on the main verb.

Additional exs. follow:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Parker" <stoixein at sdf.lonestar.org>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 6:26 PM

> Clayton,
> Does the following help at all?
>
> Ernest De Witt Burton _Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament
> Greek_ page 66:
>
> Acts 16:23; 22:24; 23:34; 24:23, where the participle, which
> is without the article and follows the verb, is most naturally
> interpreted as referring to an action subsequent in thought
> and fact to that of the verb which it follows, and equivalent
> to KAI with a coordinate verb.

Again, I may be in disagreement with Burton, but let me address the relevant
verbs in the first two citations listed.

Acts 16.23 EBALON EIS FULAKHN, PARAGGEILANTES TW DESMOFULAKI ASFALWS THREIN
AUTOUS
Here, 'threw into prison' is clearly mainline, but 'commanding the jailer to
guard them securely' is not a mainline event; it is merely adding in a
detail regarding a precaution that they took.  It is supportive of the main
verb, not an independent verb of equal status.

Acts 22.24 EKELEUSEN hO XILIARXOS EISAGESQAI AUTON EIS THN PAREMBOLHN, EIPAS
MASTICIN ANETAZESQAI AUTON hINA EPIGNW ...
Again, 'stating that he should be examined by whipping' is a subordinate
command to the first order 'to bring him in to the barracks'.  This is one
set of commands, the first taking care of the actual disturbance by simply
separating Paul from the crowd, and the second being and administrative
procedure/investigation.  Hence the distinction between mainline narrative
carried by the aorist, and lower level salience event carried by the
postposed participle.

My supposition is that Longacre simply has not reviewed enough material on
this construction.

Hope this helps!

God Bless!
Joe A. Friberg






More information about the B-Greek mailing list