Luke 14:26 (Word Order)

yochanan bitan ButhFam at compuserve.com
Wed Jan 12 05:03:22 EST 2000


>Luke 14:26 has--
>EI TIS ERXETAI PROS ME KAI OU MISEI TON PATERA AUTOU....OU DUNATAI EINAI
MOU 
>MAQHTHS.
>
>My question is whether the location of MOU in the above makes a difference
if 
>it is placed before MAQHTHS or after.

the word order "einai mou maqhths" would seem to put its normal, salient
peak on "maqhths". (i use salient peak [for important information with
normal intonation] because emphasis miscommunicates and is widely misused
in popular language studies and philology.) 

the word mou 'my' is in a very NORMAL position for hellenistic greek and is
probably 'more-presupposed information, less salient" than maqhths.
a true focus structure (grammatically highlighted, salient information)
would have needed to bring mou in front of einai: ou dunatai MOU einai
maqhths, (or even more severely: MOU ou dunatai einai maqhths). 

erroso
randall buth



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