Uses of GAR

Steven Lo Vullo slovullo at mac.com
Thu Sep 26 01:12:47 EDT 2002


On Wednesday, September 25, 2002, at 10:46 AM, Dr. Dale M. Wheeler 
wrote:

> I'd appreciate it if you'd send me directly any questions or 
> suggestions that you have about the GCGNT; I look at them all and keep 
> them in a file, and if they are egregious enough I fix them and do an 
> interim release.

Will do.

> As to how to distinguish these GAR's, the two tags used in GC are: (1) 
> Coordinating, Explanatory, and (2) Subordinating, Causal, as you have 
> also observed.  In explaining this to my students I use the 
> terminology of Causal = Direct Reason and Explanatory = Argumentative 
> Reason (ie., GAR is used to introduce supporting information within 
> the structure of an argument; in an exegetical outline I have them 
> state it as "The reason [Paul] can claim that...").  Off the top of my 
> head (my diagrams are at school), I'd probably diagram BDAG's ##1a-d 
> "cause or reason", #2 "explanatory", and #3 "inferential" as 
> subordinating; ##1e, 1f, 4 as a sign-post continuing a previous 
> thought in general.  I don't recall ever diagramming a GAR as a full 
> coordinating conjunction with branches, like KAI or DE; thus the GAR's 
> GC tags as Coordinating, Explanatory could be diagrammed either as 
> sign-post or subordinating, depending on their function within the 
> argument and how tight the link between the GAR clause and the 
> preceding clause is, ie., if the GAR is explaining the main idea of 
> the preceding clause or if it is just picking up the general idea of 
> the preceding clause(s).

Thanks very much, that's a concise, helpful explanation. I'm especially 
thankful for reference to the diagramming symbols. I often want to ask 
questions about which symbols people would use for various 
constructions but refrain because not everyone believes in the benefit 
of diagramming and those who do may use systems that differ from the 
symbol system contained in Accordance.
============

Steven R. Lo Vullo
Madison, WI




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