[B-Greek] textured layering and clausal demotion

Dr Dale M Wheeler dalemw at multnomah.edu
Tue Apr 20 00:09:01 EDT 2004


"R Yochanan Bitan Buth" <ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>XAIREIN
>
>I read several of the recent thread on relative pronouns and clausal
>relations. I think the responses worked in the right direction, explaining
>that a relative pronoun or participle does not mark many of the
>relationships that are listed and taught to beginning Greek students trying
>to quasi-translate into English. Thw writer assumes that the relationships
>are inherent to the context. I would like to look at that from another
>perspective (that may have been in that thread, but missed by me).
>
>Greek writers get to choose prominence of one clause in relationship to
>another by means of the weight of finite verbs versus "other" (participles
>and infinitives). Finite verbs must explicitly mark something about the
>relationship, though admittedly a DE, TE, KAI, OUN, GAR, OS or asyndeton are
>not highly defined.
>
>The important distinction for a Greek reader to notice is whether the
>writer/speaker gave full finite-verb clause status to the proposition or
>whether the proposition/event was demoted to something like a participle,
>infinitive, abstract noun, etc. Such prominence ranking is one of the main
>clues that an audience has when following a Greek argument. It is one of the
>skills and 'rhythms' that develop from extensive reading and use of Greek.
>It is also one of the reasons for reading a text in Greek rather than
>translation, because one can follow the texture of the text, feel the bumps
>in the road. Favorite texts may take on a different perspective or clarity,
>e.g. Rom 3:23-24, or 5:1.
>
>There are also occasional conventions that function as a foil, as a
>counterpoint to the above, like EU POIHSEIS TOUTO POIHSAS where the main
>request is demoted to a participle, which provides a kind of polite
>softening of a wish/command.

XAIREIN Randall:

Exactly!  I agree totally.  This issue is NOT that hOS or GAR or any other 
structural marker is inherently "adverbial", they just mark the point of 
juxtaposition between two ideas, both of which USUALLY contain a verbal 
themselves.  KAI is no more explicit in defining this relationship than is 
a circumstantial participle, its just that after looking at grammar books 
with their lists of adverbial ptc. usage, people come away with the 
mistaken impression that the ptc. itself somehow tells the reader the 
relationship, and it just doesn't do that.

And as you point out, as I pointed out in a previous post as well, there is 
an inherent pecking order in these things whereby an author is able to 
order the significance of various parts of his argument; usually, 1st - 
Independent Finites (Ind., Subj., Imp'v), 2nd - Conjunction 
Subordinated/Coordinated Finites, 3rd - Participles/Infinitives, 4th - 
Prepositional Phrases, 5th - Semantically neutral markers (rel. pron., 
asyndeton, apposition, rhetorical questions, etc.).  This is not absolute 
and inviolable, but I've observed that it generally holds true in 
Epistolary Literature (Narrative Literature is structured in a totally 
different way).

There are exceptions of course, the most obvious one being prepositional 
phrases, which tend to mark fairly delimited possible connections between 
ideas, but the idea following the preposition normally does not contain any 
verbal at all.  However the fact that the prepositional phrase normally 
functions adverbially, it does tend to carry forward the development of the 
argument of a passage.

Again, for beginners, these things are not always obvious, but if they are 
given a method by which they can figure them out, they usually can...its 
very mechanical at first, but they gradually learn to identify these 
things, just like they begin eventually to be able to distinguish an 
Indicative from a Subjunctive or an Imperative...or the use of a 
Circumstantial Participle.

Blessings...

**************************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Asst. Prof., Biblical Languages/Bible  Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street                       Portland, OR  97220
V: 503-251-6416    F:503-251-6478     E: dalemw at multnomah.edu
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