[B-Greek] re: Prominence in Greek Narrative
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Tue Aug 3 06:02:56 EDT 2004
>
>> What textual indicators of prominence should one look for in the Greek of
>> the New Testament? I hope that this question is within the parameters for
>> this list.
>
>I actually think this question is quite clear and I understand it. I gave
a
>paper on this very thing at SBL in Atlanta in one of the Greek language and
>linguistics sections--and had an interesting exchange with Levinsohn during
>questions (well, at least it was interesting to the two of us).
>
>The thing is, the answer is quite detailed. Prominence involves the use of
>devices with which a speaker highlights material to make some part of the
text
>stand out. I like Longacre's description: "zones of turbulence". In a
>nutshell, in Greek authors created prominence with some combination of a
confluence
>of marked grammatical forms, the use of particular conjunctions and
particles,
>deixis (temporal, spatial and conceptual), contrast, elaboration, a crowded
>stage, central sentences and/or the use of patterns or repetition.
>
>Of course, each of these categories need a lot of expanation to mean
>anything, especially markedness, the conjunctions and particles involved
and deixis.
>These are all technical linguistic terms as is prominence.
>
>This works with other genres besides narrative also.
>
>Cindy Westfall
All of the devices that Cindy mentions are part of the signals that someone
would want to control and
follow in any language. However, the conglomeration at one point was assumed
to be typical for a
'peak', something that Longacre termed a 'zone of turbulance'. 'Peak' does
not refer to generic (plain vanilla)
prominence. Any and all of the language indicators become a kind of
prominence thread and could make
for a good thread here on b-greek. E.g., narrative use of imperfect versus
aorist, or word order, or
use of article with name, or use of pronouns, or , etc. KTL.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Hebrew University, Rothberg International School
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list