[B-Greek] some lingustic questions on Jn 7:8
Harold R. Holmyard III
hholmyard at ont.com
Wed Jan 28 13:44:52 EST 2004
Dear Iver,
You wrote:
>In the phrase EIS THN hEORTHN TAUTHN
>the word "this" is in the non-emphatic position after the
>head of the noun phrase which means that it does not focus on THIS
>particular feast in contrast to the next or another feast, but it is a
>simple back reference to the feast being talked about, and this nuance is
>more accurately represented in English by "the feast" than "this feast".
And later:
>Well, I think that if you do a comprehensive study of nouns modified by
>hOUTOS you will find that the default, unmarked position is to have hOUTOS
>follow the head noun, and there is no reason for that order to "stand out"
>if we look at the Greek rather than the English. When it is fronted, it
>indicates emphasis on that part of the meaning of the noun phrase that is
>carried by hOUTOS, that is, THIS x is contrasted to another x. In the normal
>position hOUTOS is not contrastive, but serves as a back reference to an
>already introduced concept. (The rules for the order of noun plus
>demonstrative and noun plus adjective are not the same, but that is a bigger
>topic.)
HH: Daniel Wallace seems to agree with you. He says (Greek Grammar Beyond
the Basics, 306, 308) that in the order article-adjective-noun (the first
attributive position) the adjective receives greater emphasis than the
substantive. He is quoting A. T. Robertson. When the order is
article-noun-adjective (second predicate position), he says the emphasis
seems to either equally placed on both noun and adjective or is slightly
heavier on the noun.
That would mean in John 7:8, which uses article-noun-adjective (THN hEORTHN
TAUTHN), there should be no special emphasis on TAUTHN.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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