[B-Greek] Fronting for Emphsais in 1 John--theory vs statistics
Alexander Loney
alexander.loney at duke.edu
Sat Nov 6 17:22:54 EST 2004
Helma Dik is her name. I have read some of her work and she at least does
take some recourse to statistics. Nevertheless the basic premise of Dr.
Buth, I think, is sound. Numerical prevalence of any pattern is only part of
an analysis of markedness, in word order and in other linguistic phenomena
(such as verb forms... Comrie's Aspect has a good little section on this).
-------------------------------------------------------
Alexander Loney
Duke University
Classical Studies
now the ears of my ears are awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened
- e e cummings
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of R Yochanan Bitan
Buth
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 4:33 PM
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [B-Greek] Fronting for Emphsais in 1 John--theory vs statistics
Mishoe EGRAPSEN
> There must be some statistical work done for the GNT
> to determine "default" word order (anyone know of such
> a study?), perhaps by author. This really should not
> be a debatable topic. Statistics should settle this
> one.
Actually, in much linguistic theory raw statistics are not used to identify
basic word order. To what may this be compared? Perhaps text criticism will
help some on this list: "manuscripts are weighed, not counted". Similarly
with word orders: the underlying word orders that can explain how
pragmatically and syntactically marked word orders are generated-such
underlying word orders are accepted as the theoretical 'defaults'. Of
course, in a language as fluid as Greek, this is not always easy to extract.
The rule of thumb in the previous post does rely on and accept that pre-verb
pieces of a clause are 'fronted'/marked, and is based on several published
'NT' studies. It also reads well, i.e., it provides natural readings that
consistently match contexts. For Herodotus, there is a long book on the
issue from a few years ago by a Ms. Dik. (I don't remember her first name.
Helma?)
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
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