[B-Greek] Re: Mark 9:33ff topic, focus
Chet Creider
creider at uwo.ca
Sun Jun 12 06:42:59 EDT 2005
Chet Creider asked:
>>/TIS MEIZWN, in final position, is clearly the focus. Although much is sometimes claimed
>/for final position as "emphatic" in Greek, I don't have much experience with this myself
>and would like to know what kind of focus those of you who are more familiar with this
>matter than I am in Greek would consider this to be. Is it marked in any way? It may
>help to think of possible permutations of the phrases in this last clause:
>a. PROS ALLHLOUS GAR DIELEXQHSAN EN TH hODWi TIS MEIZWN
>b. DIELEXQHSAN GAR PROS ALLHLOUS EN TH hODWi TIS MEIZWN
>c. TIS GAR MEIZWN DIELEXQHSAN PROS ALLHLOUS EN TH hODWi
> etc.
>Many thanks,
>Chet Creider>
>
>
Randall Buth wrote in reply:
>
>I read TIS MEIZWN as an independent clause, so TIS is fronted as a question word. Both words
>
> are ONOMASTIKH/nominative.
>
>Your proposals
>
Not proposals but 'wonderings'.
> of word order, ‘a’ and ‘b’, strike me as valid, but ‘c’ might need a different
>
> verb. Greek allows quoted speech to be placed before ‘he said’, similarly to English. But in
>
> that case the verb is usually something insipid like EFH ‘he said’ or EIPEN ‘he said’.
>
>DIELEXQHSAN would seem to expect a post-clausal quote or indirect quote.
>
Thank you for your reply. Would you tell me if the following rephrasal
so as to make sure I am understanding the answer
to my question is correct?
The fact that TIS MEIZWN is direct speech has implications for its
freedom of position. Although it is clearly the focus
of the larger unit in which it is embedded, its final position is
normal. Hence it has no clear relevance to the question of
whether final position in Greek can serve as a focus position.
If correct, this leaves open the question of final position in Greek as
a position for focus. Does this happen in
circumstances where the focussed upon element could have occurred in
initial position or some preverbal position?
Perhaps this isn't clear as a question. Consider (1) below and possible
replies (2) and (3):
(1) Who gave the OT reading at the 8 o'clock service?
(2) MARY gave the OT reading (or MARY did) [where MARY indicates the
location of the tonic syllable in the breath group]
(3) The OT reading was given by MARY.
Thanks in advance,
Chet Creider
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