[B-Greek] Luke 4:7

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Fri Jun 15 03:03:48 EDT 2007


On Jun 14, 2007, at 12:33 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> I would consider the conditional clause in 4:7 (and in 4:3 and 4:9)  
> more salient than the main
> clause.

Jonathan Robie's point seems to make sense in regard to Lk 4:3,

LUKE 4:3 EIPEN DE AUTWi hO DIABOLOS: EI hUIOS EI TOU QEOU, EIPE TWi  
LIQWi TOUTWi hINA GENHTAI ARTOS.  4 KAI APEKRIQH PROS AUTON hO  
IHSOUS: GEGRAPTAI hOTI OUK EP' ARTWi MONWi ZHSETAI hO ANQRWPOS.

Here, EI hUIOS EI TOU QEOU is part of the shared information common  
to both the speaker and the addressee. The command EIPE ... ARTOS is  
the new information. Within the command TWi LIQWi TOUTWi is part of  
the shared information and  hINA GENHTAI ARTOS is the new  
information. A further indicator that ARTOS is salient is that Jesus  
responds with a statement about bread not stones.

I don't recall reading anything specifically focusing on the  
pragmatic structure of Greek conditional clauses. Perhaps Levinsohn  
has something to say about them.


BTW, the "framework" I am using is Topic-Focus as defined in chapter  
2 of Helma Dik (1995).

Elizabeth Kline

Helma Dik, Word Order in Ancient Greek: A Pragmatic Account of Word  
Order Variation in Herodotus. Amsterdam Studies in Classical  
Philology 5. Amsterdam:  J. C. Gieben, 1995.  Pp. xii + 294. f.  
143.10.  ISBN 90-5063-457-5.





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