[B-Greek] Internally-headed relative clauses

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun May 6 08:44:00 EDT 2007



Begin forwarded message:

> Forwarded for: Chet A Creider <creider at uwo.ca>
> Date: May 6, 2007 7:46:20 AM EDT
>
> Ro 6:17b -- CARIS DE TWi QEWi hOTI HTE DOULOI THS hAMARTIAS  
> hUPHKOUSATE DE EK KARDIAS EIS hOV PAREDOQHTE TUPOV DIDACHS
>
> Carl asked about the term internally-head relative clause and also  
> suggested that what was involved was a 'framing' effect, with the  
> relative pronoun and the antecedent enclosing the governing verb.   
> Iver suggested that what was of interest was the question of  
> whether there was a pragmatic effect involved.  I will comment on  
> both the syntactic and the pragmatic factors.
>
> First, the term 'internally-headed relative clause' does exist and  
> might be appropriate here as a description of the arrangement of  
> the words.  There are languages, such as Eskimo (at least in the  
> Canadian dialects that I know) where all relative clauses are  
> internally-headed.  (I published an article on these in the late  
> 70s.) There are also some linguists who have suggested that all  
> relative clauses originate as internally-headed ones (postulating a  
> rule which 'raises' the antecedent out of the relative clause to  
> its normal position).  I doubt, however, that these are internally  
> headed RCs in Greek.
>
> The traditional analysis of these clauses is given, e.g. in Goodwin  
> and Gulick (1930: 221. para. 1036): "the antecedent is often  
> _attracted_ into the relative clause and agrees with the relative  
> clause"  Although I don't think G&G really meant "often" there are  
> examples found from Epic Greek through Hellenistic Greek at least.   
> Another NT example is in Jn 6:14 --
> hOI OUN ANQRWPOI IDONTES hO EPOIHSEN SHMEION ELEGON hOTI ... (for  
> TO SHMEION hO EPOIHSEN just as Iver points out that the Romans  
> example has an alternate form in EIS TON TUPON DIDACHS EIS hON  
> PAREDOQHTE.
>
> I think that the traditional analysis is a better one than the  
> modern analysis and term for what this probably is is just a form  
> of 'hyperbaton' (in this instance meaning transposition of words  
> for rhetorical effect).  The pragmatic effect achieved is that of  
> highlighting the relative clause (i.e. PAREDOQHTE in the Romans  
> example or EPOIHSEN in the example from John.  Remember that the  
> traditional term for relative clause is 'adjectival clause' and in  
> Greek it is possible to have the adjective either precede or follow  
> the noun it modifies.  What this transposition achieves is a  
> parallel effect for adjectival clauses, something impossible for  
> English (to the-which-you-were-committed-to type of teaching;  
> seeing the-which-he-had-performed miracle) and apparently for  
> Jerome's Latin (or perhaps he felt a literal Latin translation  
> would sound too 'artful'):
>
> in eam forman doctrinae, in qua (Nova Vulgata has in quam here -- I  
> don't know why) traditi estis (Ro 6:17b)
>
> Illi ergo homines cum vidissent quod fecerat signum, dicebant ...  
> (Jo 6:14)
> Finally, Carl may enjoy a recent article by Daniel Markovic,  
> "Hyperbaton in the Greek Literary Sentence" (Greek, Roman and  
> Byzantine Studies 46(2006):, 127-146).  (Search on Google for  
> markovic.pdf.)  Your brilliant dissertation is cited in the  
> article, Carl.
>
> Chet Creider




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