[B-Greek] hO QEOS John 11:22 - pragmatic marking?

Steve Runge srunge at logos.com
Tue Jul 29 15:17:48 EDT 2008


Elizabeth,

I found a comment in Robertson this morning regarding your question:

"f) Repetition of the Substantive.  Sometimes indeed the substantive is merely repeated instead of using the pronoun. Thus in Jo. 11:22 we have ??? ????-? ????. This is usually due to the fact that the mere pronoun would be ambiguous as in the use of ?????? in Jo. 4:1. Sometimes it may be for the sake of emphasis as in ? ???? ??? ???????? (Lu. 12:8) rather than ???. Sometimes antithesis is better sustained by the repetition of the substantive. Thus with ?????-?????? (Jo. 9:5), ???????-???????? (Ro. 5:12). But this is no peculiarity of Greek."

A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Logos, 1919; 2006), 684.

IMO, I think there is some measure of thematic prominence that is added through what amounts to redundant use of hO QEOS. The use of a passive form of DIDWMI would have kept the thematic spotlight on Jesus as the asker, rather than on God as the giver. While the NP is not semantically required, I would say that its inclusion disambiguates where the thematic spotlight is placed. The ordering of the words is what I would consider default, it is the overencoding of the NP that gives it prominence. 

Levinsohn makes reference to overencoding is his "Discourse Features of NT Greek" (2000:135ff), however his discussion of overencoding primarily treats NPs narrative proper, not usage within speeches reported in the narrative. My research leads me to view this as a case of thematic prominence as opposed to focus. It highlights God's role in the equation more than would have been achieved by using a null reference, but the fact that whatever Jesus asks of God IS GIVEN remains most important, IMO.

Regards,

Steven Runge, DLitt (Biblical Languages)
Scholar-in-Residence
Logos Research Systems, Inc.
http://www.logos.com/academic/bio/runge 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Kline
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 2:29 PM
To: greek B-Greek
Subject: [B-Greek] hO QEOS John 11:22 - pragmatic marking?

John 11:22 [ALLA] KAI NUN OIDA hOTI hOSA AN AITHSHi TON QEON DWSEI SOI hO QEOS.

Why do we see hO QEOS, here rather than a personal pronoun? Does John have a problem with pronominal reference to QEOS? I didn't find a lot of examples but check the following.

John 4:24 PNEUMA hO QEOS, KAI TOUS PROSKUNOUNTAS AUTON EN PNEUMATI KAI ALHQEIAi DEI PROSKUNEIN.

  AUTON coreferential hO QEOS

John 6:29 APEKRIQH h[O] IHSOUS KAI EIPEN AUTOIS: TOUTO ESTIN TO ERGON TOU QEOU, hINA PISTEUHTE EIS hON APESTEILEN EKEINOS.

EKEINOS coreferential hO QEOS

John 8:54 APEKRIQH IHSOUS: EAN EGW DOXASW EMAUTON, hH DOXA MOU OUDEN
ESTIN: ESTIN hO PATHR MOU hO DOXAZWN ME, hON hUMEIS LEGETE hOTI QEOS hHMWN ESTIN,

hON coreferential QEOS hHMWN


John 11:22 [ALLA] KAI NUN OIDA hOTI hOSA AN AITHSHi TON QEON DWSEI SOI hO QEOS.

Why do we see hO QEOS, here rather than a personal pronoun? Perhaps hO QEOS is in focus here, since clause final position is often used for focal constituents. The use of the full noun phrase where it isn't expected would also indicate some sort of pragmatic marking. I don't have the answer to this.


Elizabeth Kline




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