[B-Greek] hO QEOS John 11:22 - pragmatic marking?
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Tue Jul 29 15:33:40 EDT 2008
On Jul 29, 2008, at 12:17 PM, Steve Runge wrote:
> 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.
Thank you Steve.
One point that I didn't mention in my reply to George. In the case of
PATHR we find lots of examples where PATHR is 'overencoded' in
Gosp.John but this isn't the case with QEOS and with TO PNEUMA we find
the opposite pattern, some sort of indirect reference is the norm for
TO PNEUMA. Like I said before, I don't think IHSOUS is relevant.
Elizabeth Kline
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