[B-Greek] 1Co11:17 TOUTO DE PARAGGELLWN

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Sep 5 14:36:18 EDT 2009


On Sep 5, 2009, at 5:27 AM, Steve Runge wrote:

> 1 Cor 11:2 EPAINW DE hUMAS hOTI PANTA MOU MEMNHSQE KAI, KAQWS  
> PAREDWKA hUMIN, TAS PARADOSEIS KATECETE. 3 QELW DE hUMAS EIDENAI  
> hOTI PANTOS ANDROS hH KEFALH hO CRISTOS ESTIN, KEFALH DE GUNAIKOS hO  
> ANHR, KEFALH DE TOU CRISTOU hO QEOS.
>
> 1 Cor 11:17 TOUTO DE PARAGGELLWN OUK EPAINW hOTI OUK EIS TO KREISSON  
> ALLA EIS TO hHSSON SUNERCESQE.
>
> The generativists studying information structure have found an  
> interesting thing: contrast is not so much part of the construction,  
> but the context.

Information structure is always about the context. The most obvious  
previous reference to Paul EPAINWN is in 1 Cor 11:2. Concerning TOUTO  
in v.17 I am assuming it is cataphoric. What in v.17 is the  
presupposition and what is the main point, the predication? Should we  
presuppose that Paul EPAINW his addressees? If so perhaps the negation  
OUK EPAINW is the most salient information. On the other hand, given  
the tone of this letter up to this point, Paul not EPAINWN does not  
appear to be very breath taking news. If TOUTOU is cataphoric then how  
can it function as a contextualizer [which is not = point of departure]?

The information structure v.17 is ambiguous because TOUTO PARAGGELLWN  
isn't expanded by the following hOTI clause. In other words the  
referent of TOUTO PARAGGELLWN is left undefined (temporarily?). If we  
were to assume that Paul used PARAGGELLWN with some unusual sense so  
that the hOTI clause provided the content for TOUTO PARAGGELLWN that  
would make things a lot easier. On that assumption I would be inclined  
to read TOUTO PARAGGELLWN as implicit contrastive focus. But I don't  
think that assumption is a valid one.

I am just thinking about this and posting some "musings" on the  
information structure. The analysis of information structure doesn't  
qualify as "hard science" which is one reason there has been some  
resistance to text linguistics among the traditionalists.

Elizabeth Kline







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