[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
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list