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

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Sep 5 16:09:10 EDT 2009


On Sep 5, 2009, at 11:36 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

> 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.

K.Lambrecht (Information Structure CUP 1994 p.210) points out that the  
notion of FOCUS isn't about assigning a property to some some  
constituent in a clause. What is newsworthy within a clause is the  
relationship between what is presupposed and what the author assumes  
cannot be recovered from the current cognitive state of the addressee.  
The apparent incoherence in the text TOUTO PARAGGELLWN ... hOTI ...  
makes it difficult to proceed here with any confidence.

Another [idle?] musing.   TOUTO DE PARAGGELLWN OUK EPAINW might have  
something like a presentational function relative to what follows.

Elizabeth Kline







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