Fronting & Point of Departure

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sat Apr 08 2000 - 16:02:15 EDT


Just finished reading chapter one of Stephen Levinsohn, Discourse Features
of New Testament Greek, SIL 1992 222 pp. (paper). Thanks to Wayne for
suggesting this book and thanks to Criswell College for letting me read
their copy of it.

On page 21 of this book Randall Buth is cited* as suggesting that
establishing the point of departure is the UNMARKED purpose for fronting and
that we should not consider that a constituent has been fronted for
highlighting unless it cannot be interpreted as a point of departure.

OK, here is my question. Can we ever find a case in NT Greek where the point
of departure is NOT fronted. If not, is there a slim possibility that there
is some infinitesimal hint of circular reasoning in this whole discussion.
If we define fronting as the standard means of indicating point of departure
(this is not exactly what Randall Buth said) have we not essential defined
our model such that a point of departure which was not fronted will never be
discovered? What sort of independent criteria can we use to discover the
point of departure, that is criteria independent of clause order?

Some of you may remember my previous questions about post-positive
participles. This question is a continuation on the same theme but it has
been expanded to include all post-positive constituents which would be
understood as as indicating point of departure if they were pre-positive. In
other words I am questioning what seems to be an established universal rule
that point of departure is marked by position within the clause.

These are just questions. I am at least 20 years behind Randall Buth in my
study of NT Discourse Analysis, so I am just asking all this with all due
respect.

--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062

* Levinsohn indicates that his citation form Buth is taken from "personal
communication" not from a published source. I picture them arguing about
this over a late dinner taken in the Menachem Begin wing of the King David
Hotel.

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:41:06 EDT