[b-greek] time flies like an arrow and the notion of sentence

From: Chet Creider (creider@csd.uwo.ca)
Date: Fri Jul 27 2001 - 09:53:30 EDT


> > > > Here's a traditional example from Chomsky:
> > > >
> > > > Time flies like an arrow.
> > > > Fruit flies like a banana.

Please excuse my belated comments here. First, to correct the attribution:
this example was originally thought of by Susumo Kuno (a linguist at
Harvard University from whom Chomsky may have heard it). I believe that
the first appearance of the sentence was in a Groucho Marx film, but Kuno
was the one who brought it in to linguistics.

Second, if anyone has doubts about the reality of "sentence" in English,
try the following exercise I sometimes give my students. Note that this
says nothing about sentence in Greek. I would imagine that sentence could
be reasonably defined for Attic prose although I've never tried to, but
this is almost certainly not useful for NT Greek. In particular one would
need to look carefully at the various kinds of paratactic connections
(asyndeton, with KAI, etc.). I don't know whether the resulting unit
would be best thought of as a discourse unit (a kind of paragraph). Is
there any literature on this topic?

Chet Creider
======================================================================
Punctuate and capitalize:

Dear John I want a man who knows what
love is all about you are generous kind
thoughtful people who are not like you
admit to being useless and inferior you
have ruined me for other men I yearn for
you I have no feelings whatsoever when
we're apart I can be forever happy will you
let me be yours Gloria

Now reverse Gloria's feelings and do it
again:

Dear John I want a man who knows what
love is all about you are generous kind
thoughtful people who are not like you
admit to being useless and inferior you
have ruined me for other men I yearn for
you I have no feelings whatsoever when
we're apart I can be forever happy will you
let me be yours Gloria


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