[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Architecture of NT Greek

Micheal wrote:

>>>>>>>>>
 You use 'marked' in two different ways in posing your question. Iota 
stem third declension nouns are marked in the sense that they do not 
represent the usual way of marking case (they have a different set of 
forms). They *always* have these forms, however. They do not have them 
in certain contexts and not have them in others. Augmented verbs are 
'marked' in a very different sense. The same verb does appear in some 
contexts with the augment and in others without it. The augment 
indicates that something is different from those contexts in which the 
same verb appears without the augment. For this reason, the grammars 
must attempt to state what that 'difference' is. In the case of iota 
stem third declension nouns, there is no variation of this sort. Some 
nouns are iota stem third declension nouns, while others are not, but 
no verb is a iota stem third declension noun in some contexts and an 
alpha stem first declension noun in others. For this reason it is not 
immediately obvious that there should be a specific semantic value 
attached to iota stem third declension nouns (although there *could* 
be). 
>>>>>>>>>

Two seconds after e-mailing that question it dawned on me that *marked 
form* was a slippery term that needed clarifying. Micheal has 
clarified it well. I have a further problem in this same area.

I would suggest that markedness probably can be divided into three 
components or more. There are morphological markings which are a 
physical aspect of the text. There are functional markings which a 
scholar can extract from the morphological markings by studying the 
system of oppositions. This is the kind of analysis that Micheal did 
above. I think that there are also perhaps semantic markings that are 
a third level abstraction from the physical text. The semantic 
markings are discovered by studying the system of oppositions in the 
functional markings. There are doubtless more levels but this is 
enough for the purpose of illustration. 

I think what makes life a little difficult is that these three systems 
are self contained and internally coherent, but the connections 
between the three systems are rather complex and difficult to 
visualize. 

I think a lot of exegetical discussions come to grief precisely 
because these issues are not clear. We jump willy nilly from 
morphology to semantics to function and back again without any clear 
picture of what we are doing.

A couple of specific, related (perhaps?) questions:

Elimination of Anachronisms

The pluperfect generally looses it's augment in NT Greek. Is this 
simply because the pluperfect has adequate morphological marking to 
sustain it without the augment? 

Which Kind of Marking

A few verbs have both first and second aorists. Are these forms always 
distinguished semantically (lexical semantics)? If not, which kind of 
marking according to Micheal's definition would this opposition 
represent? 

Clay Bartholomew 
Three Tree Point
Follow-Ups: