>" Geller considers both clauses as different realizations of the same
>underlying sentence . . . Geller's analysis is therefore on a deeper
>linguistic level . . . it penetrates deeper into the underlying grammatical
>structure of the lines."
>
>I have a "deep" objection to this procedure. What we have here is a theory of
>syntactic parallelism which is constructed firmly on the foundation of a
>speculation. The speculation is the dubious notion that we can reduce all
>utterances to a simplistic subject-verb-object propositional structure. I
>think this kind of analysis has very little power to "explain" what is going
>on in a text because it is reductionist by nature, removing all kinds of
>significant detail that is present in the so called "surface structure."
>
I dont take it as reductionistic at all, but merely as an effort to clarify
the idea or ideas expressed in a passage. It is, indeed, not a flattening
of the text but a filling out of it by first, looking at the underlying
principle expressed by the parallel lines, and second, seeing how that
underlying thought is fleshed out. Thus, by deconstructing the text it is
made more three dimensional.
>Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
>Three Tree Point
>P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
Quartz Hill School of Theology
jwest@highland.net