From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sun Mar 21 1999 - 17:20:16 EST
In Luke 7:2-3 we observe a remarkable shift in grammatical subject
without the introduction of a noun or even a pronoun in 7:3. What can we
make of this?
Luke 7:2-3a
2 hEKATONTARCOU DE TINOS DOULOS KAKWS ECWN HMELLEN TELEUTAN,
hOS HN AUTWi ENTIMOS. 3 AKOUSAS DE PERI TOU IHSOU APESTEILEN . . .
Here we have a case where the subject of verse 3 is not explicit (zero
anaphora), that is the subject is only indicated by the verb inflection.
However, the subject of the previous clause is DOULOS so the reader has
to go hunting for the subject of APESTEILEN. I think that discourse
analysis can help us understand the dynamics of this passage.
Jeffrey T. Reed, in A Discourse Analysis of Philippians (Sheffield 1997)
on page 117-118 gives some general rules about the relationship between
word order and prominence. I will summarize:
A clause constituent (e.g., noun, adjective, verb) gains in discourse
prominence as it moves to the left of the clause and gains in clause
prominence as it moves to the right of the clause.
If we apply this principle mechanically (i.e., without nuance) to Luke
7:2, we will conclude that TELEUTAN has a high level of clause
prominence and that hEKATONTARCOU has a high level of discourse
prominence. This makes a certain amount of sense. Since the impending
death of the servant is certainly prominent in the clause and the
Centurion is certainly prominent in the pericope.
The use of zero anaphora in Luke 7:3 (i.e., the omission of an explicit
subject, noun, pronoun, etc.) is somewhat less disruptive in view of the
position of hEKATONTARCOU in the previous verse. The clause initial
position of hEKATONTARCOU has announced to the reader: "This is a main
participant in this story." Note that hEKATONTARCOU is not only clause
initial but it is also *pericope initial. I would guess that this does
not reduce but enhances the prominence of hEKATONTARCOU within the
pericope.
*Luke 7:1 is a transitional link, looking first backward and then
forward. It does not belong to either the preceding or the following
pericope.
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062--- 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
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