From: yochanan bitan (ButhFam@compuserve.com)
Date: Sun Apr 09 2000 - 15:19:27 EDT
<x-charset ISO-8859-1>shalom Clayton,
EGRAYAS:
>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.
No. [Because a 'point of departure' is a pragmatic function, thus requiring
pragmatic positioning and not normal word order. See below.]
>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?
Yes, we have defined the model in a way that a non-fronted 'point of
departure' would not exist. And No, this is not circular. See distinction
below between pragmatic and semantic functions in interpreting clauses.
>What sort of independent criteria can we use to discover the
>point of departure, that is criteria independent of clause order?
'Point of departure' is a pragmatic function signalled by word order and
does not have an independent semantic or morphological criterion. So the
question is a non-sequitur. See below.
>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.
>
. . .
>* 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.
Well, it might help to rephase and put the above in a context.
Historically, those discussions with Stephen either occurred in Cameroon
1989 or in Dallas 1991. Maybe both, in one way or another. (Nothing as
historic or expensive as a dinner in the King David. I even avoid KD for
coffee.) The wording is Stephen's, not my own.
The universality of 'point of departure' is already incorporated within
linguistic theory in Functional Grammar, where Topic (a.k.a. 'point of
departure') and Focus (a.k.a. 'highlighting') are proposed as two universal
pragmatic functions that may relate to any language that has a pre-field
(i.e., [post-conjunction] clause initial), pragmatically-marked position.
The item is not circular, in that it is an interpretation/function of an
observed word order. That is, it is a subset of functions
causing/explaining fronted constituents and not a category of its own. So,
yes, there would be no such thing as an 'unfronted' point-of-departure,
though perhaps embedded, parenthetical, afterthoughts could be added and
included.
"Point of departure" (a.k.a. "Topic" in functional grammar, "pivot" in
Foley/VanValin, "Contextualizing Constituent" in my own nomenclature) is
not a semantic relationship but a pragmatic one within linguistics.
Thus,
"I got up in the morning."
is a default, English sentence where 'in the morning' is part of the
salient communication. "...in the morning" is interpreted according to the
semantics of its 'predicate frame' and lexical context.
"In the morning I got up."
is marked in the sense of fronting 'in the morning'. "In the morning..." is
interpreted both according to its semantic relationship to the predicate
frame and as signalled as the point with which to relate the clause to the
larger context. Hence, the names: 'Pivot' Foley/VanValin, 'Topic' Dik,
'point of departure' Levinsohn, 'Contextualizing Constituent' Buth.
Whenever a pragmatically marked constituent appears, it needs
interpretation, processing, by the audience. The English example above
would almost always be a 'contextualizing constituent', that is, serving as
a point of relationship to the greater context.
A Focus construction of this same semantic content in English would
normally be
'I got up in the MORNING' (using intonation for pragmatic Focal marking),
or simply a non-focal clause with only the salient information:
'In the morning.'.
This deletes the rest of the sentence as non-salient, presupposed
information, like when aswering a question orally.
Focal constructions typically present information that the speaker assumes
to need rhetorical emphasis as probably "surprising", "contrasting", or
otherwise too easily forgotten or missed.
Now Greek has a tendency to multiply pragmatically-marked pre-field
constituents. The common pattern is to put CC's (a.k.a. 'point of
departure's) before Focus constituents when more than one constitutent is
marked by fronting,
and, relating to the point quoted by Stephen,
that if only one constituent is marked by fronting, the default and most
common function is CC ('point of departure'). This becomes a helpful 'rule
of thumb' or processing strategy for a Greek listener or Greek audience.
A qualifier to this is that within subordinate clauses, Focus constituents
may become more commonplace because the subordinated status has already
provided a syntactical relationship to the context and there is less need
for pragmatically marking a 'point of departue'. This principle is most
easily seen in a more fixed word-order language like Hebrew where the
similar pragmatic tendencies occur with CC/Topic in main narrative clauses
and where Focus is the 'rule of thumb' for fronted constituents within
subordinating 'ki' clauses and 'asher' clauses.
Returning to Clayton's question: a 'point of departure' that is not fronted
would not be a pragmatic 'point of departure', it would be part of the
semantic base template that is generating the clause and would only carry
its semantic relationship, not an additional pragmatic function.
Thus, if a constituent is not signalled as having a pragmatic function to
interpret (that is, if it was not fronted), it would not be a candidate to
be a pragmatic 'point of departure'. It will be handled within normal
semantic relations. But if a constituent is fronted, then it is more
probably a 'point of departure' and less commonly a 'Focus'. A reader would
be better off not assuming Focus.
Hope the above helps. Fuller explanations lead into Prague school
Theme-rheme distinctions and the distinctions of pragmatic, semantic and
syntactic functions within a linguistic theory of grammar. For further
reading you might try Simon Dik, Functional Grammar, 1980, and the one
chapter summary in Dik, Studies in Functional Grammar, 1981. Also, Foley
and VanValin, [Grammar?], 1985?.
errwso
Randall Buth
Jerusalem
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