From: yochanan bitan (ButhFam@compuserve.com)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 01:21:14 EDT
<x-charset ISO-8859-1>clay egrapsen peri "continuity/discontinuity":
>When we see a new scene introduced with KAI + finite verb can we judge
from
>that evidence alone that the two scenes before and after have no
connection
>with one another?
KAI implies 'connection' . See below.
>I don't think this [no connection-RB] follows. The reason it does not
follow
>has to do with the notion of "marking." When we say that a fronted
>constituent can be used to "mark" discourse continuity/discontinuity we
are
>not saying that the lack of this fronted constituent "marks" a complete
>discontinuity. What we are saying is that a clause that begins with KAI +
>finite verb is "unmarked" with relation to continuity/discontinuity. Being
>unmarked means that the author didn't indicate anything one way or the
other
>about continuity/discontinuity by using KAI + finite verb.
It is good to see you grappling with the text. This always leads to better
acquaintance and stylistic sensitivity as we try to get our models and
predictions closer and closer to data.
First of all, KAI + finite verb is normally a mark of CONTINUATION
with a main-line event in a story, often with the same participant or
perspective as the preceding event. That is the main reason for KAI
beginning a sentence and especially when beginning a new paragraph unit.
However, in some Jewish Greek, this structure multiplied itself
against-the-grain of Greek sensitivities. Mark has far too many
sentence-initial KAI's for any semblance of Greek sensitivities, his style
has a distinctly 'foreign' sound. AND Mark 6.1 is an example of such
excess. (By the way, excessive KAI-style is not "Aramaic" narrative style
unless it is also accompanied by occasional examples of "narrative tote"
'then'. Cf. Mt's 55 examples. Pure excessive KAI is Hebraic, as in Lucan
and Marcan narrative. [Both Hebrew and Aramaic use 'then' in prophetic
discourse, only in narrative does 'then' become diagnostic of language.])
Secondly, you appear to be taking the phrase continuity/discontinuity
in an inverse ratio to its essence. [You imply that a lack of fronting
would naturally lean towards discontinuity: "we are not saying that the
lack of this fronted constituent "marks" a complete discontinuity".]
Actually, a fronted contextualization normally signals that something has
changed, some new perspective must be assumed. The whole point of needing
the fronting is that a road sign is necessary: "curve ahead".
The simplest, plainest kind of continuity, on the other hand, will
normally not have any fronting, since the previous situation/arrangment of
actors and scene continues as it was. If you are going to use continuity
and discontinuity together as a joined term, then you would be better off
labelling it Discontinuity/continuity, since the discontinuity is dominant.
Stephen and I probably disagree in emphasis on this point. I see continuity
as the unmarked background of a text, since the next event in a story
automatically implies some kind of continuity with the preceding by virtue
of its existence in the text. It is the deviancies that need marking. To
use my metaphor from above: Stephen would say that a curve in the road is
'continuous' with the road leading in. I would say that 'curve' isn't
marking continuity, that is assumed, but marking a kind of change in the
road.
>
>In Mark 6:2 we seen a fronted constituent POLLOI which marks the
>introduction of new participants into the scene. There is both continuity
of
>action here marked by AKOUONTES and a change of participant marked by
>POLLOI.
Yes, polloi marks a discontinuity of Subject and sets up another
perspective for this paragraph.
Continuity of action is signalled by the KAI, though as I explained above,
kai cannot be relied upon in Mark as a reliable guide according to
normative Greek narrative. AKOUNTES is subordinate to imperfective
EKPLHSSESQAI, which is the resulting action and which may conceivably have
been marked as '+ change' [=de] by a Greek author with more of a proclivity
to mark such.
errwso
Randall Buth
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