From: Wayne Leman (wleman@mcn.net)
Date: Thu Apr 27 2000 - 08:50:14 EDT
<x-charset iso-8859-1>Clay responded:
>Given your definition of a "non-configurational" language I would think
that
>Hellenistic Greek would qualify. When I talk about a base or default word
>order, I am talking about a pattern which is "unmarked" against which we
can
>see the "marked" word order.
Yes, I knew that's what you were talking about. My point is that some
languages do not have unmarked word orders. It is not absolutely necessary
to have an unmarked order in order (!) for us to speak of prgramatic
"fronting" (which might be just a metaphor since no fronting actually
occurs). If what my wife found for Cheyenne is true, then it may be true for
other languages as well, i.e. that whatever occurs clause-initially has a
pragmatically focus. Now, I'm guessing that that is overstating the case for
Greek, but it may be more accurate than trying to come up with an unmarked
constituent order, which seems to be an exercise in futility for some
non-configurational languages.
What my wife found for Cheyenne is that even the verb can be the
pragmatically focused sentence element. In fact, when she charted clauses
which were verb-initial she got a quite good outline of the mainline
(backbone/plot) of the episode.
If it is true (and I suspect there is quite a bit of truth in it), that
people think and speak in information "chunks" of approximately the size of
a clause, and if it is also true that there is essentially only one new
piece of information intentionally *conveyed* by that chunk, then this gives
us a new way of looking at the clause, as a unit in which one basic
information piece is asserted or questioned, etc. This nicely would included
partial clauses and one-word responses and information packets.
So, examine a number of Greek clauses and try to determine what is the one
main piece of information which is being communicated in that clause. See if
there is a correlation between that and clause-initial position of some
element in the clause.
Re: binary oppositions, you may have to give it up, my friend, since so much
of language is scalar instead of binary. Let the word go forth ... that
paradigm shifts can open up important new understandings of truth.
I hope some of this makes sense. Behold, it is not yet 10 am and I am trying
to email before my brain has awakened! :)
Wayne
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