From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Mon May 22 2000 - 14:40:50 EDT
What is the "head" substantive in Romans 1:1?
PAULOS DOULOS CRISTOU IHSOU,
KLYTOS APOSTOLOS AFWRISMENOIS EIS EUAGGELION QEOU,
Trick question? Yes indeed.
According the schema presented Simon Dik* in his chapter on the Structure
and Function of Terms (pages 55-67), I would concluded the DOULOS is
probably the head substantive in Rom 1:1.
Why?
Well thinking in terms of sets and subsets, if PAULOS was the head then we
would have a complex term which we could read as:
A set of male humans named Paul, restricted to only those who are DOULOS,
where DOULOS is restricted to only those who are in that relationship to
CRISTOU IHSOU, further restricted to only those who are KLYTOS APOSTOLOS
AFWRISMENOIS EIS EUAGGELION QEOU.
I find this analysis a little hard to to accept. It seems more likely that
PAULOS is not the head but rather a restrictive appositional substantive
which limits the head. So I would analyze this as the set of all DOULOS of
which PAULOS is one member where DOULOS is restricted to only those who are
in that relationship to CRISTOU IHSOU, where PAULOS is limited by KLYTOS
APOSTOLOS AFWRISMENOIS EIS EUAGGELION QEOU.
Of course there are several other possible permutations. I am not so
concerned about the constituents that follow PAULOS DOULOS. What I am asking
is on what grounds to we determine which of these is the head? This raises a
general question about the relationship between constituent order and
syntatic/semantic function of NT Greek substantives within appositonal
constructs. Has anyone seen a treatment of this topic from the perspective
of functional linguistics?
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
* Dik, Simon. Functional Grammar, Dordrecht, Netherlands,1981.
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