From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Mon Jan 15 2001 - 06:27:25 EST
Dear Mark,
Having come back from a short holiday, I'd like to make a couple of points on
emphasis in Greek. I have noted Carl's and Steve's comments, and my own
additions are at the end of the message.
>
> Phil 4: 12
>
> OIDA KAI TAPEINOUSQAI
> OIDA KAI PERISSEUEIN
> EN PANTI KAI EN PASIN MEMUHMAI
> KAI CORTAZESQAI...
>
> I have just finished reading a commentary on Philippians, and
> ran across a statement similar to the following one many, many times:
>
> "this word/phrase is emphatic in the Greek"
>
> For example, in the above verse (4:12), EN PANTI KAI EN PASIN is
> said to be "very emphatic."
I would not say very emphatic on the grounds of position, but slightly emphatic.
>
> In verse 15:
>
> OIDATE DE KAI hUMEIS, FILIPPHSIOI
>
> The commentary says that the KAI makes hUMEIS emphatic.
>
> I am not sure how many times Paul put words or phrases in
> an "emphatic position," but according to this scholar, it was
> quite often in this epistle.
>
> Although he mentioned this "emphatic" position often, I really
> did not quite catch why it was noteworthy.
>
> In the above example (EN PANTI KAI EN PASIN), what does
> this phrase being in the emphatic position actually mean?
It means that the expression is positioned before the verb and therefore is in a
more emphatic position. See below for a general comment.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Mark Wilson
I don't find the usual (in discourse theory) dichotomistic distinction between
focus and comment useful for Greek discourse. Rather, I find it useful to talk
about three different kinds of emphasis:
1) Positional (and relative) emphasis
2) Lexical emphasis
3) Redundancy emphasis
Positional emphasis assumes that a language has a fairly free word order, but
also a basic word order. For Koine Greek it is assumed that the basic word order
is VSO (verb - subject - object). If the subject and/or the object is positioned
in front of the verb, then the fronted element is made relatively more emphatic
by its position. As a rule of thumb, the more to the left a word/phrase occurs
the more relative emphasis it has. The same basic rule applies to nouns modified
by adjectives (or other modifiers). If the modifier precedes the noun, the
semantic content of the modifier is relatively more emphatic than the noun. This
kind of emphasis is often contrastive. For instance, if you compare a good man
to a bad man, the adjectives would precede the noun in Greek. But if you want to
describe a man as good without any contrast in mind, the adjective would follow
the noun.
Lexical emphasis means that certain words tend to be emphatic because of their
lexical, semantic content. For instance, the word "all" is inherently emphatic
and therefore normally precedes the noun it modifies (if there is a noun). In
the few cases where it does not precede the noun, then the noun is more emphatic
than "all". Similarly, a verb like ESTIN (to be) is inherently not emphatic, and
therefore it normally occurs at the end of the sentence, if it occurs at all.
Often it is so unemphatic that it is left out. If ESTIN occurs before other
elements in a sentence, then there would be emphasis on the existence of
something.
Redundancy emphasis is when a word, like the pronoun in your example, is
strictly speaking not necessary, because the verb includes the person marker.
The fact that it occurs anyway shows that there is emphasis on it.
A final comment on KAI. This particle indicates "conjoining" or "addition". (I
don't think it is helpful to call it an adverb, because it may conjoin almost
anything, and not just verbs.) It often conjoins two or more elements at the
same level, say words, phrases or sentences. But one of the elements can be
implied. As Carl said, KAI normally immediately precedes what it modifies.
In > OIDATE DE KAI hUMEIS, FILIPPHSIOI, it is not KAI that makes hUMEIS
emphatic. Rather KAI conjoins or adds hUMEIS to an implied person, which I take
to be Paul himself. So, I understand this as follows: (I know and) you, too,
know how you helped me (and I want to remind you of it).
Iver Larsen
Kolding, Denmark
alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org
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