From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 03:35:11 EST
In response to Carl's response:
> >Another question. How do you explain to your students the difference in
> >meaning
> >between PANTES hOI MAQHTAI and hOI MAQHTAI PANTES?
>
> I don't think that there is a great difference between the two
> formulations; the first, I'd say, is far more common, the second probably
> makes PANTES more emphatic, yielding perhaps in English (a) "all the
> students" or "every student" and (b) "the students without exception."
This is an area where modern descriptive lingustics, including discourse
linguistics and pragmatics, can IMO give some new and helpful insights.
First, the basic, unmarked order of the noun phrase constituents in Greek seems
to be noun followed by adjective. When an adjective is moved forward to precede
the noun, it indicates a relative greater emphasis on the semantic content of
the adjective compared to the noun. Normally, a contrast is involved. The other
concept that is part of the contrast may be implicit.
Second, the word PAS is inherently emphatic and therefore the normal, expected,
unmarked order is for PAS to precede what it modifies. If PAS does not precede
the noun, there is probably a contrast between the noun itself and another
similar idea, because then PAS has been downgraded in importance compared to the
noun.
I have tested these hypotheses in many contexts in the NT and as far as I can
see they work nicely and give me a good grasp of the pragmatics of the text,
something that a mere description of the form does not give me.
If I apply these hypotheses to the example above, I would say that since PANTES
hOI MAQHTAI is the normal unmarked order, there is no particular emphasis on one
word or the other. It simply means "all the disciples." However, in hOI MAQHTAI
PANTES, the word "disciples" seems to be emphasised, giving the meaning "all the
DISCIPLES." The context of Matthew 26:56 makes me think that Matthew has put
more focus on the fact that is was the DISCIPLES that fled than it was ALL the
disciples that fled. They were the ones who had vowed not to flee, because they
were his special chosen disciples and closest friends. But they did anyway.
> I certainly DO think that there's much in traditional Greek
> grammatical pedagogy that is questionable or could stand great
> improvement--the big thing I'm really hoping we can clarify is the way
> voice works in ancient Greek because I think traditional teaching of this
> is misleading at best and brings more confusion than clarity to the issues
> involved. On the other hand, what often disturbs me is a focus upon ancient
> Greek usage that is so strictly synchronic that it fails to take into
> adequate consideration the fact that Hellenistic Greek especially was very
> much in flux and that Hellenistic Greek usage is illuminated considerably
> by what one can know of the history of Greek before and after the
> Hellenistic period.
Greek has never been my major field of study and I would certainly like to have
a better grasp of the meaning and function of voice. I did one year of classical
Greek followed by less than a year of Koine Greek some 30 years ago. In my
subsequent out-of-classroom study of NT Greek I have had to disagree with what
classical Greek scholars said about NT Greek a couple of times. The most
significant disagreement for my work as a Bible translator is the function of
hINA. In classical Greek this was a purpose construction, but in Hellenistic
Greek it had already changed to a consecutive conjunction that can as well
denote result as purpose. Only context can tell. This trend of broadened scope
has continued into modern Greek.
Still learning,
Iver Larsen
Kolding, Denmark
alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:47 EDT