From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Tue Jan 23 2001 - 16:02:05 EST
Dear Iver,
Just a word in defense of Wes' use of "markedness". Bernhard Comrie writes
("Aspect 1976, p. 111): "The intuition behind the notion markedness in
linguistics is that, where we have an opposition with two or more members
(e.g. perfective versus imperfective), it is often the case that one member
of the opposition is felt to be more usual, more normal, less specific than
the other (in markedness terminology, it is unmarked ther others are
marked."
It is true that the markedness terminology usually is not applied to how a
single Greek word is translated or understood by English readers, but in
this discussion where the English words in the entry ARCH in BDAG are
handled as if they were different *senses* of ARCH, such a terminology is
appropriate.
The meaning of ARCH is not identical with the English glosses in BDAG, and
neither is it found in the context or the cotext, but it existed as a
concept in the minds of Greek-speaking persons who had the same
presupposition pool.
When we today mention "the senses of a word" or "its primary meaning" and
base this on the modern English presupposition pool,which is completely
different from the first-century Greek one, from the point of view of
applied linguistics we are "speaking into the air" ( 1 Kor 14:9).
However, this is the normal way of speaking, and those hearing or reading
get some of the sense. So when we use this 'not completely correct way of
speaking' and focus on the different English glosses, the notion of
markedness can be helpful for our understanding.
Regards
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
>Hi, Wes,
>
>Thanks for your comments. Let me respond below and try to keep myself to
>linguistics and semantics.
>
>> Dear Iver,
>>
>> you wrote:
>>
>> > Since Bauer lists "ruler, (person with) authority" as another
>> > common sense of
>> > ARCH (I would have listed this as the secondary) sense rather
>> > the rare "first
>> > cause") and since the primary sense of "beginning" does not fit
>> > in Rev 3:14,
>> > would it not be more reasonable to suggest that ARCH here is to
>> > be understood in
>> > its secondary sense, i.e.. "ruler of God's creation"?
>>
>> Pardon my tardy response but I subscribe to the digest. Since you replied to
>> this with a linguistic point of view rather than a theological one, I will
>> take some time here. As you stated, context is important to determine which
>> sense of a word applies. Since "beginning" is the unmarked meaning of ARCH,
>> we should look for signals from the near context that would warrant us to
>> adopt a different sense than the unmarked one (i.e. "beginning").
>
>I think you are using markedness in a rather unusual way. The primary sense is
>not "the unmarked meaning". The primary sense simply means that if you
>count the
>uses of the different senses of a word in a particular corpus of texts,
>the most
>commonly used sense may be called the primary sense. But the various
>senses of a
>word in isolation are not marked or unmarked. It is the immediate linguistic
>context that determines which sense is to be understood. If the immediate
>context does not give a decisive answer, then one needs to move out through
>layers of context, first, the context of the same author in the same book,
>then,
>the wider context of the same author in different books, then the NT context,
>then the OT context, then wider Greek context etc. Of course, there are other
>things that come into play such as a clear quote or reference to an OT passage
>or a parallel passage, which is common in the Gospels. One should not come
>to a
>particular text with the a priori assumption that the word is used in its
>primary sense, and the context would then have to strongly disprove this.
>Rather, one should come to the context with an open mind to all the possible
>senses and let the context determine which sense is most appropriate.
>
snip
>
>Best wishes,
>Iver Larsen
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