From: Philip Graber (omc01091@mail.wvnet.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 24 2001 - 17:46:20 EST
<x-flowed>
At 02:55 PM 3/24/01 -0500, Mike Sangrey wrote:
>Anh Michael <saigon_christ@hotmail.com> said:
> > Was it common for Ancient writers to make long sentances like Col
> > 1:9-20 or Heb 1;1-4...ect????
>
> > Is there any significant reason the author may have wanted to convey
> > in doing such a long sentance?
I deleted the original note and then decided to respond after I saw it in
this response. I hope that is not too confusing.
There are basically two different structures that might be called "long
sentences." One is a string of clauses, all but one of which are
dependent. Another is a single clause with a relatively simple structure
at the top level, but perhaps with embedded clauses and other structures
making the whole sentence quite long. These two are quite different cases
with quite different causes. There has been some significant research
related to oral vs. written language relevant to this. If you look at
academic writing, there is a tendency to have "long sentences" of the
second type, with a relatively simple clause structure at the top level,
but with a high degree of lexical complexity, sometimes because of embedded
clauses. Such writing also tends to contain a high degree of abstractions
and non-personal referents. The clause structures of independent clauses
tend to contain a relatively high number of relational clauses in which one
abstract concept is equated in some way or other with another. Such
constructions allow a high degree of precision at the cost of packing a
large amount of information into a single clause. This amount of
information is very difficult to process aurally, although that is not an
issue with material that can be read (and re-read) slowly. Oral, informal
language tends to have more concrete referents, more clauses of a
"happening" rather than relational type, and lexically simpler clauses that
may be strung together in rather complex dependency relationships. Less
formal language between people who know each other in face to face
encounters is more likely to be characterized this way than the other.
Perhaps Hebrews 1:3-4 is an example of a clause (one clause!) that is of a
more formal (more academic?) nature. It is all one (relative) clause:
\hOS WN APAUGASMA THS DOCHS KAI XARAKTHR THS hUPOSTASEWS AUTOU= FERWN TE TA
PANTA TWi hRHMATI THS DUNAMEWS AUTOU KAQARISMON TWN hAMARTIWN POIHSAMENOS
'who being brilliance of-the glory and exact-likeness of-the being of-him,
bearing and the all-things by-the word of-the power of-him, purification
of-the sins having-made' is the opening nominal group
("subject"). EKAQISEN 'sat' is the verb of the main clause. EN DECIAi THS
MEGALWSUNHS EN hUYHLOIS 'at right-hand of-the majesty on high' is a
(adverbial locative) prepositional phrase at the level of the main
clause. TOSOUTWi KREITTWN GENOMENOS TWN AGGELWN hOSWi DIAFORWTERON PAR'
AUTOUS KEKLHRONOMHKEN ONOMA 'so-much greater having-become than-of-the
angels as-much-as superior to them he-has-inherited name' is the remainder
of the opening nominal group. The whole complexity of this simple clause
is in the nominal group that is split between the beginning and end of the
clause.
Philemon 10-14, which I will not type out here, has roughly the same number
of lexical items as Hebrews 1:3-4 (i.e., "content words" not including
"function words"), but has them in eight different clauses, mostly linked
by dependency relations. It reads like something that might be said in a
face-to-face situation.
Philip Graber
Ronceverte, West Virginia USA
---
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
</x-flowed>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:36:53 EDT