Well, Clay did have to play games to fit this topic into the parameters of
legitimate B-Greek, but even though the concern wasn't so much a matter of
hos the Greek text is to be understood, it's a question about how language
works, and besides: (a) it doesn't appear to have any theological angle
that will offend anyone (unless "deep structure" is something one feels
"religiously" committed to; and (b) it's a holiday, at least in the U.S.A.
it is (I noticed that's Rolf's response was a good working, professional
type of response: he clearly is not on holiday!)--at 4 p.m. EDT I was
wondering whether there would be any traffic on B-Greek today at all--it
must be just those of us who are obsessive-compulsive about logging-in
regularly that are engaged in the conversation today! I have just a couple
comments:
(1) It is true that Noam Chomsky has retracted (but not yet DEtracted) much
of his transformational theory. And I guess that Anglo-Saxon mind (do
Anglo-Saxons have minds? ;-) ) is by nature skeptical of things like
Platonic ideas and German metaphysical systems (or for that matter ANY kind
of metaphysical system). Nevertheless, something like "deep structure" must
function as one half of the magnificent paradox of translation from one
language to another: (a) on the one hand the essential content of what is
said in one language must be expressible in another; yet (b) we (i.e. I)
tend to doubt that what is said in one language (at least if it really
matters) can be converted into another language with some significant loss.
Which is to say, the hypothesis of a deep structure seems to be neither
wholly verifiable nor wholly falsifiable (If I'm not careful here--and
perhaps even if I am--I shall fall into the clutches of Paul Dixon and be
accused of violating a taboo of Aristotelian logic).
(2) The original concern of the thread was the principle underlying
parallelism of cola in Hebraic poetry (or at least that's what I thought it
was). The assertion that the two clauses in the illustration mean exactly
the same thing struck a chord immediately in me: it was the landmark
Sorbonne dissertation of Milman Parry that was a Copernican revolution in
Homeric studies--_L'épithète traditionalle homérique_. Parry explained in
precise detail how the Homeric formula functions to enable oral bards to go
on for hours telling a story in perfect hexameters by virtue of a repertory
of thousands of formulae like KATA QINA POLUFLOISBOIO QALASSHS or FANH
hRODODAKTULOS HWS or ANAX ANDRWN TE QEWN TE. What Parry argued was that
FANH hRODODAKTULOS HWS never meant anything more to the Greek audience than
"day broke"--it had no overtones or undertones; similarly when the Greek
audience heard ANAX ANDRWN TE QEWN TE, it understood NOT "Lord of men and
of gods" but ONLY "Zeus." That dissertation has stood the test of time
pretty well since the 1920's, but that one assertion of Parry's, that these
formulae that often fill up half or more of a dactylic hexameter mean
nothing more than "day broke" and "Zeus" is not deemed persuasive by many
today, and for the same reason that the account of parallel cola in Hebraic
poetry Clay reports sounds fishy on the surface: If the KAI in
EBRONTHSEN EX OURANOU KURIOS
KAI
hO hUPSISTOS EDWKEN FWNHN AUTOU
links two clauses that mean EXACTLY the same thing, then we really could
alter the whole thing to either
EBRONTHSEN EX OURANOU KURIOS
KAI
EBRONTHSEN EX OURANOU KURIOS
or
hO hUPSISTOS EDWKEN FWNHN AUTOU
KAI
hO hUPSISTOS EDWKEN FWNHN AUTOU.
That's pretty good math, I guess: X:Y = X:Y; and I have heard some people
go into ecstasy over a mathematical proof (but not this one), but the
equation is not poetry, any more than are the precisely equated clauses.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/