R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Stephen Carlson
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Often times you simply have to ask him directly. The third edition of Discourse Features is currently being worked on with substantial changes.
I'm curious to see how it turns out. I recently discovered that his first edition anticipated Helma Dik on Greek word order in a number of point just a couple years before she published.
On the other hand, it would be difficult to chart the features of Levinsohn within the work of Helma Dik. They are not actually very similar, only on very few issues do they correspond. I don't detect any dependence between them. They both have used ideas that were out there already.
No there's no dependence between them in the mid-90s. Levinsohn 1992 cites Werth and Callow for his word order stuff and those I think (I would need to check) are ultimately dependent on the Prague School's structuralist functionalism. Helma Dik, on the other hand, applies Simon Dik's Functional Grammar. So they are all operating in a broad group of "functional" theories of grammar. Levinsohn's 2d ed. will cite Simon Dik and as a result starts converging on Helma Dik's approach. But Levinsohn is very eclectic.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Paul-Nitz wrote:
“ As a result, New Testament Greek studies are now seen as a separate entity or sub-field of Greek with its own integrity instead of an arm or detail of Classical Greek.”
http://www.brettyardley.com/fail-forwar ... ert-w-funk
Well, since the classicists and biblical scholars are talking to each other less than ever before, this dream of being a separate field is becoming true. Probably not in the way Funk wanted however.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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MAubrey
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Carlson wrote: No there's no dependence between them in the mid-90s.
At Cambridge last July, Helma told Stephen that she's followed his work since the 80's.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by Stephen Carlson »

MAubrey wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote: No there's no dependence between them in the mid-90s.
At Cambridge last July, Helma told Stephen that she's followed his work since the 80's.
That's interesting to hear, but neither of her two books on word order cite him however.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
MAubrey wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote: No there's no dependence between them in the mid-90s.
At Cambridge last July, Helma told Stephen that she's followed his work since the 80's.
That's interesting to hear, but neither of her two books on word order cite him however.
Maybe because up until the 2nd edition of Discourse Features, Levinsohn primarily dealt with just conjunctions? That's just a guess, but the first edition was criticized for basically being only about conjunctions--I've never seen the 1st edition personally.
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by Stephen Carlson »

MAubrey wrote:Maybe because up until the 2nd edition of Discourse Features, Levinsohn primarily dealt with just conjunctions? That's just a guess, but the first edition was criticized for basically being only about conjunctions--I've never seen the 1st edition personally.
It took me a while to get a hold of the first edition, but that criticism you heard is invalid. The first edition has points of departure, it has sentence articulations, it has the placement of the rheme (which is sort of like the comment, but that term is also used), it has "fronting for focus and emphasis," and it has stuff on discontinuous constituents. These materials look more or less thoroughly reworked for the second edition (where Simon Dik's template comes in), but in the first edition there are a lot of ideas and application of (what looks to me like) Prague school functionalism and various other theoretical bits and bobs to word order.

If he had any influence on Helma Dik, I just can't see it. Not at any level more specific than maybe functionalism is relevant for word order, at least. Her work benefits from beginning with a fairly coherent theoretical framework, and became seminal perhaps for that reason.
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Re: R. W. Funk and the two different structuralisms

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Carlson wrote:If he had any influence on Helma Dik, I just can't see it. Not at any level more specific than maybe functionalism is relevant for word order, at least. Her work benefits from beginning with a fairly coherent theoretical framework, and became seminal perhaps for that reason.
Seminal indeed!
Perhaps then, Helma's reasoning in the Cambridge conversation was simply about his work in general, rather than specifically about word order.
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