Luke 2:48 - Byzantine word order

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RandallButh
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Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Luke 2:48 - Byzantine word order

Post by RandallButh »

Actually, both questions are needed.

The first type focuses on the most salient part of a sentence. If, in addition, that most salient part has some kind of special marking in a language it would be called a Focal structure in FG. [NB: not all sentences will have a marked focus structure although all sentences will have a more salient peak of information load. E.g. εἶπεν δὲ τὴν παραβολὴν πρὸς αὐτούς is still a correct Greek sentence that would answer πρὸς τίνα; and the natural prominence would be at the end.]

The second type basically means asking a question of all non-default orders or structures in order to find out what and why? The fact that the optional choices do not answer a particular question means that they may not be focal. [NB: I say "may not", because the structure might still have been triggered by focus in the language but we may not be asking the right question. The important part is to remember that not everything "special" in a language is Focal. That is why "emphasis" is such a poor, single-answer for word order, whether Greek or Hebrew et al., and why students of biblical languages usually end up confused about word order or trying to make non-Focal things focal. A classic example of the latter is Ps51:5 Hebrew, where students try to may "my sins" focal, when in fact it is providing a contextualization and the "I" at the second position is the Focal marked salient information. A Greek example is Luke 2:48 Byz that started the thread, where "to him" is a contextualization (Dik P1) and "mother" is focal marked salience (Dik P2).]
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