Re: What is a Greek Sentence?

From: Mark O'Brien (obrienmb@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jun 04 1997 - 09:34:14 EDT


James,

>Date: Wed, 4 Jun 97 07:46:11 EDT
>From: "James H. Vellenga" <jhv0@viewlogic.com>
>
>For convenicence in testing the results of our theories as to what
>constitutes a Greek sentence, I have included below a "hyperliteral"
>translation of Romans 8 with all the punctuation and capitalization
>and paragraph divisions stripped out. I have preserved the
>verse numbers for reference' sake.

Thanks for this example to work with.

>
>For Mark O'Brien's approach, see esp. vv. 33-34 for what seem to
>be sentences without verbs "god the one vindicating" or "christ
>jesus the one died or rather got raised who is at god's right and
>who intercedes on our behalf".

Of course, even as I was finishing typing up my ponderings, I began to
ponder anew regarding sentences with the verb elided (esp. EIMI), but I
was wondering whether such cases might have been clear (conjecture
again!) to the reader because of the context... I don't know... it's
just a suggestion.

>
>For Micheal's approach, note the plethora of connectives between
>what most people ordinarily regard as separate sentences. By his
>rule, if I understand it, there is a sentence break in the middle
>of v. 3, another at the beginning of v. 16, and then some more
>(depending on what you regard as non-breaking connectives) in
>vv. 31ff.

Yes, this seems difficult to me because it would entail the reader
making on-the-fly decisions regarding the strength of usage of some of
these connectives, which aren't always apparent at a first glance.
However, this may not have been a problem... my own meagre classical
reading exposed me a great deal to the liberal use of MEN / DE
constructions, which clearly marked things off for you.

Anyway, these are my humble thoughts... I'm quite sure that I'm
underqualified to comment intelligently, but I appreciated Clayton's
original question.

Regards,

M.

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