[b-greek] Re: Greek Word Order

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Aug 24 2000 - 12:25:40 EDT


on 08/24/00 7:35 AM, Gert Young wrote:

> I would just like to know if it would be acceptable to describe Greek
> as a SVO (subject-verb-object) language.

Gert,

This topic has of course been hashed over a number of times on this list so
you will want to search the archives. I certainly would not claim that there
is any consensus on this topic but a number of NT linguists have argued
recently that Koine Greek has an unmarked word order of VSO and that any
constituent that is placed before the main verb is placed there with the
intention of marking that constituent as having some sort of semantic and/or
pragmatic function. For this reason the "slot" before the main verb is
called a pragmatic position or slot.

One recent publication which addresses this subject at some length and has
been discussed repeatedly on b-greek is Steven Levinson's "Discourse
Features of New Testament Greek, 2nd Ed., SIL 2000. This book will also
provide you with a good bibliography for further reading on this topic.

On "theta-roles" and "raising verbs" you will need to get a Chomsky type to
help you with that. I have heard the terms used but don't have the foggiest
notion what they mean. They may not even be Chomsky terms but since I have
heard Chomsky people use them I am assuming they are.

Clay

--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062



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