[b-greek] Re: article beginning a clause- Steven, Carl, Carlton

From: Moon-Ryul Jung (moon@saint.soongsil.ac.kr)
Date: Mon Jan 01 2001 - 22:23:13 EST


Dear Bgreekers,

Happy New Year!

I enjoyed reading this thread a lot. I would like to raise two questions.

First, I would like to quote Steven:

[Steven]
The neuter article is sometimes used to substantivize clauses, statements,
and quotations (cf. Mt 19.18; Mk 9.23; Rm 8.26; 13.9; Ep 4.9; Hb 12.27).

[Moon]
1)
Is it ungrammatical to omit the article in these examples? Wouldn't there
be similar sentences that do not require the article
to make sense?

To me, the article in front of a clause not only substantivizes the
clause but also makes it definite. The writer uses definite expressions
when the writer believes the reader would know what they refer to,
based on the discourse situation, the situation being constructed by the
text, or based on the social/historical situation, which is independent of
text. In the former case, the definite expressions are said to be
anaphoric, and in the latter case, they are said to be deitic.

(I studied computational linguistics for two years at the University of
Pennsylvania for my Ph.D., though I ended up with Ph.D. in computer
graphics. I was interested in what was called "discourse analysis", but
the ambition to make the computer to analyze and understand discourse was
too much for me. )

2)
[Steven]
When so used it is often anaphoric. I think it is anaphoric in Lk 9.46,
referring back to DIALOGISMOS (though, because it is neuter, in a loose
way).

[Moon]
The definite clause in Lk 9.46 seems to be deitic; The question of which
of them would be greatest seems to be the question that the
reader would be ready to believe have occurred among the disciples,
who are only human. Moreover, the text in question has not introduced
anything that has to do with this question.

For that matter, the definite clauses in all the examples given by
Steven seem to be deitic.

[Steven]
If so, it is nominative. It functions either appositionally ("that is,
who would be the greatest of them") or epexegetically ("over who would be
the greatest of them"). On the whole, epexegesis seems most likely, since
it seems to makes the best sense.

[Moon]
I agree with your conclusion on the function of the definite clause.
But TO in the definite clause is not used to [loosely] refer to
DISLOGISMOS.

Moon
Moon Ryul Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Digital Media
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
 

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