[b-greek] Re: Word order and relative prominence in Greek

From: Iver Larsen (alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org)
Date: Thu Feb 08 2001 - 00:45:06 EST



> thanks for the article. I have read it. Would you please explain
> the following statement you wrote?
> ----
> At the sentence level the relative prominence of the constituents is not
> marked so much by their order as by where they are on the specificity
> cline.
> ------
>
> Do you mean, for example, that it does not matter in terms of emphasis
> whether a participial clause precedes the finite-verb clause or not?

No, I wouldn't say that. However, it was a passing comment about something that
I need to study more. The original intended audience would have had ready
access to the references mentioned, but those may not be so easy for you to get
hold of. I could send you one or more of the START articles if you are
interested.
It was actually an old article, and it needs updating. I have some better
analytical tools now than I had 10 years ago, and others have done research
since then, some of which I am not even aware of. I have started revising the
article, but I haven't finished. I'll post the revised one when it is ready,
hopefully next week, and I'll try to incorporate any suggestions or newer
references you or others would care to send me, preferably off-list.
>
> Also, when we say VSO word order, does it take into account
> adverbial phrases? We usually say that a verb and an adverbial clause
> forms a verb phrase (VP). Is V in VSO actually VP?

Yes. The VSO is a standard abbreviation for VP, NP(S), NP(O) and it does not
deal with NPs functioning as indirect objects. As we have seen earlier there is
some dispute about whether Hellenistic Greek is SVO or VSO, but I think there
are other factors at play that makes it not very important whether you chose one
or the other or no basic word order at all.

Iver Larsen
Kolding, Denmark
alice-iver_larsen@wycliffe.org


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