On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:18:58 -0400 Mike Sangrey writes: > > Paul Dixon also asked: > > Could you elaborate a bit on Levinsohn's discourse? Particularly, > > what does he have in mind regarding the substantive being "focal" > > in the context as a determiner of definiteness? > Well, I'll try (but this is more than two cents :-) Credit goes to > Levinsohn. > > Levinsohn has written the chapter to support his claim that: "if the > referent of an *anarthrous* noun phrase is known and particular (or, > to be more exact, if the author assumes that the reader will be able to > assign it unique referential identity...), this gives it *prominence*. It > is marked as prominent because it is of particular importance. Thanks for the clarification. Assuming what Levinsohn is saying is correct, this still leaves an undetermined amount of substantives for which his thesis does not apply. He says, "if the referent of an anarthrous noun phrase is known ..." Does he give any idea how often this occurs? 10%, 50%, 80 % of the time? Does he give any thoughts on what happens if the referent is not known? Also, how would his thesis work on 1 Jn 4:16, hO QEOS AGAPN ESTIN, KAI hO MENWN EN THi AGAPNi EN TWi QEWi? I assume he would see the anarthrous AGAPN as prominent. Does that make it definite? If so, is he saying God is the particular love well-known, God is the love? If so, is this reversible, this particular love is God (which we can do if the prediate nominative is arthrous - cf I Jn 3:4)? Paul Dixon --- B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu