John 8:54 pronoun

Biblical Greek morphology and syntax, aspect, linguistics, discourse analysis, and related topics
Stephen Carlson
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Re: John 8:54 pronoun

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Barry Hofstetter wrote: November 11th, 2021, 4:52 pm
Stephen Carlson wrote: November 11th, 2021, 3:45 pm It’s not a simple direct object. As far as I can tell. It’s proleptic for topicalization and the case assignment follows that. English prefers other devices for topicalization, including “of whom.”
Hmmm... I think we might be saying the same thing using different metalanguage.
Perhaps, but the claim that it is "simple" is basically a flex, in that that prolepsis is a bit weird and needs to be explained to students.

The definition of prolepsis according to the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek:
CGCG 720 § 60.37 wrote:Topics of subordinate clauses which follow the matrix clause are sometimes syntactically integrated into that matrix clause. This is called prolepsis. The construction allows the speaker to treat the ‘dislocated’ constituent as the (given) topic of the subordinate clause, which otherwise contains strongly focal material.
In John 8:54, the relative pronoun ὅν is syntactically integrated into the λέγετε matrix clause and so looks like a direct object but it isn't really one as it semantically belongs to the subordinate clause. This syntax-semantic mismatch has a discourse function along the lines set forth above.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: John 8:54 pronoun

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote: November 11th, 2021, 6:25 pm
Perhaps, but the claim that it is "simple" is basically a flex, in that that prolepsis is a bit weird and needs to be explained to students.

The definition of prolepsis according to the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek:
CGCG 720 § 60.37 wrote:Topics of subordinate clauses which follow the matrix clause are sometimes syntactically integrated into that matrix clause. This is called prolepsis. The construction allows the speaker to treat the ‘dislocated’ constituent as the (given) topic of the subordinate clause, which otherwise contains strongly focal material.
In John 8:54, the relative pronoun ὅν is syntactically integrated into the λέγετε matrix clause and so looks like a direct object but it isn't really one as it semantically belongs to the subordinate clause. This syntax-semantic mismatch has a discourse function along the lines set forth above.
Good point about the prolepsis -- I really wasn't looking at it from that perspective. Still, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it had better duck during duck season. I think any traditional grammarian would still call it a direct object even though your analysis appears correct from the discourse perspective.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Daniel Semler
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Joined: February 18th, 2019, 7:45 pm

Re: John 8:54 pronoun

Post by Daniel Semler »

Stephen Carlson wrote: November 11th, 2021, 6:25 pm
Barry Hofstetter wrote: November 11th, 2021, 4:52 pm
Stephen Carlson wrote: November 11th, 2021, 3:45 pm It’s not a simple direct object. As far as I can tell. It’s proleptic for topicalization and the case assignment follows that. English prefers other devices for topicalization, including “of whom.”
Hmmm... I think we might be saying the same thing using different metalanguage.
Perhaps, but the claim that it is "simple" is basically a flex, in that that prolepsis is a bit weird and needs to be explained to students.

The definition of prolepsis according to the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek:
CGCG 720 § 60.37 wrote:Topics of subordinate clauses which follow the matrix clause are sometimes syntactically integrated into that matrix clause. This is called prolepsis. The construction allows the speaker to treat the ‘dislocated’ constituent as the (given) topic of the subordinate clause, which otherwise contains strongly focal material.
In John 8:54, the relative pronoun ὅν is syntactically integrated into the λέγετε matrix clause and so looks like a direct object but it isn't really one as it semantically belongs to the subordinate clause. This syntax-semantic mismatch has a discourse function along the lines set forth above.
Thanks Stephen for the proleptic accusative. I had not realized the complexities here. I went off and read a bit more. Here is a paper I found interesting http://www.let.rug.nl/dvries/pdf/2016-p ... evised.pdf. I don't have enough linguistics to know if I should buy the ellipses/ECM argument but the dislocation is clear enough and seems to fit with CGCG.

I'll note that the paper considers the object direct.

That leaves this question of Jason's a little unresolved:
Jason Hare wrote: November 11th, 2021, 3:27 pm
Barry Hofstetter wrote: November 11th, 2021, 7:59 am Why, when it makes perfect sense as the simple direct object of λέγετε?
Does it? Can you speak a person? Can you say a person? I don’t see how that could be a simple direct object.
I think the answer here might be rather that you are saying the subordinate clause and the syntax has gotten somewhat overridden by the dislocation to create topic/focus for that subordinate clause.

I did look at acc of reference/respect. I found one example that felt close to this case, but most of the examples seemed sufficiently different in the relation of the accusative to the referred entity, to leave doubts for me at any rate.

Regardless, a really interesting question from which I learned a bunch of stuff.

Thx
D
Stephen Carlson
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Re: John 8:54 pronoun

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Daniel Semler wrote: December 5th, 2021, 4:14 pm Thanks Stephen for the proleptic accusative. I had not realized the complexities here. I went off and read a bit more. Here is a paper I found interesting http://www.let.rug.nl/dvries/pdf/2016-p ... evised.pdf. I don't have enough linguistics to know if I should buy the ellipses/ECM argument but the dislocation is clear enough and seems to fit with CGCG.
Thanks for the paper. It only fits with CGCG in that they are both descriptively adequate of the Greek phenomenon, but like many other papers in generative linguistics, that’s not really the purpose of the paper. Rather, it is to use this paper to “explain” it and they do it by proposing a derivation for it within a specific grammatical framework (middle-to-late Chomskyan generative grammar “GG’). I personally prefer a functional and constructional approach, but identifying prolepsis as a construction is repeatedly seen by these authors as a problem to be avoided instead of the goal of the analysis. So their interest is to reduce this construction to a number of different operations in GG subject to various constraints commonly accepted within that tradition. None of this gives me any purchase on exegesis, so my interest can only be passing, but better exegesis admittedly isn’t their goal in the first place.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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