Examples of syntactic ambiguity

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Jonathan Robie
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Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Does anyone know of a good list of syntactically ambiguous sentences in the Greek New Testament / Septuagint?

Even a few well-chosen examples would be helpful for something I am working on.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Here's one:

Luke 18:11
ὁ Φαρισαῖος σταθεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο Ὁ θεός εὐχαριστῶ σοι ὅτι οὐκ εἰμὶ ὥσπερ οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἅρπαγες ἄδικοι μοιχοί ἢ καὶ ὡς οὗτος ὁ τελώνης.

I think this is ambiguous - it could mean either that he was standing by himself ("σταθεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν") or that he was standing and speaking to himself as he prayed ( σταθεὶς ... πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο).

Do you agree? Can you think of other examples?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
RandallButh
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by RandallButh »

You probably need to add the famous Rom 5:1 ἔχομεν or ἔχωμεν because that was one phonological word in the 1st century when read outloud to the congregations.

Only those with some Greek schooling would distinguish potential written texts at Rm5.1. Ultimately even scribes could not be trusted absolutely just like we mix-up there/their/they're when writing but are able to clean it up on editing.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jonathan Robie wrote: June 8th, 2022, 12:02 pm Here's one:

Luke 18:11
ὁ Φαρισαῖος σταθεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο Ὁ θεός εὐχαριστῶ σοι ὅτι οὐκ εἰμὶ ὥσπερ οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἅρπαγες ἄδικοι μοιχοί ἢ καὶ ὡς οὗτος ὁ τελώνης.

I think this is ambiguous - it could mean either that he was standing by himself ("σταθεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν") or that he was standing and speaking to himself as he prayed ( σταθεὶς ... πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο).

Do you agree? Can you think of other examples?
Prepositional phrase attachment is often a great source of syntactic ambiguity. Perhaps one can look for adverbial PPs between two verbs.

In this case, I suspect the information structure/prosody for this verse will not be ambiguous however. The cataphoric ταῦτα would have to be in focus, which means that we would expect the intonation unit to begin there, making πρὸς ἑαυτόν part of the preceding unit with σταθείς as a backgrounded constituent.
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote: June 9th, 2022, 9:55 pm Prepositional phrase attachment is often a great source of syntactic ambiguity. Perhaps one can look for adverbial PPs between two verbs.
Yes, I think prepositional phrase attachment really is one of the most common sources of syntactic ambiguity. Question versus statement is another. I find myself thinking that someone else has surely catalogued this somewhere.
Stephen Carlson wrote: June 9th, 2022, 9:55 pmIn this case, I suspect the information structure/prosody for this verse will not be ambiguous however. The cataphoric ταῦτα would have to be in focus, which means that we would expect the intonation unit to begin there, making πρὸς ἑαυτόν part of the preceding unit with σταθείς as a backgrounded constituent.
I'm suspecting that genuinely ambiguous sentences, given context, are actually not as common as I had suspected.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Tony Pope
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Tony Pope »

Jonathan Robie wrote: June 12th, 2022, 10:26 am I'm suspecting that genuinely ambiguous sentences, given context, are actually not as common as I had suspected.
Agreed.
Jonathan Robie wrote: June 12th, 2022, 10:26 am Question versus statement is another.
Here are several that come to mind, and there are no doubt others.

1 Cor. 6.4 βιωτικὰ μὲν οὖν κριτήρια ἐὰν ἔχητε, τοὺς ἐξουθενημένους ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, τούτους καθίζετε
Discussed in this forum in 2018:
https://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vi ... f=6&t=4353

2 Cor. 10.7 τὰ κατὰ πρόσωπον βλέπετε
There are commentators who read this as an exhortation (Face the obvious facts), others as a statement (You pay attention to outward appearances), and yet others as a question (Is it outward appearances that you pay attention to?).

Matt. 8.7 ἐγὼ ἐλθὼν θεραπεύσω αὐτόν
Punctuated in the editions as a statement, but a fair number of scholars regard it as a question. Discussed in this forum in 2009. https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-g ... 48604.html

Further on Luke 18.11,
Stephen Carlson wrote: June 9th, 2022, 9:55 pmIn this case, I suspect the information structure/prosody for this verse will not be ambiguous however. The cataphoric ταῦτα would have to be in focus, which means that we would expect the intonation unit to begin there, making πρὸς ἑαυτόν part of the preceding unit with σταθείς as a backgrounded constituent.
If we want to construe πρὸς ἑαυτόν with σταθείς, what does it mean? For years I assumed it must mean "he stood by himself", but I have not found any parallels for that, whereas καθ' ἑαυτόν is used several times in LXX in that sense, not to mention elsewhere. I wonder whether an early reader reading the sentence would in fact connect σταθείς and πρὸς ἑαυτόν together, unless we invoke a solution based on Aramaic à la C. C. Torrey.
If on the other hand, the intonation unit could start with πρὸς ἑαυτόν it would seem to make sense with the main verb προσηύχετο, either as praying with reference to himself or praying in his mind, both options that have been suggested for the variant reading in which πρὸς ἑαυτόν follows ταῦτα.
Is it a no-no to have an intonation unit πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο?
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Tony Pope wrote: June 13th, 2022, 2:11 pm Further on Luke 18.11,
Stephen Carlson wrote: June 9th, 2022, 9:55 pmIn this case, I suspect the information structure/prosody for this verse will not be ambiguous however. The cataphoric ταῦτα would have to be in focus, which means that we would expect the intonation unit to begin there, making πρὸς ἑαυτόν part of the preceding unit with σταθείς as a backgrounded constituent.
If we want to construe πρὸς ἑαυτόν with σταθείς, what does it mean? For years I assumed it must mean "he stood by himself", but I have not found any parallels for that, whereas καθ' ἑαυτόν is used several times in LXX in that sense, not to mention elsewhere. I wonder whether an early reader reading the sentence would in fact connect σταθείς and πρὸς ἑαυτόν together, unless we invoke a solution based on Aramaic à la C. C. Torrey.
If on the other hand, the intonation unit could start with πρὸς ἑαυτόν it would seem to make sense with the main verb προσηύχετο, either as praying with reference to himself or praying in his mind, both options that have been suggested for the variant reading in which πρὸς ἑαυτόν follows ταῦτα.
Is it a no-no to have an intonation unit πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο?
I think so, unless it's some kind of a complex focus, which generally needs more contextual support. The word order variant ταῦτα πρὸς ἑαυτόν (which has excellent support by the way with P75 B fam.1 etc.) has precisely the order I would expect for "to himself" to be construed with the praying. But I think the idea is that the Pharisee won't even pray near the tax collector (see the contrast with how the latter stands in v.13 ὁ δὲ τελώνης μακρόθεν ἑστώς).

As for whether πρὸς ἑαυτόν is attested to mean "by oneself" with verbs of standing and I suppose other verbs of posture, we'd need to take a good look at post-Classical Greek including the papyri. I don't know if anyone's done a study on that. The compositional semantics seem obvious enough that I'm not really worried unless it's somehow preempted by an idiomatic expression.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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RandallButh
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Re: Examples of syntactic ambiguity

Post by RandallButh »

Since it's still on the discussion table:

a. the semantics of προσεύχεσθαι have always struck me strange if it were being construed with προς εαυτον. Would one of the Prushim pray to himself? Or was Jesus additionally negating the example by saying that God didn't hear the prayer, only the man himself was listening? (I don't accept such a reading, but I bring it up as to how it would sound if parsed with προεύξασθαι.

b. As for "complex focus" I think that what you are suggesting is a non-focal πρὸς ἑαυτόν, i.e., it is marked, contextualizing material [AKA marked topical material] pre-posed before its verb and before the marked focal material (ταυτα), also pre-verb but post contextualizing material. Pragmatically, I consider such structures marked but the "contextualizing > focal > verb" word order to be commonplace. However, as mentioned in "a." the collocation with προσεύξασθαι seems strained to me.

c. as for Torrey's Aramaic assumptions, we are now a century later and know that 100% of Jewish story parables were taught/recorded in Hebrew, even in Aramaic contexts. Jewish teachers tended to use the tribal language for discussing 'how then should a Jew live.' (The data was already available in Torrey's day and earlier, but most NT scholars were not looking in that direction for a number of "complex?" reasons.) However, the broader point, foreign interference in our gospel material and perhaps an irregular word choice, yes, that happened. That is why people sometimes talk about "jewish Greek," even if it was not a distinct and precisely definable dialect. The styles of the four Gospels show a cline and diversity that do not reflect a mature, separate dialect. Rather they show relatively polished second-language users. Luke (maybe the only MT), Mark and Matthew because of written Greek sources that include Hebrew somewhere in written or oral earlier stages, John the smoothest but simplest Greek, perhaps John's sermons recorded and edited by mother-tongue disciples.

d. Greek precedents. We have the transitive verb στῆσαι/ἱστάναι already in Homer:
Od.1.127 ἔγχος ἔστησε πρὸς κίονα "a lance he placed at the pillar,"
and I don't see why πρός would not occur with the intransitive στῆναι/ἑστάναι
like 2Ki 23.3 (=4Kingdoms) καὶ ἔστη ὁ βασιλεὺς πρὸς τὸν στῦλον "and the king stood beside the pillar."
And if a plural can be reciprical, why not a singular reflexive?
Isokrates Areopagitikos 7.51 πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἡσυχίαν εἶχον καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ἅπαντας εἰρήνην ἦγον” they were having a calm state with themselves and with all the other peoples were making/at peace."

e. The word order in p75 and B seems to be pragmatically against the grain. I treat it as a mistake. Πρός in the context would appear to be a goal "to himself" and not the sometimes suggested "about himself," which would be clearer with περί and more idiomatically negative "against" if with πρός (Col. 3.3, Mark 12.12).
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