2 John 11 ὁ λέγων γὰρ αὐτῷ χαίρειν

[Stephen Carlson]

Could you check for me, by applying the rules of intonational phonology, in so far as you understand them, and let me know whether my assumptions of equivalence give the same point of highest peak.

Does πᾶς γὰρ ὁ λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν have its highest peak at the χαίρειν as you have suggested it is for ὁ λέγων γὰρ αὐτῷ χαίρειν

If I understand D&S right, there would be an initial peak on the full accent in πᾶς. Ordinarily, there would be a downtrend (catathesis) following the initial peak wherein the next full accent would be lower, but this is canceled by a (nonlexical) grave. We can call that anathesis. So the highest peak would be on the full accent in λέγων. At this point, catathesis applies and the χαίρειν would have a lower peak than in λέγων. By contrast, the γὰρ in ὁ λέγων γὰρ αὐτῷ χαίρειν follows λέγων, so the peak should be after it. (I'm not clear yet on the status of αὐτῷ: D&S state that full accents (here the circumflex) don't do anything in nonlexicals, which is why I thought the next peak would be on the following χαίρειν, but I suppose if αὐτῷ is emphasized, the intonation would be different...) Also, internal prosodic breaks could reset the intonation.

and does ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν λέγῃ αὐτῷ χαίρειν / πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἀν λέγῃ αὐτῷ χαίρειν have its highest peak at λέγειν as you've suggested for ὁ γὰρ λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν

For these, I'd place the highest peak on λέγῃ.

Do I need to consider re-evaluating my modelling?

Perhaps?

[Stephen Hughes]

Do I need to consider re-evaluating my modelling?

Perhaps?

I'm not sure that there should be correspndence. I'm trying primarily to make sentence timing. That may not necessarily be coincident with intonation anyway.

Their rule is a very simple one of resetting.

In regard to something you mentioned earlier....
It is quite possible to pronounce both stress and tonality at the same time in the same syllable (or in different ones for that matter). Have you tried to do that successfully with Greek? The rules of relative intonation, and relative stress and relatiive word length may all funciton separately for all I know. It is something that I would like to look at further.

[Stephen Carlson]

In regard to something you mentioned earlier....
It is quite possible to pronounce both stress and tonality at the same time in the same syllable (or in different ones for that matter). Have you tried to do that successfully with Greek? The rules of relative intonation, and relative stress and relatiive word length may all funciton separately for all I know. It is something that I would like to look at further.

We do see evidence of stress-based effects in Koine, so that was certainly present. I assume that in the Koine period stress and pitch accents (largely?) coincided. (They don't coincide, for example, in Swedish for "tone 2" or grave words, whose different pitch on the ultima I tend to misperceive as greater stress.) English too has a pitch accent, and it can move from word-to-word (or stressed syllable to stresss syllable) in an intonation unit for pragmatic reasons, but I don't see a lot of evidence for such a mobile pitch accent in Koine. Rather, the main Koine strategy is to move constituents to the place of greater (or lesser) phonological prominence. Since the highest peak is usually at the beginining of an intonation unit (modulo the behavior of graves) per D&S, this may explain why Koine fronts words for emphasis, e.g, narrow focus. In other words, the general reliance on movement for pragmatic reasons suggests to me that the pitch accent in Koine may still be following the D&S rules (obtained by analyzing Koine period evidence, though earlier than the NT), even if there is also a coinciding (lexical) stress accent.