From: Philip Graber (omc01091@mail.wvnet.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 09:44:11 EST
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Kimmo Huovila wrote:
> This is somewhat controversial. Ralph Bruce Terry argues the basic word
> order to be SVO in his Discourse Analysis of 1 Corinthians.
>
>
> Iver Larsen wrote:
>
>>> Also, is there any evidence that the basic word order in GREEK
>>> is VSO?
>>
>> I would refer you to section 2.6 of the book "INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND
>> DISCOURSE FEATURES OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK" by Stephen H. Levinsohn (SIL:Dallas,
>> Revised edition, 2000). Dr. Randall Buth may have more references. I first
>> learned this from him, I believe.
>
The following footnote from my dissertation (references follow) I
believe add references that have not yet been mentioned with regard
to word order in Greek.
Numerous attempts have been made to determine "normal," unmarked
word order for Greek. Davison (1989) concluded that the basic word
order of clauses in Paul and Luke is VSO, which according to
Greenberg's (1963) word order universals, has an alternate order of
SVO. Timothy Friberg (1982) also argued for VSO word order. Porter
criticized such attempts for failing to take into account that no
element (Verb, Subject or Object) is obligatory in Greek; one might
even argue that the unmarked position for the Subject is to be
implicit. However, Irene Philippaki-Warburton has argued
convincingly for VSO as unmarked word order in Modern Greek on the
basis of intonation evidence applied to all possible clause
constituent combinations, including the absence of an explicit
subject (Philippaki-Warburton 1985; Philippaki-Warburton 1987).
Her argument is not that VSO is statistically more frequent than
other orders (Porter may be correct that unmarked position for the
Subject is to be implicit if by unmarked he means most frequent) but
that it bears unmarked intonation in spoken Greek, whereas
alternative orders require marked intonation.
Davison, M. E. 1989. New Testament Greek word order. Literary and
Linguistic Computing, 4, no. 1: 19-28.
Friberg, Timothy. 1982. New Testament Greek word order in light of
discourse considerations. Ph. D. Diss., Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular
reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Universals of
Language, edited by Joseph H. Greenberg, 73-113. Cambridge, MA:
M.I.T. Press.
Philippaki-Warburton, Irene. 1985. Word order in Modern Greek.
Transactions of the Philological Society, 2: 113-43.
------. 1987. The theory of empty categories and the pro-drop parameter
in Modern Greek. Journal of Linguistics, 23, no. 2: 289-318.
Porter, Stanley E. 1993. Word order and clause structure in New
Testament Greek: An unexplored area of Greek linguistics using
Philippians as a test case. Philologia Neotestamentaria, 6 (November):
177-206.
--
Philip Graber
Ronceverte, West Virginia USA
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