Well, if you are going to talk about stuff, then you’ve got to have words to talk about that stuff. Not only that, it helps if everyone agrees on what those words mean. Otherwise you end up like Humpty-Dumpty. Say, why is a raven like a writing desk? Because a raven is a writing desk!
The issue arising more broadly speaking is where to make the break, there are two types of structures. Those where the general things are mentioned in a syntactically complete statement, then the specific things are subsequently said in another syntactucally complete statement, AND where the general things are mentioned followed by the specific within the one syntactic unit. The second type is the most interesting.
In straightforward phrases where the moiety division comes within a single syntactic unit like Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, the break between the speech styles is easy to identify. That us because the words are common and easily recognisable. Marking the speech styles by s or g at the beginning, and the vocbulary moieties by 1 or 2 at the end, I could remark that the ἀρχ¹-family of words are first moiety usually general words, and so is the form ἦν¹ (as mentioned above in the opening post), while λέγειν² / λόγος² are second moiety (belonging to the specific speech style) words. That being said, prepositions afford a degree of flexibility to a word’s position. The position of ἦν¹ - an unequivocally general speech style word makes it clear that Ἐν ἀρχῇ is in the first, because the speech styles don’t mix. The division of speech styles is therefore easily seen as of here as ᵍἘν ἀρχῇ¹ ἦν¹ | ˢὁ λόγος². The next line is a chiasm, with the speech styles reversed, viz. καὶ ˢὁ λόγος² | ᵍἦν¹ πρὸς τὸν θεόν, and then back to the standard order ᵍκαὶ θεὸς ἦν¹ | ˢὁ λόγος².
The idea is not one of my recent ones about Greek, but I only stated it early last year. The entrance point for discussion of the speech styles was back in April last year, in a post that was perhaps not as clear as it could have been for people who hadn’t previously reached a certain basic understanding, or at least awareness of the nature or existence of the speech styles. In the case of Matthew 1:20 (which I explained at that time by both specificity and syntactic patterning - related but at times quite independent features of the language), it seems that the second moiety quality of πνεῦμα is utilised despite it being in a prepositional phrase. At that time, I had taken it for granted that other people understood the dual (and alternating) speech styles, and I was merely offering an explanation about an apparent anomaly. In subsequent duscussion, it became very clear just how pristine certain blank tablets were. Right from the outset of it being stated, the observation of the speech styles was repeatedly maligned using pejorative words like “intuition”, as if intuition was somehow inferior to reason. Maligning ideas per se, and maligning intuition as a way of knowing are both undesirable reactions to knowledge.
The humour of the list seems to based on the tension created but its deviation from generally accepted or at least recognised norms.
I’m afraid that you haven’t made your criteria for specific and general clear to me. Why ἦν would be general, why ὁ λόγος specific, ὁ θεός general, and ἐν ἀρχῇ general again, are all a mystery to me. These statements don’t look anything like your sign example (general prohibition followed by specific examples).
Also, the list is the product of the wonderful mathematical physicist John Baez (cousin of Joan).
I’ve now read some of the b-greek thread that Joel referenced, and now have a better understanding of εκηβολος’ thinking, which strikes me as largely fantastical and linguistically crude. I think he goes overboard on the idea of alternating moieties. His model is structuralist and depends on binary oppositions (in particular, one between abstract and concrete or general and specific, used sequentially). Far from being too complicated, it is too simple, and quite inadequate as an observation of ancient Greek compositional practice.
No more from me here. I recant my first post. I was not aware of εκηβολος’ b-Greek identity, which I don’t believe he’s ever disclosed on Textkit, and I don’t read b-Greek anyway (whenever I’ve looked at it I’ve run away screaming). I’d have no objection to Joel’s shifting this thread over to the Academy.
Michael, great to see that your humours are once again excited.
I am happy for it to be moved there too. That seems like a secluded place to develop ideas. Alternatively, since the aims of the analysis are compositional idiomacity and fluent reading, it may suit the composition thread.
Reasonabky speaking, specificity should be scalar, ranging from very vague and undetailed to the most detailed of minutae. That was my initial assumption in looking at specificity. I assumed that Greek wiuld be like Chinese, where, rather than being direct at first, statements get progressively more to the point. Surprisingly, Greek seems to have lexical items arranged discretely (as opposed to smoothly varying) into two groups for stylistic reasons. [Is “discrete” close enough to “quantum” to earn me more Baez points?] There is the similarity with Chinese in the order of presentation of material that I expected, but not in the same gradual (graduated) way that I expected. The realisation of the allignment of vocabulary items to the less specific or more specific part of something came quite by chance. During a very early realisation of the issue of specificity and vagueness back in March 2016 I wasn’t aware that it was binary.
Is this a rhetorical statement or a request?
These statements don’t look anything like your sign example (general prohibition followed by specific examples).
The more confusing thing about that example is the politics of resister in English. The historical class-baded social oppression that employed latinate words as a mark of social status is not inherent in the Greek style systems.
Another drawback in using English to describe a feature in Greek is that taxonomically speaking, “say” in English is the general word, while words like “promise”, “bless”, “tease” in English are more concrete or specific, as mostnpeople would agree. If you can get your head around it, in Greek it is the opposite. The words that flavour the meaning of “speak” in English, are the contextualisers in Greek. The non-specific word is used as a contextualiser, then “speak” is used to describe the actual thing that is done. Although we need ti translate the Greek general - contextualisers as verbs of speaking in English, they are not taxonomically related in Greek, but rather synonymous (using this word idiosyncratically here for want of a better one) within the speech style system.
mwh only said that he had no objections. I don’t think that he was calling on me to do anything. For now, I’m not sending anything to the Academy. I think that this is an example of a theory that, even if wrong, can co-exist with good discussion on the Koine board. Textkit isn’t meant to be an old boys’ club. Threads that destroy good discussion for everybody else, or drive off good posters, can go over to the Academy. Absent that I think we can tolerate a fair amount of eccentricity. (If not, then we’re probably all going over to the Academy.)
Thanks ever so much for your ringing endorsement of B-Greek. Of course, it serves quite a different purpose from Textkit, though with some overlap, and many people have found many of the discussions pertinent and helpful, but like any forum that’s been around for a while, there are a few heaps of σκύβαλον here and there. BTW, the individual advancing similar claims to εκηβολος is no longer a member of B-Greek at moderator discretion (I’ll leave it to your discriminating intellect to discern why).
In the “for what it’s worth category,” this simple soul is in complete agreement with regard to your analysis above. Joel has asked that we not make “nonsense” responses to εκηβολος, and I understand why, but it is so tempting, and seems at times the only fitting rejoinder.
עֲנֵ֣ה כְ֭סִיל כְּאִוַּלְתּוֹ֑ פֶּן־יִהְיֶ֖ה חָכָ֣ם בְּעֵינָֽיו
It is more likely that good posters will not tolerate eccentricity than that eccentricity will drive off good posters - that is usually done by repetition. So far, discussion of this has not been positively characterised. I think that now that people of reputation have made their pre-discussion positions on this matter clear, and those positions have been understood. Nobody will mistakenly associate them with either understanding of, acceptence of, contribution to or support for these ideas and this system of analysis and understanding.
The originality of these ideas of mine is has been established succinctly and without doubt by community acclamation in a way that I would find difficult to prove myself.
That seems like the most excellent of beginnings to discussion.
In case that was a serious question, and despite expecting a continuation of the lack of others’ confidence in what will be said, let me say that I approach this question of “why?” from two directions.
First, the most obvious way of considering it is that it is part of the original set of words that the theta passive forms of words were added to.
Second, another sort of “why?” question leads to an answer that needs be a little more speculative, viz. The suggestion arising from the grouping of the theta passives of second moiety verbs used in general speech style sections of the text, together with this ἦν and certain other forms is that the ancients grouped words for use in certain circumstances by shape (ie sound for the ancients) rather than by abstract grammar. That is logical in as far as it goes, because speakers of a language speak and write rather than analyse or parse as they use the language. For more than 35 years, I have trained to recognise grammarfrom the lastest (or at least 19th century understanding) then looked for similarities and grammatical patterning in terms of grammar, but this point from the dual speech styles understanding of Greek suggests that there is some validity in looking at Greek in the most uneducated way - the way we looked at Greek when we didn’t know any Greek.
Just similarity of shape (ie sound) seems to have been the way that theta passive forms of second moiety verbs were able to come to be used in the general speech style contexts.
If you mean overboard by quantity, it might be worth me mentioning that posting about the speech styles constitues about just less than 1% of my posting on Greek. If private correspondence about Greek is included into that total to compare “overboard”, then my writing about the speech styles and moieties is less than 0.5% of my writing on Greek.
If you are noting that the idea seems over extended and that it doesn’t apply in all classes of clauses, I should perhaps state clearly that I have not mentioned at all much about it.
Confronted with a range of responses to this patterning that seem to suggest that nobody understands the basic patterning, how could I go on to discuss other issues. Things like the patterns of speech style:
- in subordinate clauses,
- in some demonstrative clauses,
- in embedded narration where the narrator alternates with the action / other speakers vs. parallel narration where the narrator alternates with himself while the other action alternates with themself,
OR - about the relationship between adverbial participles and the finite verb in the same speech style vs. in a different speech style,
- about the reverse speech style structure (still alternating) in some authours, or
- about the historical development of this patterning from the classical period to the Modern period.
The face I am currently chipping at is γάρ. It is exciting to say the least.
I was not expressing agreement with your assignments, but was asking “why have you assigned them this way”? What are your criteria? What you say to someone who cleaned that λόγος is quite general while θεός is specific? λόγος is quite a general word, after all, while θεός is a specific individual (for the author). And certainly εἶναι and its forms can appear quite comfortably in either general or specific statements.
I think he means you make too big a deal about it, not in the quantity of writing, but in your speculation on the subject.
I’ve been quite careful to only mention the things that I’ve worked through. There is nobody, who has enough understanding of this for me to be able to use as a sounding board for my speculations. At the outset, more than 90% of my speculations proved futile, but things have settled down a lot since then.
In what way? Do you understand what it is yet? Rejecting an idea without knowing what the gehenna it is is a bold leap of faith. I’ll probably get more Baez points from Joel for saying it, but, “Have you looked into the telescope yet?”
There is no superscript numeral 1 after θεός. I’m not sure this time and wasn’t sure previously, why you are mentioning that I made a claim about it being in either or any particular moiety?
As for a person making some claim, it would depend on my relationship to the individual, who was making the claim. I’d probably not say anything - taking a swing at a wide ball might only get you caught in the slips - better to let it go through to the keeper. If somebody was defensive, just say “Lovely thoughts, I’m glad you have yourself to agree with”, or words to that effect.
I’ve got no sense of responsibility to share my ideas and no evangelical (note the small “e”) zeal to bring others to the same understanding or to convince others about it. My aim when I picked up Greek as a teen was to read not to teach.
What I would think to myself is that such a person was caught up on the words used to describe things. I would understand that they meant “general” in the sense of having a wide range of meaning, and “specific” in the sense of unique. I would speculate within myself about suppletive verbs. It is highly unlikely that I would “correct” them to agree with me.
If somebody has another way of thinking about the structure of the vocabulary and its usage, that might work too. Somebody beginning their reasoning from what does it mean to be transitive, and how much effect or change really happens because of verbs will end up in the same ball park (perhaps on the opposing team), a person who looks in the patterns of tenses will eventually notice that tense patterns are clustered, and dependent on what kind of verbs. Why should anybody mindlessly undersrand or accept what I say? I have consistently said that somebody arrives at these same conclusions that I have as premises, then there is some value in it. Otherwise…
Marking the speech styles by s or g at the beginning, and the vocbulary moieties by 1 or 2 at the end, I could remark that the ἀρχ¹-family of words are first moiety usually general words, and so is the form ἦν¹ (as mentioned above in the opening post), while λέγειν² / λόγος² are second moiety (belonging to the specific speech style) words. That being said, prepositions afford a degree of flexibility to a word’s position. The position of ἦν¹ - an unequivocally general speech style word makes it clear that Ἐν ἀρχῇ is in the first, because the speech styles don’t mix. The division of speech styles is therefore easily seen as of here as ᵍἘν ἀρχῇ¹ ἦν¹ | ˢὁ λόγος². The next line is a chiasm, with the speech styles reversed, viz. καὶ ˢὁ λόγος² | ᵍἦν¹ πρὸς τὸν θεόν, and then back to the standard order ᵍκαὶ θεὸς ἦν¹ | ˢὁ λόγος².
I’m asking for the explicit set of critera that direct your placement of the s’s and g’s in the above.
What is not said, I wonder, in the explanation that you are quoting that would make it understandable?
Are you asking about the relatiinship between vocabulary moieties and speech styles? To put that another way, are you asking whether a word is arbitrarily in one speech style or the other?
Spock: It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame-of-reference.
McCoy: You’re joking!
Spock: A joke
[pause]
Spock: is a story with a humorous climax.
McCoy: You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?
Apologies to Joel, but I couldn’t resist.
Introducing an “if” is sufficient to create a common frame of reference. It creates adequate distance for the person considering somebody else’s view not to feel too involved, while allowing sufficient scope for empathy, so as to engage with what is being discussed.