Paul Danove, «The Licensing Properties of New Testament Verbs of Non-Spoken Communication» filologia-neotestamentaria, Vol. 24 (2011) 41-58 page 42

Vol 24 (2011)

Paul Danove, «The Licensing Properties of New Testament Verbs of Non-Spoken Communication», Vol. 24 (2011) 41-58

This article resolves the semantic, syntactic, and lexical requirements for the grammatical use of the twenty-nine New Testament verbs that designate communication without a necessary reference to speaking. The discussion establishes criteria for distinguishing verbal usages, identifies four basic usages of non-spoken communication, and examines the conditions for the permissible omission of required complements. The presentation of the licensing properties of verbs with the four basic usages clarifies the similarities and dissimilarities in the realizations of complements for verbs of non-spoken and spoken communication and illustrates two further usages that are restricted to verbs of non-spoken communication. The concluding discussion considers patterns in the distribution of complements and usages among verbs of non-spoken communication.

See more by the same author

Page 42/58
‹
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
›

42 Paul Danove event, or activity)1. These arguments are associated respectively with the verbs’ syntactic first complement (the subject when the verbs have active or middle forms), second complement (the typical subject when the verbs are passivized), and third complement (the atypical subject when the verbs are passivized). The following examples place the verbal comple- ments in brackets, [ ], and abbreviate their semantic functions according to their first letters, Agent (A), Content (C), and Experiencer (E)2. γνωρίζομεν δὲ ὐμῖν…τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν δεδομένην ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Μακεδονίας (2 Cor 8,1) [We (A)] make known [to you (E)] [the grace of God given among the churches of Macedonia (C)]. δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ πάσας τάς βασιλείας τοῦ κόσμου καί τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν (Matt 4,8) [He (A)] shows [to him (E)] [all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (C)]. In these occurrences, both γνωρίζω and δείκνυμι require completion by an Agent first complement, a Content second complement, and an Experiencer third complement. The presentation groups all occurrences of verbs with these linked semantic and syntactic properties into a single usage labeled according to the first letter of the semantic functions of arguments in their proper syntactic order (Usage ACE). The following presentation transforms all passivized verbs into their correlate active or middle forms and analyzes them accordingly. 1.2. The Four Basic Usages of Communication Verbs with usages of non-spoken communication consistently require completion by three arguments, an Agent, an Experiencer, and either a Content or a Topic (the topic of focus of a mental or psychological state, event, or activity). The complements that realize verbal argu- ments are “required complements”. Since verbs of both non-spoken and spoken communication consistently realize the Agent argument as the 1 These and following definitions of semantic functions are developed from those pro- posed in J.I. Saeed, Semantics (Oxford 1997) 139-71, and P.L. Danove, Linguistics and Exegesis in the Gospel of Mark: Applications of a Case Frame Analysis and Lexicon (JSNTSS 218; SNTG 10; Sheffield 2002) 31-45. 2 All examples are taken from B. Aland et al., eds., The Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.; Stuttgart 1993).