Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 06-20-2012, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

It is clear from this that Spin is taking "marked" to refer to word order, but unfortunately his use of the term isn't consistent with linguistic research. It reflects, rather, a simplistic version of a much more complex theory. This is not the first time Spin has demonstrated a [irony]decificiency[/irony] when it comes to linguistics, nor even to word order:

JW:
Oh for fuck's sake, why is this Thread still open:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_order

Quote:

most languages are generally assumed to have a basic word order, called the unmarked word order; other, marked word orders can then be used to emphasize a sentence element, to indicate modality (such as an interrogative modality), or for other purposes.

For one thing, it's still open because I have to respond to fucking, moronic statements like the above because people have zero clue what they are talking about and didn't bother to read the fucking original post. "Markedness" is not the goddamn word order in Josephus. Spin limited his analysis specifically to Josephus:

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

And so you are supposed to be justifying the marked word order in Josephus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

You've droned on and on saying nothing. You flee from the simple notion of markedness which is used in linguistic discussions, in utter ignorance, because the notion gets used under different names. Yet you know that your example of Nicolaos was a blunder, already clear before you opened your trap: he was a famous writer who was one of Josephus's named sources and one would expect marked syntax in his confront. It fit known behavior, as did the other example you dredged up re: John & Jesus. That was markedness for obvious reasons. You are still left without any obvious justification for the marked syntax in AJ 20.200.

He didn't claim that this word order "marked' in greek, but in Josephus. So either you didn't read the initial post, or your own wiki link, or didn't understand either. Moreover, "markedness" refers only to relative structural preference. People used "marked" linguistic elements all the fucking time. But rather than go back an admit his bullshit about markedness being somehow applicable here, he just kept repeating it. And rather than actually pay attention to his use of the term versus your own fucking link, you complain that this thread is still going on.

I do love the squealing!

:hitsthefan:

thief of fire · 06-20-2012, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

Quote:

most languages are generally assumed to have a basic word order, called the unmarked word order; other, marked word orders can then be used to emphasize a sentence element, to indicate modality (such as an interrogative modality), or for other purposes.

Yes, spin is guilty of simplifying and LegionOnomaMoi is innocent of complicating. All evidence of spin's decificiency.

Joseph

Joe you need to re read what LegionOnomamoi wrote. I dont think you grasped it

gurugeorge · 06-20-2012, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

He didn't claim that this word order "marked' in greek, but in Josephus.

But weren't you claiming, in response to that, that virtually "anything goes" in greek?

LegionOnomaMoi · 06-20-2012, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

He didn't claim that this word order "marked' in greek, but in Josephus.

But weren't you claiming, in response to that, that virtually "anything goes" in greek?

No, not at all. Nor am I claiming that anything goes in Josephus.

AGAIN: the main point of this thread was because Spin refused over and over again to defend his use of the term, which was central to his argument. Because he refused to do so, I did. And because he refused to narrow it down (as its kind of hard to narrow a theory down to the point where it doesn't apply) I had to a much more lengthy description of the history (and it was much shorter than it could have been).

Not anything goes in Greek, but quite a bit can

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

In fact, the very idea of using word-order in Greek to make an argument is often quite problematic, as Helena Kurzová makes clear in her paper "Morphological semantics and syntax in the non-formalized sentence structure of Greek" (in In the footsepts of Raphael Kühner): "Since syntactic relations are separately and repeatedly marked on all words- nouns, adjectives, and verbs in attributive and predicate syntagms-, the non-contigous position of noun-adjective and noun-verb is not only possible, but regular in Greek. Thus, adjectives and participles may be appositionally added to the head noun and seperated from it by other words not belonging to the syntagm...And it is this same quality which was observed by Aristotle when he argued that a Greek sentence in simple, continuous, non-periodical style had no beginning and no end." Also, "Word order transformations do not form a well-organized paradigmactical system either...The projectivity of syntax onto word order is very low in Greek, due to several factors: the pragmatic motivations connected with the functional sentence perspective, which is already multidimensional in itself, are complicated by the non-contiguity as a result of the periodical sentence structure and the positional frames." She concludes "In a language like Greek where even the syntactic structure of the sentence is non-formalized and non-explicity, where much is left to be understood on the basis of semantics, we cannot expect any rigid rules, ready to be formalized..."

And there are plenty of other references to Greek flexibility in general, which makes markedness (a theory about relative structures, in that one is only generally preferred relative to another, especially with more flexible languages) a truly problematic way to analyze a greek text, even if one isn't misusing the theory.

That doesn't mean, though, that either anything goes in greek or in Josephus. The reason work order is so flexible is because greek is a highly inflected language, and thus agreement is required. So while in Greek I reverse subject and object, or put the verb first or last, I have to use the appropriate cases and verb forms. Additionally, Greek relies heavily on things like particles for clause coordination, as well as other grammatical devices for particular forms of address, speech (e.g., indirect discourse) etc.

spin · 06-20-2012, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

Quote:

most languages are generally assumed to have a basic word order, called the unmarked word order; other, marked word orders can then be used to emphasize a sentence element, to indicate modality (such as an interrogative modality), or for other purposes.

Yes, spin is guilty of simplifying and LegionOnomaMoi is innocent of complicating. All evidence of spin's decificiency.

Joseph

Joe you need to re read what LegionOnomamoi wrote. I dont think you grasped it

What, do you think the descriptor preceding its subject is gratuitous? Thrill us by showing what you have grasped (beside yourself).

I've shown two different types of example where the word order is not gratuitous, ie the syntax marks those cases. Despite LegionOnomaMoi's torrent of shit, he still has no means to deal with the word order. "It's flexible"! Give the boy an all-day sucker.

(Sorry, no sucker smiley available.)

JoeWallack · 06-20-2012, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

"Markedness" is not the goddamn word order in Josephus. Spin limited his analysis specifically to Josephus:

Quote:

:
Originally Posted by spin View Post
And so you are supposed to be justifying the marked word order in Josephus.

JW:
Right, markedness is not the word order in Josephus, it's the word order in Josephus. If you can not explain yourself who can. Maybe the marked young man in Secret Mark. On the other hand I believe you are now in contention for the annual award given to the post that uses "fuck" the most times. Therefore I am now switching my color word to shit, as in "don't give a". Mark my words.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

thief of fire · 06-20-2012, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

Joe you need to re read what LegionOnomamoi wrote. I dont think you grasped it

What, do you think

I think you have some axe to grind, so you look for something unique about a passage, then you invent your own "linguistic rule" afterwards, to suit what you already wanted to argue. then you imagine yourself to be some Gramscian hero fighting the "hegemony".
It might be that in wanting to do something meaningful (against the "hegemony"), you are seeing things that aren't there (according to any rigorous methodology).

spin · 06-20-2012, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

Joe you need to re read what LegionOnomamoi wrote. I dont think you grasped it

What, do you think {the descriptor preceding its subject is gratuitous? Thrill us by showing what you have grasped}

I think you have some axe to grind,

Instead of showing you grasped what you accused Joe of not grasping, you change subject, making another accusation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

so you look for something unique about a passage,

So you accept there is at least "something unique about the passage".

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

then you invent your own "linguistic rule" afterwards, to suit what you already wanted to argue.

If by "rule" you mean that I have pointed out a marked word order which is indicative of a few situations in the introduction of a figure (previous mention or famous person in descriptor reference), then you use "rule" in a very "flexible" sense. To talk about my inventing this "rule" is just silly. I'm merely being descriptive. You need to turn to LegionOnomaMoi who is our resident prescriptive grammarian. And using the fact to argue what I want is normal debating procedure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

then you imagine yourself to be some Gramscian hero fighting the "hegemony".

You're inventing your own narrative here that doesn't match reality. The quotes are also telling of your problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

It might be that in wanting to do something meaningful (against the "hegemony"), you are seeing things that aren't there (according to any rigorous methodology).

Denial is the first stage of grief. Even the previously denialist LegionOnomaMoi has read his duffer's 5 minute guide to hegemony and got over the denialism and is attempting vainly to own the idea.

thief of fire · 06-20-2012, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Denial is the first stage of grief.

And truth the first casualty in war, but you're pointing your "Gramsci gun" in the wrong place.

spin · 06-20-2012, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thief of fire

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Denial is the first stage of grief.

And truth the first casualty in war....

You've already embodied this fact.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.