Abstract
In this article, a tribute to James Aitken by his students and postdoctoral collaborator, several case studies are presented that demonstrate how situating the Septuagint within its Post-classical Greek context can add significantly to our understanding of the textual-linguistic character of the Septuagint translations. They include a new approach to understanding parataxis with
Introduction
The aim of this special issue on The Septuagint within the History of Greek is to show how the language of the Septuagint (LXX) can be contextualized as Post-classical Greek. This line of research has been one of the most significant aspects of James Aitken’s research program1 and has been formative for those of us working with him at Cambridge as doctoral students or postdoctoral collaborators in LXX studies over the last five years. In this article, written shortly after the news of his passing and while in the process of finishing the issue as a whole, we present case studies of language use in the LXX that show the value and necessity of positioning these translations within the history of Greek. As an epilogue to the issue as a whole, and as a tribute to Jim, these examples show that the extent of Semitic interference in the LXX has been overstated to the detriment of a more fully nuanced understanding of the character of the LXX.
Situating the LXX within the history of Greek involves a multicausal approach. Multicausality in LXX studies means studying the LXX not only as a translation in relation to the Hebrew, but also as a Greek document which participates in the broader Post-classical linguistic and textual world. These converging spheres of associations entail that no single factor can be taken as exclusively constitutive in the translation process. A multicausal approach to LXX translations stems from this recognition and suggests that only a variety of factors, working in concert, provide sufficient explanatory power to account for the shape of these texts.2
The notion that the Greek of the LXX exemplifies an artificial language characterized by interference, a so-called “translationese,”3 is still quite prevalent in contemporary scholarship.4 There are various reasons for this, as laid out in the introduction to this issue.5 One issue is the tendency to repeat the same few examples as evidence of Semitic interference. Oftentimes, these examples go back to early twentieth century scholarship and continue to be recycled into the twenty-first. Two paradigmatic examples of this are the prevalence parataxic
Firstly, they have awarded these examples an emblematic status and therefore segregated their portrayal of the linguistic character of the LXX from much, if not most, of the evidence. Many dimensions of the text still await further research. Building upon the earlier work of Adolf Deissmann and John Lee, among others,7 LXX scholars are still working on situating the vocabulary of the LXX within the history of Greek.8 At the same time, building upon the work of the so-called Helsinki school,9 we are also giving increased attention to syntax.10 Our understanding of how a text functions must account not only for its lexicon, but also for the details of its morphology and syntax. It is especially through further exploration of LXX syntax that its linguistic character will be illuminated.
Secondly, scholars have disregarded advances in adjacent disciplines, such as the study of linguistics more broadly and Post-classical Greek in particular. There have been significant advances in the study of language variation, bilingualism, and language contact.11 Furthermore, our understanding of the landscape of Post-classical Greek has been expanded by an increase in available evidence for comparison, with large numbers of papyri from the Hellenistic period discovered, published, and made searchable through new databases.12 Further, and related to this, the linguistic study of Post-classical Greek itself has seen recent and rapid growth, and scholars in this field have been more progressive in engaging insights from sociolinguistics into their own research than what we have seen in LXX studies thus far.13 Refined engagement with this broader range of Post-classical Greek studies offers scholars many opportunities for advancing our understanding of LXX texts.
The field of LXX studies is currently in the midst of important encounters with other disciplines and we have an opportunity to decide which avenues to pursue.14 This issue highlights the cross-fertilization between LXX studies and Post-classical Greek studies. It is only through a multicausal approach that considers the LXX within the history of Greek that we will gain an adequate sense of the relationship between interference and conventional Greek in these texts.15 In order to showcase the many avenues for further research, we have gathered case studies which demonstrate the presence of Post-classical Greek conventions in the language of the LXX. We do not deny that interference in the LXX exists. It is, after all, a universal of translation,16 but we argue that it has been exaggerated. The first example (1 Parataxis in the LXX), from Travis Wright, discusses the prevalence of parataxis with
1 Parataxis in the LXX
1.1 Introduction
In LXX Studies, scholars often assume a high degree of parataxis is evidence that the syntax of the LXX is “Hebraistic.”17
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In fact, some have used examples like (1) to suggest that “in the Greek of the LXX there is no syntax, only parataxis.”19 Yet the matter is more complex than many scholars appreciate. For example, both Homer and Herodotus famously have a high degree of coordination. Even Thucydides, the “master of hypotaxis” (and a paragon of elevated register), “features an extraordinary amount of
1.2 Gricean Reasoning
Building on the work of Paul Grice, Stephen Levison developed an explanation which solves an important problem called the articulatory bottleneck. The problem is to explain the “almost miraculous speed, accuracy, and automaticity” of human communication when the communicative system is impeded by the fact that we articulate speech at a much slower rate than we process it.22 How is it that we are able to communicate faster than we can encode? The answer lies in the prevalence of inference. To maximize the efficiency of communication, natural language relies on a rich system of inference, sometimes referred to as Gricean reasoning: “inference is cheap” and “articulation expensive” so the system functions through maximizing inference.23 Essentially, communication overcomes the articulatory bottleneck by encoding less information in utterances and relying on mutually salient mental reflexes to fill in the blanks. Therefore, “linguistic coding is to be thought of less like definitive content and more like interpretive clue.”24
This reliance on inference provides an explanation for the high degree of coordination in the Hebrew source text. Repetition of the conjunction does not explicitly specify the relationships between clauses, but “minimal forms invite maximally rich interpretations.”25 In fact, Levinson argues that parataxis “is an important instance of the tendency to find from minimal specifications maximally cohesive, rich interpretations.”26 In other words, past events in narrative prose “tend to be read as temporally successive and, if at all plausible, as causally linked.”27
Consider example (2). Although the product licenses parataxis from the source, an inference obtains between each clause in the product:
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Paratactic structures like these are not limited to Hebrew prose texts or their translations. Their prevalence crosslinguistically is warranted by the fact that our default interpretation is to enrich conjoint clauses pragmatically,28 a fact recognized as early as the first century BCE by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (see Comp. 5).29
In the LXX, parataxis is an example of pragmatic convergence between the source and target languages. Setting aside questions of register and purpose, parataxis is an eminent example of how pragmatic inferences in the source text can be licensed by the translator to result in a coherent and conventional product. Notice in (3) how the translator monitors the product by introducing
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It is unlikely that the translators did not intend these pragmatic enrichments as at least one such inference is detected and explicated using
1.3 The Problems of Prescriptivism: Is Parataxis Primitive?
Parataxis has been an important example of the so-called “primitive” nature of LXX Greek, a situation mirrored more broadly in linguistics. The situation is more complicated, however. Linguists once assumed that languages begin with parataxis and then evolve toward clausal embedding and hypotaxis, such that the earliest periods of human language lacked clausal embedding.32 Languages without clausal embedding were considered “primitive”:
It may be laid down as a general principle that in the progress of language parataxis precedes hypotaxis. The former is associated with the uncultivated mind; the latter, with the cultivated mind of civilized peoples.33
However, the evidence does not demonstrate that syntactic subordination is a sign of complexity (and therefore sophistication) while coordination is more primitive (and crude).34 Hypotaxis and parataxis are often extant concurrently even in the pre-literate stage of many language families,35 and, in certain languages, parataxis evolved from hypotaxis.36 While it is less complex in terms of code, parataxis is not less “complex” in meaning: it simply relies more heavily of Gricean reasoning. In this the LXX actually requires its audience to perform complex processes of meaning recovery on the product. These facts should caution scholars in their negative evaluation of parataxis in the LXX. As Jim demonstrated,37 even hallmark “Hebraisms” are more complicated, and enlightening, than scholars often appreciate.
2 Neologisms
2.1 Introduction
Within the span of just two sentences, LXX Jer 6:13–14 (200 BCE)38 contains three previously unattested words (bolded).
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While this example may seem extreme, the LXX as a whole is understood to contain an excessively high degree of neologisms.
A neologism, according to LXX lexicographers, is a word that is first attested in the LXX.39 On the basis of their being first attested or presumably “newly” coined, it is then often suggested that these words are in some way unique to the LXX, whether it be a matter of formation or a new meaning.40 In his Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, Takamitsu Muraoka claims that there are approximately 1,900 neologisms in the LXX.41 This would mean that nearly 20% of LXX vocabulary, or 1 in 5 words, were either created by the translators or are “proper to” the LXX.42 Such figures contribute to the impression that the language of the LXX is something other than conventional Greek.43 One problem with characterizations of the LXX based on the apparent preponderance of neologisms, however, is that there are not as many neologisms as have been alleged to exist. One common situation in which a word thought to be a neologism has to be reconsidered, is following the emergence of new evidence predating the Septuagint, as often demonstrated since Deissmann and others in his footsteps,44 but a multicausal approach to neologisms in the LXX allows for an analysis of more complex cases.
2.2 ἐξουθενέω
Consider, by way of a first example,
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The fact that
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This ostracon occurs later than the LXX. As there are no grounds to establish any dependence of this text on the LXX, it shows
There are several documentary examples of the
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The sense of the word here seems to be “to lower the amount owed to nothing.” In LXX Jeremiah, the sense was “to act with contempt,” which seems to be a figurative extension (treating someone as though they have no value) from the more concrete sense used in this papyrus. The fact that the earlier LXX attestation is abstract is significant because it is not ordinarily the case that words have abstract or figurative uses, unless a concrete sense of the word has become conventionalized.53 This is not to say that the concrete sense of
The result of this brief survey is that
2.3 ἐκριζόω
As a second example, and to stick with
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This verb occurs thirteen times in the LXX and is listed as a neologism because it is first attested here.54 However,
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This papyrus suggests that the term
2.4 Conclusion
An examination of some alleged neologisms in LXX Jeremiah within a broad linguistic framework of morphology and semantics strongly suggests that the translators used these words because they were already available within Post-classical Greek and that the attested word formations reflects natural language processes. A multicausal approach has yet to be more fully adopted in the study of neologisms in the LXX, in order to more accurately characterize the vocabulary of the LXX.57 I would suggest that a significant portion of alleged neologisms fall off the list on similar terms as the two examples discussed here.58 Since word formation is a natural language process, and not an arbitrary operation of “making up words,”59 and as the list of LXX neologisms shrinks, so does the validity of its characterization as odd or unnatural Greek on these grounds.
3 Verbal Periphrasis
3.1 ποιέω ἔλεος
The Greek translation of Gen 24:12 reads as follows:
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This section focuses on the periphrastic use of
One answer to this question relates its use to the Hebrew source text. In Gen 24:12,
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The Hebrew expression
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The periphrastic use of
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The author juxtaposes verbal periphrasis in parallelism with the simplex verb, creating variation in verbal form for literary effect, while being synonymous in meaning. These parallel usages of the verbal periphrasis in Greek sources show that the construction
3.2 ποιέω πένθος
Another example of this periphrastic construction is
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The Hebrew construction
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It can clearly be established that periphrastic
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It may also be added that in modern Greek, periphrases with
3.3 Conclusion
The use of verbal periphrasis with
4 Verbs of Pouring in kaige
4.1 The Translation of יצק
Among the books of the LXX, the kaige portions have been perceived as the most “literal or unintelligent.”76 In this section, we will look at the translation of
The narration of the death of Jehosophat in 3 Kgdms 22:35 includes reference to his blood pouring out:
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This verse is a good test case of translation technique in kaige revision, because both the Old Greek (cited above, underlined) and the kaige revision are preserved side-by-side in Codex Vaticanus.77 The table shows how
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The revisers match
Two further examples show similarly subtle uses of
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In both passages, the Hebrew has the preposition
ἐπιχέω +ἐπί when pouring on something (e.g., 4 Kgdms 3:11; 4:5; 9:3, 6).ἀποχέω +εἰς when pouring into something (4 Kgdms 4:4).ἀποχέω +ἐκ +εἰς when pouring out of something into something else (3 Kgdms 22:35).
Kaige revisers usually update towards common LXX translation equivalents, so why do we see this variation in their handling of
4.2 Further Example from Jonah
Furthermore, the careful use of
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The kaige revision appears averse to using
4.3 Conclusion
The curious use of
5 Expressing Motion in Exodus
5.1 Introduction
In Greek Exod 19:21–22, motion toward the Lord is phrased in two distinct ways.85
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In v. 21 we find the preposition (
5.2 Documentary Evidence
Contemporary Ptolemaic documentary texts show that multiple options were available in Post-classical Greek for the expression of motion toward a goal. Example (23) below uses
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In both contexts, the prepositional phrases clearly profile trajectory toward a goal.88 The dative also appears in simple motion contexts (25):
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However, by the Post-classical period, Greek had seen an increase in the frequency of prepositions along with a decrease in the use of the dative.89 It is no surprise then that the dative appears far less frequently than the preposition in simple motion contexts in the documentary evidence and Greek Exodus.90
Though in these cases variation between the preposition and dative case may seem indiscriminate, each construction involves a slightly different nuance. For example, in (25), the topic of the letter and the semantics of
In Exodus, both
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It may be that the convention in Classical Greek of the dative case following a compound verb has some influence here, but the dative fits well with the semantics of these verbs. Further, there are other instances (including our original example [22] from Exod 19:21–22) where the dative profiles contact with the endpoint and is not preceded by a compound verb.
In Post-classical Greek, simple motion can thus be profiled by the preposition (
Consider the following papyri where
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In these cases, the author’s personal conceptualization of the event schema likely drove realization. In the first letter, the dative profiles contact with Zenon’s personal sphere (i.e., his administrative funds).94 In the second letter, a weaver named Iollas intended to run away to Zenon and the preposition profiles motion toward Zenon’s personal sphere (i.e., his protection).
These considerations offer important insight into our original example from Exodus (example 22). It appears that the translator has subconsciously distinguished between motion toward a goal and motion resulting in contact.
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A distinction is made between the priests and the people. Both verses involve the same endpoint (i.e., the Lord’s personal sphere), both use the same Hebrew preposition (
5.3 Conclusion
The variation between the preposition
in antiquity.96 It may be that cross-linguistic priming (i.e., Hebrew to Greek) brought about a higher frequency of certain constructions in the product.97 Through careful attention, a more nuanced lens affords the ability to untangle the many causes and better understand the translation of Hebrew texts into Greek.
6 How to Die in Greek
6.1 Introduction
In Gen 35, the journey of Jacob’s household from Bethel is interrupted by a dramatic moment as the beginning of Benjamin’s life coincides with the end of Rachel’s. In Genesis, deaths are typically reported from a fairly distant narratological perspective, but Rachel’s death is different.98 We read of her final moments as she dies with the name of her son, the last born of Jacob, formed by her final breath.
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The commentary tradition has focused on the naming of Benjamin, but the phrase about her soul departing is in focus here. This is an especially significant moment for a barren woman who had called out to her husband: “Give me children, or I shall die!” (Gen 30:1).
The LXX version of this account contains a subtle difference from the Hebrew. While the Greek version presents Rachel as releasing her soul, in Hebrew it is the soul itself which departs. The dissimilarity lies in the construal of agency.
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In Hebrew, the agency belongs to the soul, which departs, and in Greek it belongs to Rachel, who releases her soul.
6.2 The Use of ἀφίηµι ψυχήν
The construction
What stands out is that the texts which use this construction tend to share an elevated literary posture and an inclination back into the Greek literary tradition. This is especially the case for those texts which have clusters of the construction. Josephus was an active participant in Roman literary circles and his works contain numerous echoes of the literary tradition, with Euripides apparently holding particular attraction.103 Pausanias’ reputation has suffered from the gratuitous disparagement of Post-classical Greek literature but is recovering with more nuanced evaluations.104 His frequent use of
It is not only that the
Authors also make use of the semantic flexibility of
The use of the
6.3 LXX Genesis in the Greek Literary Tradition
In narrating Rachel’s death, the LXX translators could have more closely mirrored the Hebrew by attributing agency to her departing soul.116 It may be tempting to see this as a divergence of philosophical frameworks, but there is clearly a literary point to make outside of any speculative anthropological questions. Rather than mimicking Hebrew syntax, we find the LXX translators making a literary move which reflects strategies deployed by other Post-classical authors in their adoption of an elevated literary posture.117 What is more, we find the translators doing so in a place where, as was shown at the start of this section, the source text itself presented a particularly dramatic moment. Significant advances in our understanding of the LXX are being made on linguistic grounds, as is clear from other examples in this paper. At the same time, more literary concerns should also be considered.
Conclusion
These six case studies span various books and may seem relatively isolated, but merge in a number of fruitful ways. The examples of paratactic
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Hopper, Paul J., and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. Grammaticalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Horn, Laurence R. “Contrast and Clausal Order: On Beyond Behaghel.” Language 98 (2022), 812–843.
Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, 2nd ed. (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
Janse, Mark. “Aspects of Bilingualism in the History of the Greek Language.” In Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text, ed. James N. Adams, Mark Janse, and Simon Swain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 332–392.
Janse, Mark. “Co-subordination in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Greek.” In Subordination and Insubordination in Post-Classical Greek: Syntax, Context and Complexity, ed. Klaas Bentein and Ezra La Roi (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, forthcoming).
Jouanna, Jacques. “Rhetoric and Medicine in the Hippocratic Corpus: A Contribution to the History of Rhetoric.” In Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen, ed. Philip van der Eijk (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 39–54.
Karlsson, Fred. “Origin and Maintenance of Clausal Embedding Complexity.” In Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable, ed. Geoffrey Sampson, David Gil, and Peter Trudgill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 192–202.
Keenan, Andrew T. “The Question of Neologisms: Their Frequency and Character.” In The Septuagint: Multilateral Focus on the Text, ed. Helena Panczová (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).
Kemmer, Suzanne. The Middle Voice (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1993).
Kugelmeier, Christoph. “Bibel, Papyri und Philosophen: Beobachtungen zur Geschichte hellenistischer Abstraktbegriffe.” In Septuagint Vocabulary: Pre-History, Usage, Reception, ed. Eberhard Bons et al. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 25–44.
Laird, Andrew. “Approaching Style and Rhetoric.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 201–217.
Lavidas, Nikolaos, and Dimitra Papangeli. “Deponency in the Diachrony of Greek.” In Deponency and Morphological Mismatches, ed. Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown, and Andrew Hippisley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 97–126.
Lee, John A.L. “Equivocal and Stereotyped Renderings in the LXX.” Revue Biblique 87 (1980), 104–117.
Lee, John A.L. A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983).
Lee, John A.L. The Greek of the Pentateuch: Grinfield Lectures on the Septuagint, 2011–2012 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Lee, Timothy A. “The Newly Discovered Fragments of the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever (8ḤevXIIgr) and the Problem of Translation Standardisation.” Journal of Septuagint and Cognate Studies 55 (2022), 89–102.
Lee, Timothy A. “Subtlety in Kaige Revision of Kingdoms.” In The Septuagint: Multilateral Focus on the Text, ed. Helena Panczová (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).
Luraghi, Silvia. On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases: The Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2003).
Lust, Johan, Eric Eynikel, and Katrin Hauspie, eds. A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2003).
Manolessou, Io. “The Historical Background of the Asia Minor Dialects.” In The Morphology of Asia Minor Greek, ed. Angela Ralli (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 20–65.
Mason, Steve. “Josephus as a Roman Historian.” In A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 89–107.
Maurais, Jean. “Language Contact, Cognition, and Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Greek Pentateuch.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 53 (2022), 317–343.
Mufwene, Salikoko S., and Anna María Escobar. The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Mulroney, James. The Translation Style of Old Greek Habakkuk: Methodological Advancement in Interpretative Studies of the Septuagint (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016).
Muraoka, Takamitsu. A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed. (Leuven: Peeters, 2009).
Ožbot, Martina. “The Case for a Common Framework for Transfer-Related Phenomena in the Study of Translation and Language Contact.” In Language Contacts at the Crossroads of Disciplines, ed. Heli Paulasto, Lea Meriläinen, Helka Riionheimo, and Maria Kok (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 131–159.
Pagin, Peter. “Pragmatic Enrichment as Coherence Raising.” Philosophical Studies 168 (2014), 59–100.
Pelliccia, Hayden. Mind, Body, and Speech in Homer and Pindar (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995).
Penner, Ken M., ed. The Lexham English Septuagint: A New Translation (Bellingham: Lexham, 2020).
Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright. “To the Reader of NETS.” In A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title, ed. Pietersma and Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), xiii–xx.
Plath, Robert, and Jörg Wagner. “Zeugma.” In Brill’s New Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/zeugma-e12216790?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.brill-s-new-pauly&s.q=zeugma).
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Rafiyenko, Dariya, and Ilja A. Seržant, eds. Postclassical Greek: Contemporary Approaches to Philology and Linguistics (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020).
Rajak, Tessa. Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Rijksbaron, Albert. The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek: An Introduction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Roselli, Amneris. “Nosology.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hippocrates, ed. Peter E. Pormann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 180–199.
Screnock, John. Traductor Scriptor: The Old Greek Translation of Exodus 1–14 as Scribal Activity (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
Shead, Andrew G. “Jeremiah.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, ed. James K. Aitken (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2015), 469–486.
Small, George W. The Comparison of Inequality: The Semantics and Syntax of the Comparative Particle in English (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1924).
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Stolk, Joanne V. “Dative Alternation and Dative Case Syncretism in Greek: The Use of Dative, Accusative and Prepositional Phrases in Documentary Papyri.” Transactions of the Philological Society 115 (2017), 212–238.
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Swoboda, Sören. “Tragic Elements in Josephus: Pity as the Goal of the Jewish War and Greek Tragedy.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8 (2017), 257–270.
Thackeray, Henry St. John. A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek: According to the Septuagint (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909).
Thumb, Albert. Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus: Beiträge zur Geschichte und Beurteilung der KOINH (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974).
Toury, Gideon. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond, 2nd rev. ed. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012).
Tov, Emanuel. “Three Dimensions of LXX Words.” In The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 85–94.
Vermeule, Emily. Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
Walkden, George. “Parataxis and Hypotaxis: Formal and Empirical Perspectives.” ConSOLE 27 (2019) (http://walkden.space/dahlem.pdf).
Walker, Robert S. “Dative Alternation within Septuagint Exodus in Light of Post-classical Greek.” Journal of Septuagint and Cognate Studies 56 (2023) (forthcoming).
Walker, Robert S. “Interrogatives in the Greek Pentateuch: The ‘Why’ (τί ὅτι) of Translation Technique.” In The Septuagint: Multilateral Focus on the Text, ed. Helena Panczová (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).
Wevers, John W. Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
Wevers, John W. Text History of the Greek Exodus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992).
Widmer, Manuel, Sandra Auderset, Johanna Nichols, Paul Widmer, and Balthasar Bickel. “NP Recursion over Time: Evidence from Indo-European.” Language 93 (2017), 799–826.
Winkler, John J. “Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Citophon.” In Collected Ancient Greek Novels, ed. Bryan P. Reardon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 170–284.
See, e.g., Aitken, No Stone Unturned; “Linguistic Variation”; “Greek Praise Epithets”; “Neologisms”; “Language of the Septuagint”; Aitken and Evans, Biblical Greek in Context.
Aitken, “Origins of kai ge”; Dhont, “Multicausality.”
See, e.g., Pietersma and Wright, “To the Reader,” xiv; Mulroney, Translation Style, 53. Compare also the statement in the guidelines of the SBLCS commentaries: “It should not, however, be presupposed in any given instance that the translator’s primary intention was to produce a coherent text” (§1.4.2, cited in Hiebert, “Linguistic Interference,” 56).
For a discussion, see Evans, “Embracing Advances.”
Aitken† and Dhont, “The Septuagint within the History of Greek,” this issue.
In chronological order, on “peace,” see Thackeray, Grammar, 40–41; Tov, “Three Dimensions,” 88–89; Lee, “Equivocal and Stereotypical,” 116; Büchner, “Translation Technique,” 96–97; Rajak, Translation as Survival, 128; Dhont, “The Septuagint,” 22. On parataxis, see Thackeray, Grammar, 54–55; Aejmelaeus, Parataxis, 48–50; NETS, passim (e.g., 4, 239, 442, 479); Polak, “Context Sensitive Translation”; Hiebert, “Linguistic Interference,” 59–62.
Deissmann, Bible Studies; Deissmann, Licht vom Osten; Lee, Lexical Study; Evans, Verbal Syntax.
See, e.g., Aitken, “Greek Praise Epithets,” but also the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (ed. Bons).
See, e.g., Soisalon-Soininen, Infinitive; Sollamo, Renderings; Sollamo, Repetition; Aejmelaeus, Parataxis, among the many other works published by these scholars.
Lee, Greek; Aitken, “Linguistic Variation”; Dhont, “Syntax and Pronominal Syntax,” this issue.
See Bayley et al., Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics; Chambers and Schilling, Language Variation and Change; Hickey, Handbook of Language Contact.
See, for example, papyri.info as well as the soon-to-be-released databases of EVWRIT (Everyday Writing in Greco-Roman Egypt, Klaas Bentein, University of Ghent) and PapyGreek (Digital Grammar of Greek Documentary Papyri, Marja Vierros, University of Helsinki).
See, e.g., Bentein and Janse, Varieties; Rafiyenko and Seržant, Postclassical Greek.
See Evans, “Embracing Advances.”
On the use of the term conventional Greek as a descriptor in this context, see Maurais, “Language Contact.”
This is the so-called “law of interference.” See Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies, 310–15.
Aejmelaeus, Parataxis, 10: 76% of clauses in the Greek Pentateuch are paratactic.
The edition of the MT as found in BHS is taken as a point of departure. The translation is that of NRSV. For the LXX, the Göttingen editions have been used where available; in the absence of a Göttingen edition for a specific book, we have used the 2006 edition of Rahlfs and Hanhart. The translation is that of NETS or LES, as noted, often revised. For literary sources, we have used the Loeb editions and their respective translations. For the papyri, we have used papyri.info, with the translations cited there, or provided by ourselves.
Conybeare and Stock, Selections from the Septuagint, 50.
Bonifazi et al., Particles in Ancient Greek Discourse, 8: the 10,231 uses in Thucydides amount to a significantly higher proportion than what is found in Herodotus.
Grice, Way of Words.
Levinson, Presumptive Meanings, 28: “Prearticulation processes in speech production seem to run at a speed three to four times faster than the actual articulation rate, and rates at which speech can be parsed and comprehended show the same kind of advantage over articulation rates.”
Levinson, 6 and 27–30.
Levinson, 29.
Levinson, 126.
Levinson, 126.
Levinson, 122.
Levinson, 122.
Horn, “Contrast and Clausal Order.”
Levinson, Presumptive Meanings, 37.
Pagin, “Pragmatic Enrichment.”
Dąbrowska, “Language in the Mind,” 230: “The earliest written texts in a language are usually highly paratactic … while later texts typically show more use of subordination. The historical increase in the frequency of subordination is gradual.” See also Givón, On Understanding Grammar, 171; Hopper and Traugott, Grammaticalization, 175–84.
Small, The Comparison of Inequality, 125, cited in Walkden, “Parataxis and Hypotaxis.”
For further discussion, see Walkden, “Parataxis and Hypotaxis,” on which aspects of this section rely. For the development of
Karlsson, “Origin and Maintenance,” 201: “Evidence from many language families indicates that non-finite clausal subordination and initial stages of finite clausal subordination existed already in preliterate languages.” See also Widmer et al., “NP Recursion,” 443.
Heine and Kuteva, The Genesis of Grammar, 171: The “agglutinating structure of Swahili was replaced by an analytic-isolating type of structure, and that hypotaxis gave way to parataxis as a means of structuring texts.”
Aitken, “Origins of kai ge.”
Shead, “Jeremiah,” 472–73.
Muraoka, Lexicon, xiii.
Lust et al., Greek-English Lexicon, xiv.
Muraoka, Lexicon, xiii.
Lust et al., Greek-English Lexicon, xiv.
See, e.g., Kugelmeier, “Bibel, Papyri und Philosophen,” 25.
Deissmann, Licht vom Osten. See also Aitken, “Neologisms.”
Muraoka, Lexicon, 255; Lust et al., Greek-English Lexicon, 218.
Translation is my own.
See also Aitken, “Neologisms.”
Thackeray, Grammar, 105.
Horrocks, Greek, 102.
Aitken, “Phonological Phenomena,” 272.
BGU 4 1117; P. Mich. 8 477; P. Laur. 2 39; O. Did. 31; P. Col. 10 278; SB 5 7524.
Translation is my own.
Bauer, Morphological Productivity. 51.
Muraoka, Lexicon, 215.
I have read this as
Lee, Lexical Study, 92; Dhont, Style and Context, 124.
Aitken, “Neologisms.” For a fuller discussion of the issues addressed in this section see: Keenan, “Question of Neologisms.”
For example, I have identified 16 “neologisms” that are also preverbs which presumably would also be regarded similarly to
Aitken, “Neologisms,” 329–30.
Pietersma and Wright, “To the Reader,” xiv–xv.
Hiebert, “Linguistic Interference,” 68–69. Although Hiebert focuses on the expression of the object to
The noun
Rijksbaron, Syntax and Semantics, 149.
See Horrocks, Greek, 75, for further examples.
This translation is my own.
Brayford, Genesis, 99.
LES adheres to the principle that “The English translation should feel idiomatic where the Greek is idiomatic … It should feel foreign where the Greek feels foreign,” see Penner, Lexham English Septuagint, xiii.
See also Dhont, “Multicausality.”
Klaas Bentein dedicated a monograph to verbal periphrasis with
Horrocks, Greek, 41, 75.
See, e.g., APF 52.32 ll. 32–33 (
Rijksbaron, Syntax and Semantics, 149.
Translation cited from Bagnall and Cribiore, Women’s Letters, 389. Here the periphrastic construction is equivalent to
E.g., Kemmer, The Middle Voice; Lavidas and Papangeli, “Deponency.”
See Dhont, Style and Context, 151–55.
Thackeray, Grammar, 13.
That the text I have bolded here is the revision is evidenced by its standardised translation equivalents and similarities between the italicized text and the Lucianic text which generally retains the Old Greek. In 3 Kgdms 22:35 the Lucianic text reads
ܘܐܙܕܩܝ ܩܪܒܐ ܒܝܘܡܐ ܗܘ: ܘܡܠܟܐ ܐܝܬܘܗܝ ܗܘܐ ܕܩܐܡ ܥܠ ܡܪܩܒܬܐ ܠܘܩܒܠ ܣܘܪܝܐ ܡܢ ܨܦܪܐ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܪܡܫܐ. ܘܐܫܕ ܗܘܐ ܠܕܡܐ ܡܢ ܡܚܘܬܐ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܥܘܒܐ ܕܡܪܩܒܬܐ. ⸓ ܘܡܝܬ ܒܪܡܫܐ . ܘܢ̇ܦܩ ܗܘܐ ܕܡܐ ܕܡܚܘ̇ܬܐ ܥܕܡܐ ܠܥܘܒܗ ܕܡܪܩܒܬܐ⸔
In the Septuagint,
On the tendency toward standardization see Lee, “Newly Discovered.”
See also Lee, “Subtlety.”
See Lee, “Newly Discovered.”
Thackeray, Grammar, 13.
Thackeray, 13; see also Sweeney, “Review of Greenspoon.”
All translations are my own.
Wevers, Text History, 210. Though Wevers’ claim is made in reference to communication verbs, he apparently views the preposition and dative in spatial contexts as interchangeable. In his Notes, he suggests that variation in the Byzantine text from
For example, see John Screnock’s recent characterization: “A particular type of isomorphism is characteristic of [the Old Greek] translation. Almost every morpheme in the Hebrew is represented by a corresponding morpheme in the Greek.” Later he states, “it seems apparent that the Greek of the OG is more of a code for the Hebrew Vorlage than a natural Greek text … For each element (syntactical, lexical, or morphological) of the OG encountered, we could trace our way back, as if using a decipherment key, to the Hebrew element” (Traductor Scriptor, 28, 74–75). Likewise, Dirk Büchner has suggested “Word matching was more important than meaning transfer … Meaning was not [the translator’s] intention” (“Interpretive Intent,” 127–28).
Luraghi, On the Meaning, 66.
Bortone, Greek Prepositions, 179–83. Also, see Horrocks, Greek, 97. For dative/genitive interchange, see Stolk, “Dative and Genitive Case,” 193. Preposition increase occurred in Asia Minor as well. See Thumb, Die griechische Sprache, 47–52, 123–33. For the decline of the dative in Asia Minor, see Dressler, “Der Untergang des Dativs.” Also, see Manolessou, “Historical Background,” 30–31.
Stolk’s data (covering 3rd c. BCE – 4th–5th c. CE) has
See Stolk, “Dative Alternation,” 221 on
Of course, this does not exclude the preposition from appearing with the prefixed verb (e.g., 12:48:
For this verb-sensitive approach, see Stolk, “Dative Alternation,” 214–15. Also, see Goldberg, Constructions, 24–66. For an explanation of Talmy’s verb-framing strategy, see Croft, Morphosyntax, 214–16.
For more on “personal sphere,” see Dąbrowska, Cognitive Semantics, 16–24.
Like the people, the priests are cautioned to remain consecrated “lest the Lord might get rid of some of them.” Even so, a clear hierarchy is set between Moses, the priests, and the people. While the priests must retain their consecration when they approach the Lord, even if the people are consecrated, they can only come to the foot of the mountain (v. 14–17). This contact-based distinction is in line with 24:1–2, where Aaron, Nadab, Abioud, and the elders may come up the mountain to worship from afar, while the people may not come up at all.
For multicausality in Septuagint studies, see Dhont, “Multicausality”; Aitken, “Origins”; Walker, “Interrogatives.”
See Walker, “Dative Alternation” for a delineation of variation as a product of cross-linguistic priming. This type of cross-linguistic influence is commonly referred to as positive transfer/positive interference. For more on transfer-related phenomena in translation, see Ožbot, “Common Framework.” Likewise, see the introduction in the present issue.
Gen 9:29: “and he died” (
Examples were found using a ten word proximity search for
Tro. 1135, Orest. 1171, and Hel. 1431.
Four in the Hippocratic Internal Affections, two in Aristophanes the Grammarian, and single instances in Demosthenes and Satyrus.
The remaining uses are scattered across Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Polemon, Lucian, Longus, and Philostratus (2x).
See Chapman, “Waters of Babylon”; Feldman, “Influence”; Mason, “Roman Historian”; Swoboda, “Tragic Elements.”
See Hawes, Pausanias, 8–10; Strid, Über Sprache; Bowie, “Inspiration and Aspiration,” 29.
Elsner, “Structuring Greece,” 19.
See Bartsch, Decoding the Ancient Novel; Gaselee, Achilles Tatius, ix-xi; Laird, “Style and Rhetoric”; Winkler, “Achilles Tatius,” 173.
See Cañizares, “Special Features,” 369; Craik, “Hippocratic Question,” 223; Roselli, “Nosology,” 42; Jouanna, “Rhetoric and Medicine,” 41–42.
See Ant. 1.219 for a related example.
The literary posture of this text is apparent as this is followed immediately by an invocation of Homer’s reference to Odysseus’ dog Argos.
Dilts, Scholia Demosthenica, 18.1e.
Plath and Wagner, “Zeugma.”
Deaths are also described as the
Horrocks, Greek, 94–95.
For example, the note on Pindar, Ol. 8.39 where snakes “cast out” (
Appropriately, it was Jim Aitken who drew my attention to this example in discussion of this material.
There are a few examples of Greek writers presenting
For further such examples see Aitken, “Homeric Rewriting,” esp. 533 on the Hellenistic reception of Odysseus.
See also Dhont, “Syntax and Pronominal Competence,” this issue; Janse, “Aspects,” 379–80.
Aitken, “Origins and Social Context,” 14.
