Indo-European linguistics and classical philology
M. G. Seleznev. А. V. Sideltsev. Antianthropomorphisms in the Septuagint revisited: an attempt of a statistical analysis. Verb adjacent focus in Hittite (pp. 813–824)
Author
M. G. Seleznev. А. V. Sideltsev (Russian State University for the Humanities The Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences)
Keywords\n The Bible, the Septuagint, Hebrew, Greek, translation, anti- anthropomorphisms, statistical analysis Hittite, information structure, focus, topic, preverbal and postverbal focus position
Pages\n 813–824
Summary\n
The article deals with the treatment of the so-called anthropomorphisms of the Hebrew Bible in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Septuagint). By anthropomorphism we mean attribution of human physical form or psychological characteristics to God (e.g. speaking about God’s eyes, God’s hand, God’s repentance etc.). Within the Septuagint some scholars find a tendency to avoid anthropomorphisms, though this tendency is far from being consistent.The article summarizes the results of author’s statistical analysis of the treatment of the notion of God’s “eyes” in the Septuagint (includingmentioning of God’s eyes in dead metaphors). All the books of the Hebrew Bible were scrutinized. A statistically significant tendency towardavoidance of literal translation of Hebrew expressions in question was found in the Old Greek translation of the books of Kingdoms (= Samuel andKings of the Hebrew Bible), inasmuch as we can reconstruct this translationwith the help of “Lucianic” manuscripts. The subject of the paper is dedicated focus positions in Hittite. Hittite violates the generalisation of ( Büring 2009) that a language should attest two linear focus positions: the verb adjacent focus position is expected to be preverbal in a SOV language and postverbal in a SVO language. Although Hittite is a SOV language (with rigid word order), it attests both preverbal and postverbal dedicated focus positions. The paper considers both positions. Whereas the preverbal focus position is a standard focus position, the postverbal focus position shows non-trivial peculiarities: it is occupied not only by focused negations and adjuncts, but also by any constituent from the immediately preverbal position, in many cases without any information structure difference. Hence the conclusion is made that the postverbal focus position for Hittite is a very recent innovation, not completely grammaticalized.
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