12.1 | Yan Ma Canadian Chinese School of Theology, Toronto, Canada Biblical scholars dispute the meaning and function of
ἐγώ εἰμι uttered by Jesus in John 8:24 and 8:28. This paper
proposes a linguistic method that provides a framework to assess
the linguistic features of the New Testament text and that may
offer new insights into the Johannine ἐγώ εἰμι clauses. By
adopting the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),
this paper conducts a register analysis of ἐγώ εἰμι in John 8:24
and 8:28, with reference to Isa 43:10 and 43:25. Based on this
analysis, the paper argues that ἐγώ εἰμι uttered by Jesus in John
8:24 and 8:28 is used intentionally as an allusion to the divine
name in the Old Testament, which specifically and powerfully
invokes the image of God, and that this wording therefore
functions to portray Jesus’ divinity. Keywords: Gospel of John, “I am” sayings, ἐγώ εἰμι,
Intertextuality, Systemic Functional Linguistics |
12.2 | A. Moises Zumaeta McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, ON, Canada Vilém Mathesius’s most important contribution to the field
of linguistics is the theory of the Functional Sentence Perspective
(FSP). According to this theory, the message of an utterance is
construed by two content elements designated as “theme” and
“rheme.” Mathesius’s analysis was constrained to the clause;
however, he indicated that theme and rheme are present at various
strata of discourse. By presenting and applying an optimized version
of FSP for Koine Greek, this article strives to determine the discourse
structure of Paul’s epistle to Titus and hence the central message of
its content. Keywords: FSP, thematization, theme, rheme, Prague Linguistics,
staging, clause |
12.3 | Ryder Wishart Regent University, Virginia, USA In this article, I explore the descriptive challenges posed
by a richly morphological language like Greek by considering a
possible alignment between Gregory Stump’s paradigm-linkage
hypothesis and the Cardiff Grammar’s model of syntax and its
relationship with semantics and form. I give several minor examples
that apply the aligned model to Greek, making the case that Stump’s
hypothesis clarifies the Cardiff Grammar’s notion of realization
statements—why there are apparently inconsistent patterns in
realization—where functional grammars tend to rely on probabilities.
This clarity is instrumental for syntactic theorizing for synthetic
languages like Greek. Finally, I suggest some of the implications of
this argument for the specification of syntactic categories in Greek,
whose semantic and syntactic paradigms are, like its inflectional
paradigms, shaped in critical ways by morphosyntactic property sets. Keywords: morphology, syntax, morphosyntax, Systemic Functional
Linguistics, Robin P. Fawcett, Gregory Stump, Hellenistic Greek |
12.4 | Ji Hoe Kim McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, ON, Canada This paper explores linguistic structures beyond the
paragraph level, an area often overlooked in modern linguistics
despite its importance for interpretation. While discourse analysis is
growing, paragraph-level studies remain underdeveloped. I employ
Stanley E. Porter’s criteria for paragraphing and apply Ruqaiya
Hasan’s cohesive harmony analysis to group paragraphs. Through an
analysis of James 1, I argue that verse 13, rather than verses 12 or 16,
marks the beginning of the latter half. Two key pieces of evidence
support this conclusion. First, verse 13 introduces new similarity
chains, establishing a dominant topical thread for the remainder of the
text. Second, according to the analysis of chain interaction, the chain
of trial, which had been interacting with endurance, begins to interact
with lexical items related to truth/falsehood/evil. While preliminary,
this paper demonstrates the potential for extending linguistic analysis
beyond the paragraph level, offering a promising avenue for further
research in discourse and textual interpretation. Keywords: ancient paragraphing, cohesive harmony, James 1,
semantic domain |