Kris Lyle Beginner, Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Grammar, Greek, Hebrew, Language, Linguistics

Discourse Matters: An example with chunking

Editor’s note: this article was originally published on the blog Old School Script. We have taken over its archives and are slowly republishing pieces that have continuing importance and value. This article was originally published in June 15st, 2016. We have updated to the reference to Chris Fresch’s dissertation to the his now published monograph. We continue to appreciate Kris Lyle’s willingness to share his writing with our readers here at Koine-Greek.com.

Chunking discourse

If it wasn’t for chunking, we would all have a very hard time communicating. Whether you realize it or not, you chunk up your conversations and writing everyday. In speech you might pause, say “um”, “alright,” or “so”. In writing you might do the same, but since writing is visually based and absent of intonational contours you can rely on paragraph spacing, headings, and emojis(?).

There’s more ways to chunk a discourse than what I’ve named, but you at least have an idea of how commonplace the practice is. More importantly, you understand how important it is. Can you imagine a teenager droning on and on with no variation in pitch or pause about a topic you know or care very little about? The lack of chunking would no doubt increase the seemingly incoherent speech. Or how hard would it be to read this post if it were stripped of all its styling and spacing cues? You could do it, but a block of bland text would be as disenchanting as it was difficult to decipher.

No, chunking is good. It helps break up a discourse into meaningful pieces that can then be made sense of more easily on the fly. Although chunking (or segmentation) is a phenomenon that happens in all communicative settings — no matter the language — different languages can have different methods for achieving this effect. And while chunking is a rather neutral cognitive effect, the context in which it takes places is what makes it a meaningful event. It can help to introduce the next point in an argument or plot in a story. Or, as we’ll see in this post, the next item on a list. To do so, we’ll compare a list-making method in both Biblical Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek.

Listing in Hebrew

“a little sleep,
a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest —

and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man”

— Proverbs 6:10–11 (NIV)

Aside from the cheerfulness of this ominous warning (#sarcasm), you probably noticed the author’s presentation of a multi-part scenario in preparation of the main point: a touch a sleep, a dash of slumber, sprinkled with crossed-fingers begets a plate of poverty.

In our English text we have commas that help us get the idea that a list is underway, and depending on the translation there are line breaks. But what happens in the Hebrew text?

(a little sleep) מְעַט שֵׁנוֹת

(a little slumber) מְעַט תְּנוּמוֹת

 (a little folding of the hands to rest) מְעַט חִבֻּק יָדַיִם לִשְׁכָּב׃

(and you get the rest) וּבָא כִמְהַלֵּךְ רֵאשֶׁךָ וּמַחְסֹרְךָ כְּאִישׁ מָגֵן׃

In Hebrew the author connects these stages via asyndeton. That is, he opts to place each proposition up against the other without any explicit connective (or cohesive tie). In fact, the strategy is to let the reader infer how the propositions fit with one another, presumably because the proper relationship is easy enough to deduce from context.

The types of relationships that can exist between propositions are vast. Sometimes it might be causal (for example, I can’t concentrate right now; my 7 month old is screaming #truestory). At other times, there might not be a specific relationship at all (for example, in cases of discontinuity). But in every case, context is the determining clue.

In this case, the three propositions are related to one another as a series — bits of information stacked one upon the other. Sleep, slumber, and folding hands all amount to the same idea: rest (or more to the point: inactivity). And by piecing them all together in a list-like fashion, the author builds a picture in his reader’s mind of a single event captured from different angles.

“Asyndeton does not specify that chunking should occur, but it provides the opportunity for this to be inferred.”

Now, how did the author introduce each new angle? Asyndeton — without using any connective at all. Although asyndeton does not specify that chunking should occur, it provides the opportunity for this to be inferred. In this case, the repetition of מְעַט (a little) + a Noun Phrase (all connected to the same conceptual frame) are ample evidence to suggest related but discrete information units. The perfect setup for displaying items in a series.

With an understanding of how list-making can be achieved in Biblical Hebrew, let’s turn to the Greek translation of this text.

A Greek rendition

Like Hebrew, it is not uncommon for a new unit of information to be introduced with asyndeton. And in Greek, this is the standard connective strategy for non-narrative material — especially in contexts where the relationship is not chronological or logical (DFGNT 7.2).

However, in contexts where a number of bite-sized units of information might be stacked upon the other (i.e., a sequence of events or items on a list), the Greek speaker has a device in their discourse-toolkit that the Hebrew speaker does not: a μέν / δέ combo.

This lexical pairing can be used in contexts well-beyond lists, but its basic function makes it highly appropriate in such contexts. What is that function? In simple terms, the presence of μέν at the beginning of a unit of information signals to the reader that more related and relevant content is on the way. The presence of δέ is then used to identify those next distinct units.

Instead of describing the effects of the μέν / δέ combo, let’s just see it in action by looking at how the Septuagint renders Proverbs 16:9–10.

ὀλίγον μὲν ὑπνοῖς, (a little sleep)
ὀλίγον δὲ κάθησαι, (a little sitting still)
μικρὸν δὲ νυστάζεις, (a little slumber)
ὀλίγον δὲ ἐναγκαλίζῃ χερσὶν στήθη, (a little folding of hands on the chest)
εἶτʼ ἐμπαραγίνεταί σοι ὥσπερ κακὸς ὁδοιπόρος ἡ πενία (and so on…)

The Greek translator opted to make something explicit that was only inferred in the Hebrew text. Aside from there now being four items in the list instead of three (because the Greek translator, with a little creativity, spliced the third point in Hebrew), what is fascinating about this example is that the translator opted to make something explicit that was only inferred in the original Hebrew text (that is, the Vorlage). This interpretive license implies a firm grip on the Greek language, specifically with respect to how certain cognitive constraints can be mapped across languages, even if one language lacks a linguistic device to signal such a constraint.

Takeaway

All speakers have the same need to chunk discourse. Although there is much overlap in how this can be accomplished in different languages (e.g., pitch and pause), certain languages have special devices that aid in this process. And in contexts of list-making, we have seen how Greek can employ a μέν / δέ combo where Hebrew has no such method and, instead, relies upon context via asyndeton. In other words, what Hebrew infers, Greek makes explicit.

It should also be clear that studying the Septuagint is an awesome way to compare how Hebrew and Greek both differ and overlap in the way each respective discourse can be structured.

Further reading: