SENTENCE CONJUNCTIONS IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW: KAI, DE, TOTE, GAR, OUN AND ASYNDETON IN NARRATIVE DISCOURSE

Written by Stephanie L. Black Reviewed By John Nolland

This book is a revision of a doctoral dissertation supervised by Stanley Porter at the University of Surrey Roehampton. It is not a book for the fainthearted, but it makes a thoroughly worthwhile contribution to an understanding of the role of basic linking words between sentences, as used in the narrative framework of the gospel of Matthew. Basic to the study is a use of linguistic principles drawn from semantics theory. These allow for the task to be conceptualised in a manner that is more sophisticated and ultimately more satisfactory than the use of traditional grammatical categories. The focus is not on what the words discussed mean, in the sense of what English equivalents would be appropriate in translation, but on the role of these words. And their role is seen as more procedural than conceptual: they have only a minimal meaning content, but they tell one how to relate the new sentence to what has come before. A question that turns out to be important is: What are the choices? The set of words available in a language will mutually determine the significance of the use of any one of them. Another key idea is that the words studied rarely act alone to achieve their intended end: they operate in connection with variation in word order and in tense of verb and sometimes in conjunction with one another (e.g. kai, tote) or with other terms (e.g. kai, idou).

The amount of pioneer work involved in the study is prodigious. The advantages of computer based statistical analysis have only been achieved by the manual creation of a huge database. If there is a weakness in the book it has to do with the limited engagement with Matthean scholarship that has been undertaken in the process of allocating uses of the words explored to the various categories developed in the course of the study. That said, though some of the individual allocations would certainly change on the basis of more substantial engagement with the exegetical scholarship, it is unlikely that any amount of engagement would produce a statistically significant change in the results. In terms of what is formally produced as a conclusion it might be possible to object that some features of the conclusion only render in a slightly different form what has come into the work as assumptions drawn from semantic theory.

Some of Black’s more significant conclusions are the following: kai is for Matthew an unmarked connector and when he used it he shows a strong tendency to use aorist verb forms and to adopt an unmarked or less marked word order. By contrast ‘de functions as a signal of low-to mid-level discontinuity’ (333). This does not make it an adversative particle. Rather ‘its use signals those in the audience to make some adjustment in their current mental representation of the discourse’ (333), which may be a change of actor, setting or time. The aorist verb is still mostly used, but the preferred word order tends more marked. In the case of speech margins, asyndeton can link ‘sentences with the closest of connections’ (334), but otherwise it tends to be found ‘where higher-level breaks in the narrative occur’ (334). Tote is used as a signal of marked continuity, and its use is associated with the use of the historic present, or thematic finite verbs and of unmarked word order. Gar, and oun have in common that they ‘signal moves from and to the narrative line’ (334), ‘gar by introducing material which confirms and strengthens a preceding proposition (usually, but not necessarily by giving either a reason or an elaboration) and oun by signalling that the ongoing representation is dependent in some way on material which immediately precedes’ (334). There is more subtlety and precision than can be represented in a brief review, but if the impression is created that there has been much hard work for limited returns, then that is an accurate impression. Such is the nature of this kind of language research.


John Nolland

Trinity College, Bristol