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A Case Where Coptic is more Syndetic than Greek

Hasznos, Andrea (2006) A Case Where Coptic is more Syndetic than Greek. Acta Antiqua, 46 (1-2). pp. 91-97. ISSN 0044-5975

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Abstract

A passage from the Gospel of John (1, 17) is examined in the paper from the aspect of syndetic vs. asyndetic features in Coptic and Greek. After a brief introduction to the attitude of the two languages towards text-cohesion and the techniques with which words and ideas are linked within a text, the Gospel passage is analyzed, the Greek and Coptic versions of which seem to contradict the basic nature of the two languages. Raising the question of bilingualism in Egypt, and that of Greek-Coptic lingustic influences, the short study concludes that the passage is an example of the syntactic influence of the Greek language over Coptic, which shows that the use of particles and conjunctions for text cohesion had been planted so deeply in the last phase of the Egyptian language that these connective elements are used in translation even when the original text has none. Both bilingualism and the intense translation practice helped the process of such a syntactic change that particles including conjunctions were tolerated or even required in sentences where they had not been needed before.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: P Language and Literature / nyelvészet és irodalom > PA Classical philology / klasszika-filológia
Depositing User: xKatalin xBarta
Date Deposited: 23 Jan 2017 08:54
Last Modified: 23 Jan 2017 08:54
URI: http://real.mtak.hu/id/eprint/45800

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