Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1993, Page 118

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Pétur Knútsson
where the echo between the verbs egeo ‘want, lack’ and ekhó ‘have’ is
neither etymological nor, I submit, fortuitous.9
73 Conclusion
Here, then, at the very heart of Augustine’s thought, is a clear demon-
stration of the intertextual nature of signification. The important point
in this discussion, however, is the surface (graphological-phonological)
nature of the elements concemed; we are dealing with non-systematic
echoic correspondences which override morphemic structure and pay
no heed whatsoever to “etymonic necessity”. We have the following
situation:
(a) the correspondences concemed have intertextual significance
for the semantics of the terms involved
(b) the correspondences reside in the surface (graphological-
phonological) stmcture
(c) the correspondences are non-systematic insofar as they are
not diachronically related, and insofar as they have no trans-
formational connections with any putative deep stmcture (in-
terestingly for those who see significance in the parallels
between diachronic and TG relationships, it seems that these
parallels are also pertinent here in their absence.)
In short, we have a semantic element which resides entirely in the
graphological-phonological constituent and cannot be associated with
underlying stmcture. Since most of the examples considered above
involve migration not only between texts but also between languages,
we also have a problem for translation. In both cases, the traditional
9 Egeo can be connected with Icel. ekla ‘scarcity’ (Emout 1951:192; Ásgeir Bl.
Magnússon 1989:150), while ekhö is firom * *segh- ‘hold’ (Pok. 888; cf. Germanic
*sigiz- victory, Skr. sáhate). — The observant reader may have detected another echo
here, which had escaped me until this paper was going to print. The conespondence
between eges and ekheis in (10) and (11) also occurs between ‘ecce distentio... ’ in (8)
and ‘diastasis... eikhe’ in (9). Is this coincidental, or another unconscious association
triggering Augustine’s choice of words?