My friend and colleague Steve Runge has recently had a few things published that you may find helpful.

In April, RBL published a review of Ivan Shing Chung Kwong's The Word Order of the Gospel of Luke: Its Foregrounded Messages (amazon.com). This sort of stuff (word order studies) is right up Steve's alley and I was looking forward to see Steve's take on Kwong's approach.* The review is thorough, even if it is only 8 pages. If you have even the slightest interest in Greek word order, you need to read this review.

The Journal of the Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek (JLIABG) has commenced publishing its inaugural issue online. Steve's article, "Relative Saliency and Information Structure in Mark's Parable of the Sower", is the first article in the inaugural issue. How cool is that? The PDF is available online, so do check it out. Here's the abstract:

Levinsohn claims that the near and far demonstratives (οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος respectively) can be used non-deictically to encode relative thematic saliency of discourse referents, with οὗτος being used to mark the more salient constituent. In applying this concept to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower, Levinsohn’s claim would indicate that the descriptions of the three unfruitful scatterings of seed are more salient to the writer than the productive scattering that bears fruit. The other synoptic accounts do not seem to make such a distinction in salience, using the near demonstrative οὗτος for both the unfruitful and fruitful plantings alike. Are there other means of analysis to either corroborate or overturn the view that the unfruitful plantings are more thematically salient in Mark’s account?

This study applies the cognitive model of Chafe and Givón, and the information- structure model of Lambrecht as applied by Levinsohn to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower (4:14-20). The primary objective is to identify and analyze other linguistic devices, besides demonstratives, which might clarify the apparent prominence given to the unfruitful scatterings in Mark’s account. This study provides the necessary framework for comparing Mark’s pragmatic weighting of salience to that found in the other synoptic accounts in order to determine whether Mark’s version is consistent or divergent with the other traditions.

Also note that the JLIABG has an RSS feed to notify of new article postings: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jliabg.

* Disclaimer: I actually badgered Steve into doing the review when I saw the title was available for review from RBL. He's repaid the favor by suggesting I look into the use of αλλα in non-negative contexts. I'd say we're about even.