διδάσκαλος in nominative

Biblical Greek morphology and syntax, aspect, linguistics, discourse analysis, and related topics
Post Reply
Girgis Boshra
Posts: 21
Joined: January 25th, 2012, 3:40 pm

διδάσκαλος in nominative

Post by Girgis Boshra »

οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐλήλυθας διδάσκαλος· (Joh 3:2). Why (διδάσκαλος) came here in nominative case, not in accusative? isn't it a direct object for verb (οἴδαμεν)?
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: διδάσκαλος in nominative

Post by cwconrad »

Girgis Boshra wrote:οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐλήλυθας διδάσκαλος· (Joh 3:2). Why (διδάσκαλος) came here in nominative case, not in accusative? isn't it a direct object for verb (οἴδαμεν)?
No; rather, the entire clause introduced by ὅτι is the object of οἴδαμεν: what we "know" is (the fact that) ...
διδάσκαλος is nominative; that means that it must construe with the verb ἐλήλυθας, the implicit subject of which is σύ; διδάσκαλος is in agreement with that implicit subject.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Post Reply

Return to “Greek Language and Linguistics”