Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

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Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Besides
Luke 1:65 wrote:Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ πάντας φόβος τοὺς περιοικοῦντας αὐτούς·
are there other broken prepositional phrases in the New Testament?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

How do you define "broken prepositional phrase"?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:How do you define "broken prepositional phrase"?
Loosely.

This question is being asked in the context of questioning some of the "basics" of Greek that I learnt as a beginner, but which don't necessarily hold true in practice. One of them was that a preposition ca not be separated from the nominal phrase that follows it. Apposition seems from the examples I've found to question that.

Is it always true that a preposition's nominal phrase always follows it without change of gender or number without anythibg intervening? Are prepositional phrases ever followed by relative clause?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4166
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Re: Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Discontinuities in phrases is fairly common, including prepositional phrases.

Obviously, this happens with post-positives:
Matthew 1:12 wrote:Μετὰ δὲ τὴν μετοικεσίαν Βαβυλῶνος
Matthew 3:1 wrote:Ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις
But you also see it in other places like these:
Matthew 1:20 wrote:τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου
Matthew 8:8 wrote:Κύριε, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς ἵνα μου ὑπὸ τὴν στέγην εἰσέλθῃς
Matthew 10:11 wrote: εἰς ἣν δ’ ἂν πόλιν ἢ κώμην εἰσέλθητε
Mark 2:21 wrote:αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τὸ καινὸν τοῦ παλαιοῦ
Are these broken by your definition? I haven't looked through most of these, but I'm attaching a file with prepositional phrases that contain discontinuities in word order, not all of these are broken by your definition, and most involve post-positives, but there are still many interesting examples to explore. In general, Greek phrases are broken up more frequently than you might think.
Attachments
a.pdf
(448.42 KiB) Downloaded 56 times
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Are there other broken prepositional phrases?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:In general, Greek phrases are broken up more frequently than you might think.
Thanks, I've had a look through them. My general conclusion about language learning is that students learn despite what they're taught.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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