Stephen Carlson wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:Stephen Carlson wrote:
Productivity is not an either-or: there's a cline/spectrum/gradient/choose-your-metaphor.
I'm tninking that there is grounds for admitting discontinuity between earlier usage and Koine usage of words ending in -θεν. That is to say that if -θεν forms are not necessarily legacy, then they should / could be treated as produced from the word that hosts them. In a way, that is like saying that two elements need to be considered when considering a word ending in - θεν.
As we have recently seen on this list, there is apparently differing views of the productivity of the English suffix "-hood" among us. It feels to me that you're looking for a discrete answer to a gradient problem, or a single answer for which multiple ones are still acceptable.
Yes. When I originally proposed the topic for discussion, I thought like that. My analogous thinking was the case endings. If somebody came up with an argument citing for example, λόγον in say Sophocles, and insisted that because it was accusative singular it is more relevant, one of the Martians* would take pains to point out that the word is λόγος, and it just happens to be in that case because of the dictates of syntax. Then when accusative singular or plural of some neuter noun comes up, we variously discuss it as an accusative or as an adverb - form or function. My impression is that BDAG lists -ως ending adverbs separately, while LSJ appends them to the appropriate adjectival entry. Is the implication that the -ως ending was more productive in Classical times, or that readers of New Testament Greek need to be spoon-fed a language they haven't been expected or able to master. There is probably a bit of truth in both of those suggestions. In Modern Greek at least, -ως adverbs are legacy, the neuter plural -α ending adverbs being the norm, and we are well aware that most people who have been trained in Greek have difficulty applying higher-order thinking to the text as they read, without making or seeing a translation.
My main reason for bringing this up is that by seeing this a always a fixed form (legacy form), we are probably approaching it in a way similar to a naive beginner would see λόγον as one word, and λόγου as a different word, without recognising the morphological system of an inflected language.
The -θεν suffix is not introduced as a part of the morphological system of the language, for use. Does it have a special name when discussed in historical terms?
There are probably logical limits to the type of words that -θεν can be suffixed to. It perhaps a little similar similar to -ward - of course the meaning is the opposite. For example, toward εμπρόσθεν, backward οπίσθεν. (Note... those are not translations)
Is there ever a modification of the theta for phonological reasons?
*Green people - Moderators.