Grammatical Problems with the NA reading in Acts 25,6

MAubrey
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Re: Grammatical Problems with the NA reading in Acts 25,6

Post by MAubrey »

Here are some fun ones:
Antiquities 6.306 wrote:καὶ δέκα οὐ πλείους ἐπιζήσας ἡμέρας τὸν βίον κατέστρεψεν
ὁ Νάβαλος.
Ten, no more.
Antiquities 19.249 wrote:συνελέγησαν δ ̓ ὅμως ἑκατὸν οὐ πλείους
one hundred, no more.
Polyb., Histories 3.56.4 wrote:ἱππεῖς δὲ τοὺς πάντας οὐ πλείους ἑξακισχιλίων
Horses in all, no more than six thousand
Polyb., Histories 7.7.3 wrote:καί<τοι> παῖς παραλαβὼν τὴν ἀρχήν, εἶτα μῆνας οὐ πλείους τριῶν καὶ δέκα βιώσας μετήλλαξε τὸν βίον
months, no more than three

Anyway...I'm rather confused by the question in general: I don't understand the assumption that a textual variant that is grammatically non-standard would in turn be treated inherently with suspicion. I'm genuinely surprised, Peter, given your linguistics training that you would take such an unusual stance on the nature of grammaticality.
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Peter Streitenberger
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Re: Grammatical Problems with the NA reading in Acts 25,6

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

I consulted these examples beforehand as well, indeed interesting was Polybius for me as well:
καί(τοι) παῖς παραλαβὼν τὴν ἀρχήν, εἶτα μῆνας οὐ πλείους τριῶν καὶ δέκα βιώσας μετήλλαξε τὸν βίον. Yet he was a mere boy when he succeeded to power, and only lived thirteen months after.

This structure is of course normal Greek syntax and if you re-read what I said never under the suspicion of not grammatical. One of the differences to NA in Acts 26,5, and I named that already, is that Polybius has no supplement structure (we Germans say "Nachtragstruktur") with a unexpected stress on that as ἡμέρας οὐ πλείους ὀκτὼ ἢ δέκα should obviously be (lit.: days: no more 9 or 10), as you can see by the usage of a predicate βιώσας. So this is no counter example at all, interesting yes, as I had it in front of me as well, but something different, not something I was talking about. The other "counter examples" are farer away from at least I was talking about, so no further comment on my side. For this kind of structure I found no parallel - and I tried not to give too much restrictions so that only NA Acts could remain. If a reading is grammatically than at least one example should qualify this as normal syntax, you tried to print Polybius and failed, as I was talking about other things, where the problem is, Polybius is something else, completely correct, if you recall, what we were talking about. Please let appeals in the kind of "I'm genuinely surprised, Peter, given your linguistics training" simply away - I can understand such appeals even as a non native speaker. I am only interested in facts and such things and arguments. Peter
MAubrey
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Re: Grammatical Problems with the NA reading in Acts 25,6

Post by MAubrey »

Peter Streitenberger wrote: December 27th, 2017, 2:39 pmwith a unexpected stress on that as ἡμέρας οὐ πλείους ὀκτὼ ἢ δέκα should obviously be (lit.: days: no more 9 or 10
The problem is that the "unexpected stress" isn't in the text.

You can't see the other examples for the parallels they are because you've misunderstood the word order.
Peter Streitenberger wrote: December 27th, 2017, 2:39 pm Please let appeals in the kind of "I'm genuinely surprised, Peter, given your linguistics training" simply away - I can understand such appeals even as a non native speaker. I am only interested in facts and such things and arguments.
Then stop forcing illegitimate definitions of grammaticality (i.e. the grammatical/ungrammatical distinction) on to the text and then make TC judgments on the basis of them.
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Grammatical Problems with the NA reading in Acts 25,6

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Peter Streitenberger wrote: December 27th, 2017, 2:39 pm This structure is, of course, normal Greek syntax and if you re-read what I said never under the suspicion of not grammatical. One of the differences to NA in Acts 26,5, and I named that already, is that Polybius has no supplement structure (we Germans say "Nachtragstruktur") with an unexpected stress on that as ἡμέρας οὐ πλείους ὀκτὼ ἢ δέκα should obviously be (lit.: days: no more 9 or 10), as you can see by the usage of a predicate βιώσας. So this is no counterexample at all, interesting yes, as I had it in front of me as well, but something different, not something I was talking about.
It's pretty clear that sentence structures surrounding πολύς can be quite different from what we would expect in either English or German - negated or not.

Luke.9.13 Οὐκ εἰσὶν ἡμῖν πλεῖον ἢ ἄρτοι πέντε καὶ ἰχθύες δύο.

Now maybe this doesn't fit your definition, I'm not sure what your definition is, but I think we should require a fair amount of proof before claiming that a construction is not grammatical since we are not native speakers of the language.

After all, many perfectly grammatical statements in any language are one-offs, I can create sentences that nobody else has, with combinations of features that might not be easy to find elsewhere. And our searchable corpus for Greek is small. Whether or not you find the complete combination of features in that particular sentence elsewhere, the features it combines do seem to co-occur elsewhere.

Put as a question: What is your model for testing grammaticality, and how can you determine whether the evidence has shown something to be grammatical, at what confidence levels? If you give us an answer to that question, we can think about whether your answer is statistically sound.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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