Attributives

cwconrad
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Re: Attributives

Post by cwconrad »

Scott Lawson wrote:
David Lim wrote: Scott, where did you get your "example" above from? It seems incorrect. I expected a speech to come after "λεγων" but found none, so should you have used "λαλων"?
David, I pulled it directly from Mounce at section 29.6-7.

"The man speaking to the crowd is my teacher."

My Middle Liddell indicates that in the late Greek both words can both be used synonymously. (See λαλεω 1 (3))
What I find in the Middle Liddell is that the verb is essentially transitive, expecting an object. It means "tell" rather than "talk." I'd vote with David on this one and prefer "λαλῶν" for "talking." as an intransitive verb. See Trench, § lxxvi. λαλέω, λέγω (λαλιά, λόγος). and/or Louw & Nida, §§33.69, 33.70. I have no idea what Mounce intended; perhaps he was truncating a passage that included an object for λέγων; let's hope he wasn't inventing the passage, as we often do when we're trying to illustrate a point of grammar. It's always better to cite an authentic ancient Greek text.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
David Lim
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Re: Attributives

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:I'd like to ask about this,
What do you want to ask? I can't isolate something that you wanted a response to.
I meant that I wanted to ask about why you made the statement I quoted. In particular I disagreed with it, as I stated explicitly in my post, and I gave examples that I think validate my viewpoint.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:or accusative if we include things like "το ειναι καλον"
Could you explain this statement - how you see the structure of these three words.
I meant "ειναι καλον" used as an indirect statement, where "καλον" must be accusative to match the accusative "subject" of "ειναι". I accidentally added the article because there is an analogous construction with some prepositions that require the article. Examples of this kind of predicate adjectives can be found at Acts 17:29, Rom 3:26, 4:16, 7:3, 8:29, Rom 14:14, 2 Cor 7:14, 11:16. (As Carl said, I too should have cited these texts instead of pulling one out of my head.) But this is besides my point, which is that an adjective used as a predicate invariably follows noun phrases that are predicates, and hence will be in the nominative except for special cases like these.
δαυιδ λιμ
Iver Larsen
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Re: Attributives

Post by Iver Larsen »

Scott Lawson wrote:
David Lim wrote: Scott, where did you get your "example" above from? It seems incorrect. I expected a speech to come after "λεγων" but found none, so should you have used "λαλων"?
David, I pulled it directly from Mounce at section 29.6-7.

"The man speaking to the crowd is my teacher."

My Middle Liddell indicates that in the late Greek both words can both be used synonymously. (See λαλεω 1 (3))
As Carl mentioned, Trench has an excellent discussion of the difference between these two verbs. Basically, λαλέω refers to the act of speaking without any focus on what is being said while λέγω has focus on the words said, and these words may or may not be explicit.
There is an interesting example in Matt 12:46-48:
Ἔτι αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος τοῖς ὄχλοις ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ εἱστήκεισαν ἔξω ζητοῦντες αὐτῷ λαλῆσαι. [εἶπεν δέ τις αὐτῷ, Ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ σου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί σου ἔξω ἑστήκασιν ζητοῦντές σοι λαλῆσαι.] ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν τῷ λέγοντι αὐτῷ, Τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ τίνες εἰσὶν οἱ ἀδελφοί μου;

We see here the dative participle λέγοντι even though the words spoken are not explicit in the sentence nor is it followed by the words spoken. I would then understand the sentence from Mounce something like: The man who is in the process of saying (something) to the crowd is my teacher. But λαλέω would be more common and used for the sense of addressing a crowd.
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Attributives

Post by Stephen Hughes »

David Lim wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:or accusative if we include things like "το ειναι καλον"
Could you explain this statement - how you see the structure of these three words.
I meant "ειναι καλον" used as an indirect statement, where "καλον" must be accusative to match the accusative "subject" of "ειναι". I accidentally added the article because there is an analogous construction with some prepositions that require the article. Examples of this kind of predicate adjectives can be found at Acts 17:29, Rom 3:26, 4:16, 7:3, 8:29, Rom 14:14, 2 Cor 7:14, 11:16. (As Carl said, I too should have cited these texts instead of pulling one out of my head.) But this is besides my point, which is that an adjective used as a predicate invariably follows noun phrases that are predicates, and hence will be in the nominative except for special cases like these.
Permit me a digression before I start, to tell you a little of my thinking behind this / in this area As we have seen in Scott's question, grammatical analyses and approaches to teaching grammar are customarily based on the asumption that the nominative is the basic case from which cases are derived and from which rules of syntax are built up. The language however is much more than that.

It seems that given the simplified conditions - sticking only to the nominative case - the patterns of first and second postition attributive, and then rearranging the word order a little can convey a predicative sense. I think that the nominative case (simple noun, pronoun or nominal phrase) has, in itself, the power to input "predication" into a sentence - in being the case that has the role / power of controling / harnessing / defining finite verbs it goes quite naturally with them. Other case don't have that role of controlling the verb, but rather they go along with the action of the verb in a way that doesn't have the ability to change / control / limit the verb. The teaching and reference grammars always translate sentences like σόφος ὁ ἀνήρ as "The husband is wise", which is logical enough, but I don't think captures the essence of what is happening. The problem, as I see it is that "is", is a convenient, but not very clear word. When "is" is used, the sentence seems somehow distant from the from the speaker and their interlocutor - the 3rd person being distant from the speaker (1st person) and listener (2nd person). Instead of the nominative case acting on / controlling / defining the extent of a verb's actions, it works on our senses / perception and leaves us with the ability to bring out a suitable verb. σόφος ὁ ἀνήρ "the husband is wife" (impresses us as wife because he remembers his wife's birthday - a logical things, where "is " could be suitable - "the husband impresses us as wise"). ἄγριος ὁ λέων "the lion is wild" (the lion "fears" us as wild), εὔωδες τὸ ἄνθος "the flower is fragrant" (impresses us through the faculty of smell that it is fragrant - the flowers "smells" to υs fragrant.). The verb "to be" is just a simplification of a lot of sensory or perceptional processes. I personally feel that the customary translation "is" / "are" for those nominative case ones doesn't do justice to the immediacy of the construction to our senses.

Of course, in both the nominative case and the other cases where the adjective is used in either first or second position attrbutive appears to be fully flexible to be able to bend into any case except (perhaps) the vocative - where overloading a way to get someone's attention requires them to distance themselves from what is said and to think about the meaning of it rather then just to responed to it. Smyth's examples that Scott related, are all in the nominative, which is the easiest case to analyse with the best patterns.

With out the inherent force of the nominative, the other cases need to be given a verbal force from outside to have a verbal force, and that is done, so far as I can udnerstand it, through the participle. The participle (in what is called its adjectival usage) as attributive is needed in the oblique cases to supply what the nominative calls us to supply "instictively". Where there is not a new thing being brought up in the context of that phrase and it could be well recognised then an adjective is used.

So much for some of my thinking, now for David's points.

Why I was unclear about what you were responding to last night was because you only quoted adjectival attributives without the corresponding participial ones. Let me introduce some for you as I look at a few of the verses.
Mark 1:27 RP wrote:Καὶ ἐθαμβήθησαν πάντες, ὥστε συζητεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτούς, λέγοντας, Τί ἐστιν τοῦτο; Τίς ἡ διδαχὴ ἡ καινὴ αὕτη, ὅτι κατ’ ἐξουσίαν καὶ τοῖς πνεύμασιν τοῖς ἀκαθάρτοις ἐπιτάσσει, καὶ ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ;
David Lim wrote:I don't see a distinction between the way an adjective modifies a noun phrase and the way a participle used adjectivally does. I would say that in both cases the resulting combined noun phrase refers to some (contextually dependent) entity that is described by the noun phrase and the adjective/participle, and hence it is not true that an adjective expresses something about the noun phrase that is true in other contexts.
The verbal form of καινός is of course ἀνακαινοῖν. In your example, the "newness" of the doctrine existed before it was brought to the attention of the people who heard it. In this verse...
Colosians 3:10 wrote:καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον, τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν κατ’ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν·
"and putting on the new man, the one being made made new to the extent that they recognise the representation of their creator in themselves" (If someone wants to discuss that verse and its understanding - perhaps we could start another thread). Here the newness is being worked out as part of what is happening here. And so on for your other examples of νέος, καινός and παλαιός.
Luke 13:33 wrote:καὶ μαστιγώσαντες ἀποκτενοῦσιν αὐτόν· καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ἀναστήσεται.
"and after they flail him they will kill him and on the third day he will resurrect / recover and get back on his feet."
Ordinals aren't usually paired together with a verbal form. I'm not sure what you mean by introducing this - the meaning of the τρῖτος is like part of the structure of the language - people who know Greek will understand this concept of "third" before they read it in this sentence. And so for ἄλλος in Jn. 18:16, that is also a functioning word - part of "knowing the Greek language" overall, and not an idication of how flexibly one can change from adjectival to participial forms. Acts 6:1 and the καθημερινός what you have quoted is also one of those things that are like τρῖτος and difficult to pair with a verb.
Luke 21:2, 3 PR wrote:εἶδεν δέ τινα καὶ χήραν πενιχρὰν βάλλουσαν ἐκεῖ δύο λεπτά καὶ εἶπεν, Ἀληθῶς λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι ἡ χήρα ἡ πτωχὴ αὕτη πλεῖον πάντων ἔβαλεν·
"He saw someone even a widow placing two coins into it and remarked, It would be true to say that this poor widow has put in more than all the others combined."[/quote]She was in a position of economic disadvantage before she put her coins in - and like the widow that hosted Elijah she put the coins in with a prayer and faith. Perhaps instead of considering our hyperbole, "it doesn't mean that she had always been and will always be poor", we could conjecture what verb could be used to express the onset of poverty or a steady decrease in wealth. Perhaps the πτωχεύω of
2 Corinthians 8:9 PR wrote:Γινώσκετε γὰρ τὴν χάριν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ, ὅτι δι’ ὑμᾶς ἐπτώχευσεν, πλούσιος ὤν, ἵνα ὑμεῖς τῇ ἐκείνου πτωχείᾳ πλουτήσητε.
"I want you to realise the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he became poor for us (in spite of the fact that he was so rich) so that through his poverty we would be able to become rich." put into a participial form, or perhaps better the δαπανᾷν of
Mark 5:26b PR wrote:καὶ δαπανήσασα τὰ παρ’ αὐτῆς πάντα
which if in the present could express what was happening during the context of the verse, i.e. that giving the coins made her poor - but actually she already was. In your
1 Corinthians 7:14 PR wrote:Ἡγίασται γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικί, καὶ ἡγίασται ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄπιστος ἐν τῷ ἀνδρί · ἐπεὶ ἄρα τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτά ἐστιν, νῦν δὲ ἅγιά ἐστιν.
we would hope that the efforts of the wife to save her husband would not make him more of an unbeliever, but it does happen sometimes. Perhaps the verb there could be something like
Hebrews 12:15 wrote:ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
David Lim
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Re: Attributives

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Hughes wrote:As we have seen in Scott's question, grammatical analyses and approaches to teaching grammar are customarily based on the asumption that the nominative is the basic case from which cases are derived and from which rules of syntax are built up. The language however is much more than that.
Let's put aside such assumptions, since I didn't make any of them. However I would like to see statistically significant evidence for strong or broad claims, such as the one you made regarding the distinction between adjectives and participles when they are used attributively. I have provided the examples supporting my claim, and I don't think you've given any valid objection to them so far.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Why I was unclear about what you were responding to last night was because you only quoted adjectival attributives without the corresponding participial ones. Let me introduce some for you as I look at a few of the verses.
Mark 1:27 RP wrote:Καὶ ἐθαμβήθησαν πάντες, ὥστε συζητεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτούς, λέγοντας, Τί ἐστιν τοῦτο; Τίς ἡ διδαχὴ ἡ καινὴ αὕτη, ὅτι κατ’ ἐξουσίαν καὶ τοῖς πνεύμασιν τοῖς ἀκαθάρτοις ἐπιτάσσει, καὶ ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ;
The verbal form of καινός is of course ἀνακαινοῖν. In your example, the "newness" of the doctrine existed before it was brought to the attention of the people who heard it.
The verbal form is irrelevant to my point, since I disagree specifically with your claim that the attributive adjective denotes something that is true about the noun phrase in all contexts. Your answer to that is rather illogical because the ones who said "what is this new teaching?" did not consider it to be intrinsically new, but simply meant that they had never heard it before. Neither did they impute any sort of newness to the doctrine that they would agree remains true in other contexts. In the future, it could be "old teaching" to them.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Colosians 3:10 wrote:καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον, τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν κατ’ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν·
"and putting on the new man, the one being made made new to the extent that they recognise the representation of their creator in themselves" (If someone wants to discuss that verse and its understanding - perhaps we could start another thread). Here the newness is being worked out as part of what is happening here. And so on for your other examples of νέος, καινός and παλαιός.
I did not mention this verse as it can be interpreted in different ways, so it cannot serve as evidence for anything. Nevertheless, I think it is clear that my other examples involving similar words are actually different, so you should explain those instead.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Luke 18:33 wrote:καὶ μαστιγώσαντες ἀποκτενοῦσιν αὐτόν· καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ἀναστήσεται.
"and after they flail him they will kill him and on the third day he will resurrect / recover and get back on his feet."
Ordinals aren't usually paired together with a verbal form. I'm not sure what you mean by introducing this - the meaning of the τρῖτος is like part of the structure of the language - people who know Greek will understand this concept of "third" before they read it in this sentence. And so for ἄλλος in Jn. 18:16, that is also a functioning word - part of "knowing the Greek language" overall, and not an idication of how flexibly one can change from adjectival to participial forms. Acts 6:1 and the καθημερινός what you have quoted is also one of those things that are like τρῖτος and difficult to pair with a verb.
My point is that adjectives do not imply any intrinsic description of the noun phrase that remains true in other contexts. Whether or not they can be rephrased by using participles does not affect my claim, which is only about adjectives.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Luke 21:2, 3 PR wrote:εἶδεν δέ τινα καὶ χήραν πενιχρὰν βάλλουσαν ἐκεῖ δύο λεπτά καὶ εἶπεν, Ἀληθῶς λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι ἡ χήρα ἡ πτωχὴ αὕτη πλεῖον πάντων ἔβαλεν·
"He saw someone even a widow placing two coins into it and remarked, It would be true to say that this poor widow has put in more than all the others combined." She was in a position of economic disadvantage before she put her coins in - and like the widow that hosted Elijah she put the coins in with a prayer and faith. Perhaps instead of considering our hyperbole, "it doesn't mean that she had always been and will always be poor", we could conjecture what verb could be used to express the onset of poverty or a steady decrease in wealth.
I wouldn't make such a conjecture about the participle precisely because according to what I claimed about adjectives and participles it would be simply incorrect. As for the example itself, it clearly demonstrates my point about the adjective used.
Stephen Hughes wrote:In your
1 Corinthians 7:14 PR wrote:Ἡγίασται γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικί, καὶ ἡγίασται ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄπιστος ἐν τῷ ἀνδρί · ἐπεὶ ἄρα τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτά ἐστιν, νῦν δὲ ἅγιά ἐστιν.
we would hope that the efforts of the wife to save her husband would not make him more of an unbeliever, but it does happen sometimes. Perhaps the verb there could be something like [...]
This is the clearest example that validates my claim, so I hope you would read what I said carefully and look again at the examples I gave. And there is no verb there in the text, so I don't see the need to speculate.

In short, adjectives do not necessarily express anything about the noun that is true in other contexts, and is no different from using an exactly corresponding participle as an attributive. In both cases, they give a specifying description of the noun phrase that would only be true in the situation described.
δαυιδ λιμ
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Attributives

Post by Stephen Hughes »

David Lim wrote:In short, adjectives do not necessarily express anything about the noun that is true in other contexts, and is no different from using an exactly corresponding participle as an attributive. In both cases, they give a specifying description of the noun phrase that would only be true in the situation described.
You clearly have your own ideas. If you don't like my ideas, put them to one side. When I was a beginner, I held to the same "adjective and the corresponding participle are exactly the same" convictions that you do now - and your underlying assumption is certainly more true for Modern Greek than for NTG.

Following your assumption (also held by others) works because the English translations of the adjective and corresponding participle don't differ from one another to any marked degree.
David Lim wrote: I have provided the examples supporting my claim, and I don't think you've given any valid objection to them so far.
You have your way of working with grammar, if it works keep it. Why would I make objections? Within your terms of reference, your view of grammar is true. I'm exploring what happens to the grammar when another 2 degrees or variance / complexity are introduced - case with attributive / predicative patterns, and (adjectival) participles as an alternative to attributive adjectives in nominal phrases.
Stephen Hughes wrote:As far as I understand the distincition, an adjective expresses something about the noun that is true not only in the context that we see it now, but in other contexts as well.
David Lim wrote:I disagree specifically with your claim that the attributive adjective denotes something that is true about the noun phrase in all contexts.
Do you notice anything different about these two quotes?
David Lim wrote:I wouldn't make such a conjecture about the participle precisely because according to what I claimed about adjectives and participles it would be simply incorrect. As for the example itself, it clearly demonstrates my point about the adjective used.
If you read someone else making a statement like this - not yourself - what would your reaction to a statement like this be? If I was to read a statement like that made by someone I would doubt the credibility of their scholarship, not only in this case, but generally. Would you have a different reaction to mine?
David Lim wrote:I did not mention this verse [Colosians 3:10] as it can be interpreted in different ways, so it cannot serve as evidence for anything.
Can't it? Not for anything? It is the only NT example of ἀνακαινοῖν that uses a participle - It is evidence of how κοινός's corresponding verbal form was used as a participle.
David Lim wrote:Nevertheless, I think it is clear that my other examples involving similar words are actually different, so you should explain those instead.
Do you? That's nice for you, but it is not clear to me. It seemed to me that you got an idea that the lexical meaning of "new" - something that was not there or unknown before - would be what is needed to prove my ideas of grammar were wrong, then you looked up a concordance to give a few more examples to make it look even better. The same point made a few times doesn't make it any more or less impressive. There is still a confusion between the meaning of the word "new" and relationship between newness and awareness of "newness". Of course I understand that you are not attempting to go beyond your axiom that "adjectives and their corresponding participles are equivalent", but if you were, then it would be clear that being new then being introduced, and becoming new during the course of the action are diffrent things.
"explain those"? Should I? Perhaps you should do the explaining yourself, if you have something specifically that you think I should say.
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Why I was unclear about what you were responding to last night was because you only quoted adjectival attributives without the corresponding participial ones. Let me introduce some for you as I look at a few of the verses.
Mark 1:27 RP wrote:Καὶ ἐθαμβήθησαν πάντες, ὥστε συζητεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτούς, λέγοντας, Τί ἐστιν τοῦτο; Τίς ἡ διδαχὴ ἡ καινὴ αὕτη, ὅτι κατ’ ἐξουσίαν καὶ τοῖς πνεύμασιν τοῖς ἀκαθάρτοις ἐπιτάσσει, καὶ ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ;
The verbal form of καινός is of course ἀνακαινοῖν. In your example, the "newness" of the doctrine existed before it was brought to the attention of the people who heard it.
the ones who said "what is this new teaching?" did not consider it to be intrinsically new, but simply meant that they had never heard it before
I guess my explanation would seem illogical, but actually in saying that the "newness" was a preexistent "newness" is a theological statement. I avoided giving a theological justification for the consideration that καινός in this passage and that the "newness" is not simply the listeners personal view point, but rather the fulfillment of prophesy. Consider the word καινός in
Psalm 97:1 LXX wrote:ᾄσατε τῷ κυρίῳ ᾆσμα καινόν ὅτι θαυμαστὰ ἐποίησεν κύριος ἔσωσεν αὐτῷ ἡ δεξιὰ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ βραχίων ὁ ἅγιος αὐτοῦ
or in
Ezekial 11:19 wrote:καὶ δώσω αὐτοῖς καρδίαν ἑτέραν καὶ πνεῦμα καινὸν δώσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐκσπάσω τὴν καρδίαν τὴν λιθίνην ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτῶν καὶ δώσω αὐτοῖς καρδίαν σαρκίνην
I put Mark 1:27 in context with those verses of promise, but because this is a forum for discussing B-Greek, not OT prophesy and NT fulfillment, I didn't bring it up.
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:In your
1 Corinthians 7:14 PR wrote:Ἡγίασται γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικί, καὶ ἡγίασται ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄπιστος ἐν τῷ ἀνδρί · ἐπεὶ ἄρα τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτά ἐστιν, νῦν δὲ ἅγιά ἐστιν.
we would hope that the efforts of the wife to save her husband would not make him more of an unbeliever, but it does happen sometimes. Perhaps the verb there could be something like [...]
It is very kind of you to add the [...] to indicate that you didn't find the verb. Perhaps if there were other formating options, that would have been possible, but anyway, the verb that possibly corresponds to ἄπιστος, ie. for someone becoming ἄπιστος one of the reasons could be ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα "a root of biterness [having] sprung up".

As a general statement, I suggest that you hold to your current views.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Attributives

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:In short, adjectives do not necessarily express anything about the noun that is true in other contexts, and is no different from using an exactly corresponding participle as an attributive. In both cases, they give a specifying description of the noun phrase that would only be true in the situation described.
You clearly have your own ideas. If you don't like my ideas, put them to one side. When I was a beginner, I held to the same "adjective and the corresponding participle are exactly the same" convictions that you do now - and your underlying assumption is certainly more true for Modern Greek than for NTG.

Following your assumption (also held by others) works because the English translations of the adjective and corresponding participle don't differ from one another to any marked degree.
Stephen Hughes wrote:As a general statement, I suggest that you hold to your current views.
Yes, I don't accept your view currently, but I'll change my mind if you or anyone else gives me enough evidence. I know this can be hard to furnish for language, but if you do have any examples that support your viewpoint I would consider them carefully. By the way, I would only say that using an adjective and using a participle are the same if they correspond exactly semantically, which is rarely the case. My actual assertion is that they do not have different intrinsic semantic value unlike in your view, but the choice of which one to use is usually a matter of necessity.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:As far as I understand the distincition, an adjective expresses something about the noun that is true not only in the context that we see it now, but in other contexts as well.
David Lim wrote:I disagree specifically with your claim that the attributive adjective denotes something that is true about the noun phrase in all contexts.
Do you notice anything different about these two quotes?
Now that you point it out, sorry for misinterpreting, but I was misled by your original statement, in that it suggested what I interpreted you to be saying. Yet if you agree that the adjective does not necessarily imply anything beyond the context of the noun phrase, then I don't quite see why you should say that there is a distinction between the use of an attributive adjective and the use of an adjectival participle, so can you pin down more precisely what is the distinction?
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:I wouldn't make such a conjecture about the participle precisely because according to what I claimed about adjectives and participles it would be simply incorrect. As for the example itself, it clearly demonstrates my point about the adjective used.
If you read someone else making a statement like this - not yourself - what would your reaction to a statement like this be? If I was to read a statement like that made by someone I would doubt the credibility of their scholarship, not only in this case, but generally. Would you have a different reaction to mine?
I was merely saying that we shouldn't make conjectures that rely on our assumptions and are contrary to the other's assumptions but cannot be tested. I would have a different reaction to yours, because I base my judgement on the content of what is said, and neither do I assume that anyone should have equal reliability in all areas. Anyway I made that statement because I couldn't understand why you don't agree that the adjective is simply used to specify the noun phrase, and isn't used to imply anything else. In other words, when I want to introduce a new specific object, I would usually have to use things like adjectives, participles and relative clauses, so they wouldn't serve any purpose beyond the specification, and their grammatical syntax becomes irrelevant. If you think I am mistaken, I will be glad to see any evidence you have.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:I did not mention this verse [Colosians 3:10] as it can be interpreted in different ways, so it cannot serve as evidence for anything.
Can't it? Not for anything? It is the only NT example of ἀνακαινοῖν that uses a participle - It is evidence of how κοινός's corresponding verbal form was used as a participle.
Sorry I wasn't precise enough. I meant that it cannot serve as evidence for either your viewpoint or mine concerning the specific question I raise about attributive adjectives. You are of course right that it can be as evidence for other questions. But you mean "ανακαινουν" don't you; I don't recognize "ανακαινοιν". :)
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:Nevertheless, I think it is clear that my other examples involving similar words are actually different, so you should explain those instead.
Do you? That's nice for you, but it is not clear to me. It seemed to me that you got an idea that the lexical meaning of "new" - something that was not there or unknown before - would be what is needed to prove my ideas of grammar were wrong, then you looked up a concordance to give a few more examples to make it look even better. The same point made a few times doesn't make it any more or less impressive. There is still a confusion between the meaning of the word "new" and relationship between newness and awareness of "newness". Of course I understand that you are not attempting to go beyond your axiom that "adjectives and their corresponding participles are equivalent", but if you were, then it would be clear that being new then being introduced, and becoming new during the course of the action are diffrent things.
You are simply wrong about your hypothesis of what I did. I found those examples independent of each other. As for what you say about the meaning of "καινος", your distinction requires the context to determine. I will explain further below.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:the ones who said "what is this new teaching?" did not consider it to be intrinsically new, but simply meant that they had never heard it before
I guess my explanation would seem illogical, but actually in saying that the "newness" was a preexistent "newness" is a theological statement. I avoided giving a theological justification for the consideration that καινός in this passage and that the "newness" is not simply the listeners personal view point, but rather the fulfillment of prophesy.
That is precisely why I disagree with your way of handling the meaning of the Greek, because we shouldn't allow our theology to influence the way we interpret the text. Simply put, if you are indeed saying that "καινη" was used to denote pre-existent newness not from the listeners' viewpoint but in line with prophetic fulfillment, then you essentially imply that words/meanings were put into the listeners' mouths. I don't buy that at all, so you should refrain from using theological arguments to discuss about Greek syntax and semantics.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Consider the word καινός in
Psalm 97:1 LXX wrote:ᾄσατε τῷ κυρίῳ ᾆσμα καινόν ὅτι θαυμαστὰ ἐποίησεν κύριος ἔσωσεν αὐτῷ ἡ δεξιὰ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ βραχίων ὁ ἅγιος αὐτοῦ
or in
Ezekial 11:19 wrote:καὶ δώσω αὐτοῖς καρδίαν ἑτέραν καὶ πνεῦμα καινὸν δώσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐκσπάσω τὴν καρδίαν τὴν λιθίνην ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτῶν καὶ δώσω αὐτοῖς καρδίαν σαρκίνην
I put Mark 1:27 in context with those verses of promise, but because this is a forum for discussing B-Greek, not OT prophesy and NT fulfillment, I didn't bring it up.
My claim that the listeners weren't referring to either of these is perfectly consistent with the text being a simple recording of what they said, so I choose not to assume that they had these in their mind. Anyway let's stop here regarding hermeneutics.
Stephen Hughes wrote:
David Lim wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:[...] we would hope that the efforts of the wife to save her husband would not make him more of an unbeliever, but it does happen sometimes. Perhaps the verb there could be something like [...]
It is very kind of you to add the [...] to indicate that you didn't find the verb. Perhaps if there were other formating options, that would have been possible, but anyway, the verb that possibly corresponds to ἄπιστος, ie. for someone becoming ἄπιστος one of the reasons could be ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα "a root of biterness [having] sprung up".
I knew that was what you meant, but I cut it out because it was a speculative theological interpretation that isn't relevant because the original text does not have a verb. You are free to interpret the text the way you like, but the less your interpretation is directly implied by the context, the less it can help our current discussion. To make myself clear, I meant that this verse shows that the attributive adjective is used merely to specify the referent of the noun phrase. In this case, it is not any "man/husband" but an unbelieving one, and that is all the adjective is there for.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Attributives

Post by Stephen Hughes »

David, well and good for the arguments. Okay, keep your face, I don't mind at all if you win this argument. Your proofs and evidence are fine, you can feel good about yourself - you are a good man and have defended what you believe is right - that is always admirable.

Let me apologise and tell you where this all was coming from. When I read Greek, I see what it is and get some understanding from that, and that understanding is both useful and beneficial, and at the same time and dealing with the same passage I try to think of what is not there, what is not being said and I find that useful too.

I think of all the constructions - so far as I am able to compose Greek ; of all the ways that it could have been phrased but wasn't - to understand what was not said. Having done that I have a better understanding of what was actually said - an added grammatical understanding by ἀπόφασις ("denial" - It's not this, and not this, and it's not that, so what's left? - finding the shape by colouring in the background, not the object itself). This business about the choice between adjective and participle as an attributive in nominal phrases is one of those things about what the Greek is not. [The other things about what cases do what in predicative and attributive constuctions is another thing that can be found further along the same vein - don't worry about that either.]

The Logic, proof and statistics that you are asking for don't work for what is not - There is no logical structure between what is there and what is not except the recursive logic that takes you back to what it is and proves that what is not is not (as you have adequately done for yourself), proof can't be based on hypothesis and statistics can't count what is not there. I'm sorry, I won't be able to supply the things that you are asking (to give a mathematical analogy, you are asking for values in the x direction, but I'm talking about values in the y direction - perhaps y=i - the unreal number).

It put it simply, reading what is not there is nothing more than progressively better informed subjectivity - it is an outcome of skill and experience with the language, not of knowledge and learning about the language. Stick with your knowledge and learning it is serving your well and your are satisfied with it - good things should continue.
David Lim wrote:there is no verb there in the text, so I don't see the need to speculate.
I see that I have caused some confusion by talking about Greek in this way, I will be more careful in future to stick within the usual limits of discussion on B-Greek, describing what the Greek actually is and not what you call "speculat{iv}e" verbs that (as you have rightly pointed out) are not there. Great work, well done.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

New towns, familiar towns, GPSes and the learning process

Post by Stephen Hughes »

David, I was hoping to put this thought onto the end of the last message, but as Sunday is usually taken up with Church and family, I rushed you through a reply on Saturday night. Anyway...

Realising that I am unable to give you a proof based on non-existent evidence, a logical arguement based on conjectured patterns, nor a statistical analysis based on numbers that don't exist, allow me to critique the different ways of learning Greek by the analogy of getting to know a new town. The human learning process seems to be similar in language learning and in the ways that we learn and know things about our surroundings - especially in the way that awareness of things develops.

I am comfortable thinking about roads - I returned to study as an adult (not directly as a school leaver) after working as a professional heavy vehicle driver - and thinking about routes and things still ticks over in my head even after so many years, so I'm taking my analogy from there.

In a new town or new part of a familiar place, some one can show us the route from A to B and depending on the complexity of the route (number of bends, turns and landmarks) we can learn it quite easily. But what sort of knowledge does a someone who lives in the place have compared with the new comer? Imagine the direction to "turn left at the shopping mall"; For the new-comer it is just a landmark, but for the long-term resident, it is a part of their life - the shopping centre is the place where they (regularly) ... and where they ...-ed. That same type of familiarity builds up with language - an experienced user can both say "shopping centres ..." and "at my local shopping centre, they ...". That is like an experience user of the language who not only learns the different things in the language, but can also make statements from personal experience.

Another thing about getting from A to B in a town is that there are usually many ways to do it. When you are presented with a text, there is one line of text - language is a linear expression of essentially non-linear and often parallel thoughts and feelings - you could say, as you have done that the route from A to B that I take is the route and that is the route. But someone who lives in that area, or who visits it regularly would at least be aware that there are a number of routes - even if they did or didn't take them regularly or at all. That is something like what I am talking about when I am suggesting other routes. Let's look at some typical road-users.

There is the GPS-user (Bible-software dependent reader) - How did you come? I followed the directions that the GPS said. Everything is relative to the previous thing without an overall route in mind. That is a more "ground view" type of knowing, and the way that people would know things if there were no maps. The GPS is like a friend showing you around town, or teacher reading a passage of Greek with you that is way above the students' level, but never-the-less with their effort, you can understand it. By following the GPS, the reader perhaps never has to deal with the Hows? and Whys? of getting around, but they do get there.

The route bus driver - In my analogy, this is you David - this road user only has one path to follow and only ever follows it. It is unthinkable to deviate from the route and he doesn't need to consider anything except the route that he needs to take. Let me tell you a story of when I was a high school student. A driver, early in his career as a route bus driver drove our school bus from school one day, and much to everyones surprise, he took a number of alternative roads and short-cuts, but I'm sure that he would have given up his intitiative right smartly enough and very soon.

The short-cutter who is thinking about other ways to go, back streets and alternatives to red lights, taht may be taken if there is some congestion or a specific problem in the traffic that needs to be gotten around. The thinking that someone has who does that regularly is what I'm talking aobut - the other ways from A to B. It is a natural way of knowing things for routing, but not one that is well catered for in traditional methods of teaching Greek, and according to your thinking doesn't even need to be considered.

My basic point is that learning Greek is a natural process such as learning - getting familiar with - a new area. And by seeing how a learning process takes place in direction finding, you could see that your approach to learning is in fact artificially limiting yourself to being a language user that is most cloesly paralleled to being a route bus driver.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
David Lim
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Re: New towns, familiar towns, GPSes and the learning proces

Post by David Lim »

Stephen Hughes wrote:David, I was hoping to put this thought onto the end of the last message, but as Sunday is usually taken up with Church and family, I rushed you through a reply on Saturday night. Anyway...
Don't worry. I'm very busy so it doesn't really matter how long you take to reply. :)
Stephen Hughes wrote:[...]
My basic point is that learning Greek is a natural process such as learning - getting familiar with - a new area. And by seeing how a learning process takes place in direction finding, you could see that your approach to learning is in fact artificially limiting yourself to being a language user that is most cloesly paralleled to being a route bus driver.
I thought over your whole analogy, but I'm not sure whether it is relevant. I do assume that the writer of any text usually intends one and only one meaning, and finds some way suitable to him to express it, in which case he would not usually consider more than a few other possibilities. So I would refrain from drawing any inference based on something a writer does not say, because that might never have occurred to him in the first place. That is the first issue I have with some of your claims. You also used some reasoning based on theology, which is one way to try to make sense of the text that does not speak, but not one I would use unless it is clearly the writer's view. This is my second point of disagreement. I won't say that either of these is wrong, since we can't tell what was in the writer's mind, but just that they are unverifiable. As for my approach in learning Koine Greek, indeed I would stick to what is clearly the case, and I don't easily subscribe to hypotheses about the language that are too subjective to be verifiable, either because it can only make assertions in hindsight or because there are too many exceptions. I acknowledge the problem that there are no native speakers of Koine Greek and hence it is difficult for me to believe that anyone can have a grasp of nuances understood only by native speakers. The more slight the nuance, the more statistical evidence we need. I don't buy the idea that we can dispense with corpus-based evidence for anything at all. Even for languages that still have native speakers, dictionaries and language references all recognize the need to rely on a large and updated corpus and not just a few people's linguistic intuition.

Anyway this is totally beyond the original topic. I don't wish to continue this dialogue as there are many other topics on which we can have more fruitful discussion. And thanks for sharing your views; I do consider them even though I don't accept them now. :)
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