1 Pet 4:2 re Adjectival Use of Prepositional Phrases

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David Lim
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Re: 1 Pet 4:2 re Adjectival Use of Prepositional Phrases

Post by David Lim »

cwconrad wrote:(1) I don't think that our way of Englishing it as "... the life I now live" provides the answer to your question, nor do I think that this ὃ should be understood as any sort of direct object of the verb ζῶ or of ἀπέθανον in the second example; I think it's more akin to the usage of ὅτι as a pronominal conjunction introducing substantive clauses;
[...]
All I can say at this point is that it appears to me to be a device for substantivizing a finite verb somewhat comparable to the function of ὅτι or an English that meaning "the fact that" or a Latin quod or a German dasß or a French que; each of these is in origin a relative pronoun pressed into service as a pronominal conjunction introducing a substantive clause, where the pronominal conjunction bears a meaning somewhat like English "the fact that ... " or "as for the fact that ... " or "regarding the fact that ... " That is to say, the pronoun is an accusative of respect. So, "as for the fact that I am alive," (the explanation is that) I am alive in flesh and "as for the fact that I died, (the explanation is that) I died a single time to sin." That's my tentative account of this; I gladly await what the linguists have to say about it.
I have neither experience nor evidence at hand, but I did think of the issue in the way Iver described it, but I don't consider "the rain rains" to be exactly the same.

Another one I just found is "ὑπνῶσαι", normally intransitive, in:
[LXX Psa 76:5] ἐταράχθησαν πάντες οἱ ἀσύνετοι τῇ καρδίᾳ ὕπνωσαν ὕπνον αὐτῶν καὶ οὐχ εὗρον οὐδὲν πάντες οἱ ἄνδρες τοῦ πλούτου ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτῶν
[LXX Jer 51:39] ἐν τῇ θερμασίᾳ αὐτῶν δώσω πότημα αὐτοῖς καὶ μεθύσω αὐτούς ὅπως καρωθῶσιν καὶ ὑπνώσωσιν ὕπνον αἰώνιον καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐγερθῶσι λέγει κύριος
Here the object is explicit and certainly not adverbial.

And how about the following?
[LXX Gen 37:5,6,9,10] ἐνυπνιασθεὶς δὲ ιωσηφ ἐνύπνιον ἀπήγγειλεν αὐτὸ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ἀκούσατε τοῦ ἐνυπνίου τούτου οὗ ἐνυπνιάσθην ...
I doubt "dream" accepts any direct object except "dreams" (which occurs quite a number of times in the LXX).

There are quite a few other examples we have come across here on B-Greek but concerning different issues:
[1 John 5:10] ὁ πιστεύων εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ ἔχει τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἐν αὑτῷ· ὁ μὴ πιστεύων τῷ θεῷ ψεύστην πεποίηκεν αὐτόν, ὅτι οὐ πεπίστευκεν εἰς τὴν μαρτυρίαν ἣν μεμαρτύρηκεν ὁ θεὸς περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ.
"τὴν μαρτυρίαν" is the object of "μεμαρτύρηκεν" but it seems that "μαρτυρῆσαι" is usually used in the form "μαρτυρῆσαι ὅτι ..." (like in 1 John 1:2, 4:14, 5:9) and only accepts as direct objects entire "μαρτυρίας".
[1 John 5:16] ἐάν τις ἴδῃ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντα ἁμαρτίαν μὴ πρὸς θάνατον, αἰτήσει, καὶ δώσει αὐτῷ ζωήν, τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσιν μὴ πρὸς θάνατον. ἔστιν ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον· οὐ περὶ ἐκείνης λέγω ἵνα ἐρωτήσῃ. (also in Exo 32:30)
Likewise it seems that "ἁμαρτῆσαι" only accepts "ἁμαρτίαι" as direct objects.

Also, if my hypothesis is right, I think this is largely a semantic phenomenon that is independent of language, which I would describe as the verb having specific semantic restriction of its direct objects, in these cases resulting in only references to the entire implicit object being allowed. So I don't know whether it would be better to classify them as (partially) transitive verbs. Similarly, I consider "the rain rains" to be an example of the verb's semantic restriction on its subject, but it is hard for me to describe clearly what I mean for this because the verb "rain" has two slightly different semantic domains each with different restrictions. Anyway I searched Google and found:
"the rain rains harder/everyday/(on the just and unjust)" / "the snow snows hard here"
which illustrates the possibility in general of the implicit subject being made explicit when the verb is used to describe not the situation but the subject. This of course is restricted to verbs that have an implicit subject that can actually be referenced. "it seems that ..." is one that does not, where "it" is the only way to refer to "it".
cwconrad wrote:(2) it doesn't have any bearing on the question of the function of τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον in conjunction with βιόω; that is unquestionably an accusative of temporal extension.
It doesn't if my hypothesis is incorrect. But I claimed that when the noun phrase denotes the entire implicit object of an intransitive verb, then it can actually become an explicit object. If this is true, then since "βιῶσαι" has the implicit object "physical subsistence", and "τὸν ἐπίλοιπον ἐν σαρκὶ χρόνον" does denote the entire "remaining lifetime", then I claim that it naturally becomes the object of "βιῶσαι". I don't know how to demonstrate my claims though.
Iver Larsen wrote:To go back to 1 Pet 4:2 I would agree that the verb βιῶσαι does not have an object. [...] This does not mean "in the flesh" as opposed to "in the spirit" but it refers to the present physical life in the body as opposed to future life after death. A third secondary role of manner is described as θελήματι θεοῦ which of course is in contrast to ἀνθρώπων ἐπιθυμίαις.
Although I don't disagree that it is grammatically possible for "τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον" and "ἐν σαρκὶ" to be both adverbial and modifying "βιῶσαι". It is precisely because those phrases are referring to "the rest of the physical life in the body", as you said, that "τὸν ἐπίλοιπον ἐν σαρκὶ χρόνον" seems a natural direct object of "βιῶσαι", which refers to essentially the same thing. Do you have any reason why it shouldn't or can't be so?
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Iver Larsen
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Re: 1 Pet 4:2 re Adjectival Use of Prepositional Phrases

Post by Iver Larsen »

David,

Thanks for those examples of "sleep a sleep" and "dream a dream". You are probably right that this phenomenon is if not uiniversal then quite common, but the verbs that can behave in this way and how many there are varies from one language to another. I think it is reasonable to call them transitive with strong semantic restriction. When we deal with semantics most semantic verbs have restrictions on their arguments. Some verbs can only take +human, +animate or -animate subjects or objects. It is part of the semantic definition of a semantic verbal unit what kind of arguments it can take. Those verbs we have mentioned are much more restricted than what is normal. They only take an argument that is semantically empty in the sense that it does not add anything to what is contained in the verbal idea. The English "it" in "it rains" is also semantically empty. It is needed in the syntax.

But I do not agree that this can be applied to 1 Pet 4:2. The "object" you suggest is far too complex and not semantically empty. In theory a noun like βίος might be an empty object for βιόω, but I doubt that this is actually found in Greek. τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον does not refer to life itself but to time available to spend your life. It is not semantically empty nor a cognate noun.

Iver
cwconrad
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Re: 1 Pet 4:2 re Adjectival Use of Prepositional Phrases

Post by cwconrad »

David Lim wrote:
cwconrad wrote:(1) I don't think that our way of Englishing it as "... the life I now live" provides the answer to your question, nor do I think that this ὃ should be understood as any sort of direct object of the verb ζῶ or of ἀπέθανον in the second example; I think it's more akin to the usage of ὅτι as a pronominal conjunction introducing substantive clauses;
[...]
All I can say at this point is that it appears to me to be a device for substantivizing a finite verb somewhat comparable to the function of ὅτι or an English that meaning "the fact that" or a Latin quod or a German dasß or a French que; each of these is in origin a relative pronoun pressed into service as a pronominal conjunction introducing a substantive clause, where the pronominal conjunction bears a meaning somewhat like English "the fact that ... " or "as for the fact that ... " or "regarding the fact that ... " That is to say, the pronoun is an accusative of respect. So, "as for the fact that I am alive," (the explanation is that) I am alive in flesh and "as for the fact that I died, (the explanation is that) I died a single time to sin." That's my tentative account of this; I gladly await what the linguists have to say about it.
I have neither experience nor evidence at hand, but I did think of the issue in the way Iver described it, but I don't consider "the rain rains" to be exactly the same.

Another one I just found is "ὑπνῶσαι", normally intransitive, in:
[LXX Psa 76:5] ἐταράχθησαν πάντες οἱ ἀσύνετοι τῇ καρδίᾳ ὕπνωσαν ὕπνον αὐτῶν καὶ οὐχ εὗρον οὐδὲν πάντες οἱ ἄνδρες τοῦ πλούτου ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτῶν
[LXX Jer 51:39] ἐν τῇ θερμασίᾳ αὐτῶν δώσω πότημα αὐτοῖς καὶ μεθύσω αὐτούς ὅπως καρωθῶσιν καὶ ὑπνώσωσιν ὕπνον αἰώνιον καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐγερθῶσι λέγει κύριος
Here the object is explicit and certainly not adverbial. ...
I remain unconvinced of this view. The instances you have cited are all of the cognate accusative. Iver’s account of the construction in Gal 2:20 and Rom 6:10 seems to envision the neuter accusative singular relative pronoun as an alternative to the cognate accusative substituting the neuter pronoun for ζωὴν ἣν νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί or for θάνατον γὰρ ὃν ἀπέθανεν. I’m dubious of that and I’m still inclined to go with the kind of hypothesis I put forward earlier, namely that the acc. sg. relative pronoun introduces a subordinate clause meaning something like “as to the fact that … “

I’ve done some checking in readily accessible resources and do not find any consistent explanation for these constructions. BDF §§153-154 does categorize this usage in terms of the “cognate accusative” and a comparable use of neuter adjective or pronoun.
BDAG and AT Robertson follow the same notion:

BDAG, s.v. ὅς
γ. ὅ is to be understood as an obj. acc. and gains its content fr. what immediately follows in these places (s. W-S. §24, 9; Rob. 715): ὃ ἀπέθανεν, τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ = τὸν θάνατον, ὃν ἀπέθανεν κτλ. what he died, i.e. the death he suffered, he suffered for sin Ro 6:10a; cp. vs. 10b. ὃ νῦν ζῶ ἐν σαρκί the life that I now live in the flesh Gal 2:20.

ATR p. 715
(β) Cognate accusative. The accusative in Ro. 6:10, ὃ ἀπέθανεν, ὃζῇ, and Gal. 2:20, ὃ ζῶ, may be called adverbial. In reality it reproduces the idea of the verb (cognate acc.). Cf. Mk. 10:38f.


On the other hand, I note that LSJ s.v. ὅς offers an explanation more akin to what I’ve suggested:

LSJ
A b. abs. usages of certain Cases of the Relat. Pron.:
,,, acc. sg. neut. ὅ, very freq. = ὅτι, that, how that, λεύσσετε γὰρ τό γε πάντες ὅ μοι γέρας ἔρχεται ἄλλῃ Il.1.120, al.; and so also, because, ταρβήσας ὅ οἱ ἄγχι πάγη βέλος 20.283,al.
in Att. ὅ, for which reason, E.Hec.13, Ph.155, 263, Ar.Ec.338: also acc. neut. pl. ἅ in this sense, S.Tr.137 (lyr.), Isoc.8.122.
whereas, Th.2.40,3.12, Ep.Rom.6.10, Ep.Gal.2.20.
Interesting too is what the translators have done with these two texts:

Gal 2:20
Vulgate: 20vivo autem iam non ego vivit vero in me Christus quod autem nunc vivo in carne in fide vivo Filii Dei qui dilexit me et tradidit se ipsum pro me
UMGreek: …καθ ο δε τωρα ζω εν σαρκι, ζω εν τη πιστει του Υιου του Θεου …
Schlatter: 20… was ich aber jetzt im Fleische lebe, das lebe ich im Glauben an den Sohn Gottes, …


Rom 6:10
Vulgate: 10quod enim mortuus est peccato mortuus est semel quod autem vivit vivit Deo
UMGreek: 10Διοτι καθ ο απεθανεν, απεθανεν απαξ δια την αμαρτιαν, αλλα καθ ο ζη, ζη εις τον Θεον.
Schlatter: 10denn was er gestorben ist, das ist er der Sünde gestorben, ein für allemal; was er aber lebt, das lebt er für Gott.
The Vulgate’s quod could be just like the Greek of the GNT, a n. acc. relative pronoun – or it could be the equivalent of a Greek ὅτι. The Modern Greek has καθ ο, which is more like the Koine καθ’ ὃ. The German was seems to me to reflect a reading of the GNT ὃ as a cognate-accusative-like neuter.

I’m wondering whether we don’t have something here that is a survival from older Greek similar to the survival of the older Greek usage of ὅ and ὅς, the nominative sg. of the “article” and of the relative pronoun, respectively, as 3d person sg. pronouns in certain expressions like, ὁ δ’ ἔφη, ἦ δ’ ὅς.

At any rate, I’m hesitant to accept the notion that the n. acc. relative pronoun in Gal 2:20 and Rom 6:10 is just an alternative “cognate accusative.” The thing is, we all know as we read these verses, exactly what Paul meant; the difficulty is that we cannot come forth with a clear grammatical account of the construction that is mutually satisfying.

Needless to say, I still believe that τὸν ἐπίλοιπον ἐν σαρκὶ χρόνον in 1 Pet 4:2 is an accusative of temporal extension.
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: 1 Pet 4:2 re Adjectival Use of Prepositional Phrases

Post by David Lim »

Iver Larsen wrote:Thanks for those examples of "sleep a sleep" and "dream a dream". You are probably right that this phenomenon is if not uiniversal then quite common, but the verbs that can behave in this way and how many there are varies from one language to another. I think it is reasonable to call them transitive with strong semantic restriction. When we deal with semantics most semantic verbs have restrictions on their arguments. Some verbs can only take +human, +animate or -animate subjects or objects. It is part of the semantic definition of a semantic verbal unit what kind of arguments it can take. Those verbs we have mentioned are much more restricted than what is normal. They only take an argument that is semantically empty in the sense that it does not add anything to what is contained in the verbal idea. The English "it" in "it rains" is also semantically empty. It is needed in the syntax.

But I do not agree that this can be applied to 1 Pet 4:2. The "object" you suggest is far too complex and not semantically empty. In theory a noun like βίος might be an empty object for βιόω, but I doubt that this is actually found in Greek. τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον does not refer to life itself but to time available to spend your life. It is not semantically empty nor a cognate noun.
Thanks, Iver! However I don't agree that those restricted verbs can only accept semantically empty arguments, because it is not true in many instances. In the examples I provided, in "ὑπνώσωσιν ὕπνον αἰώνιον" the argument "ὕπνον αἰώνιον" contains a description of the type of sleep, and in Gen 37 "τοῦ ἐνυπνίου τούτου οὗ ἐνυπνιάσθην" specifies "this dream" (not other dreams) and "ἰδοὺ ἐνυπνιασάμην ἐνύπνιον ἕτερον" specifies "another dream" (besides the first dream). Though "τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον" itself cannot be the object of "βιῶσαι", I still don't see why "τὸν ἐπίλοιπον ἐν σαρκὶ χρόνον" cannot, since it does refer precisely to "the remaining lifetime". I also do not restrict such verbs to being only able to take cognate nouns, because I think there is a whole spectrum of restrictions, that cannot be divided into "normal" or "strong" restrictions. However, I don't have clear evidence to put forward for Greek. The only examples of such constructions without the cognate that I can give are in English: "danced a [little] jig", "laugh a fake chuckle", "snort a laugh". In each case the noun phrase can refer to an entire implicit object of the verb, thus it is allowed as a direct object.

By the way, "βιωσαι βιον" does occur in Greek:

"Διπλουν δε και πολύστονον πάθος εκείνο εξόν τωι ανδρί εφεξης βιωσαι βίον αβίοτον και άνομον εγένετο πολλών τε και αγαθών έργων αιτία."
(http://www.adonisgeorgiadis.gr/phpbb3/v ... 27&start=0)

"ορας πως ολιγα εστιν ων κρατησας τις δυναται ευρουν και θεουδη βιωσαι βιον"
(http://books.google.com.sg/books?pg=PP6 ... 82D3mZxmai).

And thanks also, Carl, for your interesting comments and citations!
δαυιδ λιμ
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