Re: The article for abstract nouns

From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Thu Jan 01 1998 - 06:51:56 EST


Jonathan Robie wrote:

<Before I start, let me mention that the grammars I am using do not give
<clear definitions for terms like "definite" and "indefinite", nor
<linguistic tests to determine whether something is definite, and I could
<use something more concrete than my intuitive grasp of the concept.

Dear Jonathan,

Dale has in his postings in a an able way shown the difference between
"definite" and "indefinite", though not in a systematic way. I would like
to add a few points. We need to come to grips with 6 designations:
"definite", "indefinite", "generic", "specific", "articular" and
"anarthrous". The fundamental difference, as I see it, is that
"definite/indefinite" are SEMANTIC properties, they are dependent upon the
context and of our knowledge of the world, or, to use Mari`s fundamental
parameters regarding verbs, they are cancelable. The concepts
"articular/anarthrous" are GRAMMATICAL properties and they are
uncancelable; i.e. the context and our knowledge of the world do not affect
them. The concepts "generic/specific" are LEXICAL properties and they are
cancelable; i.e. the same word may in one context be generic and in another
specific (ex. "a sun" vs "the sun", or, with reference to the NT. God has
many sons. but one is "the Son").

How then do the use of or the lack of the article relate to whether a noun
is definite or indefinite, and where does "qualitative" fit into the
picture? In your last post you wrote:

<1. When the article is present, it is always definite;
<2. The absence of the article is essentially unmarked; definiteness or
<qualitativeness must be determined by other factors.

I agree with (2) but I am not sure that (1) will turn out to be correct. I
cannot think of any Greek examples, but will take English as a point of
departure for an investigation of the Greek NT. Let us analyse three
clauses:

(1) We rang for the ambulance.
(2) The blue whale is extinct.
(3) I went home.

The nouns "ambulance" in (1) and "blue whale" in (2) can be analysed in a
similar way. Both are count nouns,articular, generic and indefinite (a
particular ambulance or blue whale is not thought of). The noun "home" in
(3) is a count noun, anarthrous, generic and indefinite. So while the
definite article in English signals definiteness and the indefinite article
signals indefiniteness, this is not absolute. There may also be dialectal
differences; The word " hospital" in "I am going to the hospital" can be
indefinite in one dialect and definite in another. Your point (1) may be
correct, but I think it needs more investigation.

What about qualitativeness? There is a fundamental difference between
adjectives and substantives. Adjectives are more like stative verbs than
like substantives. Adjectives may be substantivized and substantives may be
used to stress qualities. In some languages the same word may function both
as a substantive and an adjective. However, each word represents a concept
in the minds of those sharing the same presupposition pool. When a
particular word is used in a clause, the context, grammar or syntax do not
change its meaning or add new meaning to the word, but a particular side of
its inherrent meaning is illuminated or stressed. If this is true, it
follows that external factors cannot change a noun (to reduce the
possibilities let us read "count noun")into an adjective. And this means
that "qualitativeness" is not an alternative to "definiteness" and
"indefiniteness", but every count noun is either definite with a varying
stress on qualitativeness or indefinite with a varying stress on
qualitativeness but not exclusively qualitative. I therefore found Carl`s
word very interesting:

<Quite frankly, I'm beginning to wonder how valid this use of the term
<"qualitative" really is for predicate words in Greek, and I'm beginning to
<suspect that it is little more than a device whereby we justify to
ourselves <our own theological bias and content ourselves that the Greek
really does say <what we think it OUGHT to mean.

Let us make a little test with an excerpt from Dale:

<I agree with Dan that this one is qualitative; SARC is *not* an abstract
<noun, its a concrete noun, "flesh" is a concrete object, not an abstraction,
<thought, feeling, etc. John is not saying that Jesus became a hunk of
<flesh, but he took on the qualities of flesh, namely physicality. I think
<that will work with your (and my) theology.

I agree with Dale`s words, and John 1:14 is often used as a particular good
example of qualitativness. But let us ask some questions? Is SARC to be
viewed as exclusively qualitative; i.e. is the notion that Jesus became
"man" nonexistent? If "man" is also included, then SARC in addition to
being qualitative also is indefinite. And further, if "man" is included,
how can we know how much of the stress is on "the qualities of flesh" and
how much is on the generic meaning of "man"? Could not all the stress be on
Jesus`generic nature? (Remember that SARC very often is used in a generic
sense for "man"). It seems to me that just as many commentators before the
days of James Barr built on "the etymological fallacy", today many builds
on what I term "the contextual fallacy", that words have no meaning without
a context. So I ask those who believe that a particular syntax may
transform a concrete count noun into a quality at the expense of
definiteness/indefiniteness to produce examples.

Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
furuli@online.no



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