Re: Singular or Plural?

From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Wed Oct 13 1999 - 08:05:41 EDT


To: Carl W. Conrad,

SCM: << KAI HN hO PATHR AUTOU KAI hH MHTHR QAUMAZONTES (Luke 2:33). Here we
have a compound subject with a single verb and a plural participle! >>

CWC: << Good example, although I don't really think this is quite the same
thing; it IS a matter of agreement, of course, but it involves the
periphrastic imperfect which is more common in Koine than earlier; of
course one might expect HSAN ... QAUMAZONTES with more careful writing, but
this is pretty clearly an instance of "constructio ad sensum," which is
hardly a real grammatical category in its own right--rather a way of
referring to a sort of grammatical anacoluthon wherein the speaker/writer
starts with one conception of the construction and changes halfway through
to a different conception of it. >>

That makes sense to me. I almost didn't include the example of Lk 2:33 in
my message, for it doesn't seem to be the same as the other examples. Smyth
even suggests that HN was originally plural, but I don't know if one could
assume that Luke knew that.

SCM: << So, while your interpretation of Jude 2 as an ellipsis is
reasonable enough, I see nothing wrong with just assuming that it is a
Pindaric construction. What do you think? >>

CWC: << Quite honestly, I think it's "six of one and half a dozen of the
other"; I'd see the "Pindaric" construction as essentially elliptical; ... >>

But which is it, six or a half a dozen? <g> FWIW ... I felt that I
presented two examples (Mt 5:18 & 1 Cor 15:50) which couldn't be explaned
as an ellipsis.

-Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:42 EDT