[b-greek] Nochmals positions relative to article

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 03 2001 - 11:56:43 EST


At 8:20 AM +0100 2/3/01, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> >2. in Luke 323, we read AUTOS HN IHSOUS APCOMENOS (WSEI
>> >I am wondering how to render or understand AUTOS. "Jesus himself" "THis
>> >same Jesus"? Then I have a question about the periphrastic here. It
>> >should be translated something like "Jesus was beginng" I think. Do we
>> >supply an implied EIMI before (WSEI or do we omit ARCOMENOS altogether?
>> >What is this saying?
>>
>> This has to be "Jesus himself." "The same Jesus" would be hO AUTOS IHSOUS;
>"This
>> same Jesus" would be hOUTOS hO AUTOS IHSOUS. This is one of those instances
>> where the old-fashioned distinction between attributive and predicate
>> positions of AUTOS comes into play: AUTOS in attributive position (marked
>> by article) means "same," while AUTOS in predicate position (outside group
>> marked by article) means "himself."
>
>Since I am one of those who would like to bury the old-fashioned
>distinction as
>both unnecessary and confusing, let me make a comment here. I am working on a
>non-traditional description of Greek noun phrases from a modern linguistic
>viewpoint. When it is ready, I'll come back.

One question about this: how broad and inclusive is your database? I would
hope it is not delimited to usage in the GNT but would at least extend to
some extent into contemporary Hellenistic documents of a broad range. As I
want to show below, a more common older usage of adjectives in agreement
with the subject adverbially and "in predicate position" is not uncommon in
Luke, and I would guess that Luke's Greek is more dependent upon schooling
in literate Greek than that of most NT writers of Greek.

>But for now, a comment on AUTOS.
>Some will remember our recent discussion of the different meanings of PAS and
>how some of us said that the position of this noun modifier is determined
>by > >its meaning, not the other way round.

I welcome all the clarification I can get on this matter, but I don't
believe that I ever stated that the meaning of PAS or AUTOS is determined
by its position; what I have said (and learned and taught, whether rightly
or wrongly) is simply that WHEN these words are in "predicate position"
their meanings are different from WHEN they are in "attributive position."

>Wouldn't this description be easier for English speakers? In English (and
>related languages) there is a big distinction between "the man himself"
>and "the
>same man" both in meaning and position. A similar distinction occurs between
>"all the men" and "the whole group-of-men". The concepts are semantically and
>grammatically different in both English and Greek. The confusing thing is that
>in Greek the two different concepts are indicated by the same lexical
>item. Why
>make it more confusing than necessary for the poor students by saying that
>it is
>only a matter of position of the same word or that the position determines the
>meaning? The position might help you to recognise the meaning, but one
>needs to
>think of them as different concepts.

The semantic difference is readily granted; what grammatical difference do
you identify between them and what role is played in that by position
relative to the article? I've suggested that in what's traditionally been
called the "attributive" position these words function ADJECTIVALLY,
whereas when in what's traditionally been called the "predicate" position
they function ADVERBIALLY--and that's why I've suggested as perhaps more
adequate terms "adjectival" and "adverbial" positions relative to the
article.

=============================================
I return now to your response to my earlier post of last weekend:

At 7:32 AM +0100 1/29/01, Iver Larsen wrote:
I had written: " ... and yet EKEINOS hO ANHR certainly CAN be a sentence in
its own right: "The fellow is >yonder."

>I don't think I have come across that possibility in the GNT nor is
>it >mentioned in BAG. Do you have any examples? Or is it something that
>only occurs >in Classical Greek? I need to be convinced that it is
>possible.

Let me (and I'm sure you'll allow it!) abandon that argument; I frankly
don't ever remember seeing it in earlier Greek either. I would warn again,
however, against restricting a database for Hellenistic Greek of the period
of the GNT to the GNT alone; I think that's too narrow a database;
certainly Fred Danker has thought of a much broader base of Hellenistic
Greek for what we are now beginning to call BDAG and so also have Daryl
Schmidt and others working under the auspices of Westar Institute on the
new grammar of Hellenistic Greek that is supposed to supplant BDF.

>> Although I can't offhand think of an
>> example like this from the GNT, it's not altogether uncommon in earlier
>> Attic to have: TACUS PARESTAI hO BASILEUS, "The king will arrive quickly."
>> Here TACUS is used adverbially: it agrees in number, gender, and case with
>> hO BASILEUS, but it is construed with the verb PARESTAI.
>
>Whereas the normal adverb in the GNT is TACEWS, the adjective TACUS is used
>adverbially in the neuter singular form TACU. BAG says that the adverbial
>function is "mostly in the neuter singular." I don't know how to understand
>"mostly". In the GNT we only find TACU as an adverb, not TACUS, but maybe
>BAG is
>referring to the kind of example you mention? I am not yet convinced that this
>shows that EKEINOS could function in the same way, because a demonstrative
>pronoun is different from a descriptive adjective or adverb.

No, and I wouldn't argue any longer that EKEINOS can function independently
as a predicate word. On the other hand, upon checking GNT for TACUS used
adverbially in a nominative form agreeing with a subject, I don't find it
in the GNT. The use of TACU in an adverbial sense is characteristic of
older Greek which regularly uses neuter accusatives, usually in the
singular but often in the plural also, adverbially, and this because
historically the accusative is an adverbial case, limiting the function of
a verb, adjective or adverb.

BUT I would call attention to #243 in BDF, entitled "Predicate Adjective
corresponding to an adverb (or prepositional phrase):

=============
243. In classical Greek a predicate adjective appears in certain
expressions added to the predicate which correspond to an adverb or
prepositional phrase in English. This idiom is rare in the NT, most of the
instances being in Lk. The adjective MONOS and the adverb MONON, which have
already grown close in classical, are occsionally cvonfused ...
        Adj. of time: DEUTERAIOI HLQOMEN 'on the second day' A(cts) 28:13,
PEMPTAIOI (Acts) 20;6 D (al. ACRI hHMERWN PENTE); EKRUBH TRIMHNOS H(eb)
11:23 p46 ...; GENOMENAI ORQRINAI EPI TO MNHMEION Lk 24:22, ORQRINOS
ELHLUQAS Herm. Sim. 5.1.1; EPISTH AIFNIDIOS Lk 21:34. 'Willingly': hEKWN,
AKWN 1 C(or) 9:17, R(om) 8:20; AUTOMATH HNOIGH A(cts) 12:10, CF. Mk 4:28.
Sequence: PRWTOS, 'as the first', R(om) 10:19. Further ANASTHQI ORQOS
A(cts) 14:10. TOUTO ALHQES EIRHKAS Jn 4:18, cf. TOUTO G' ALHQH LEGOUSI
(Demosthenes 7.43); less class. LEGW hUMIN ALHQWS Lk 9:27, 12:44, 21:3 ...
MONOS: Mk 6:8 MHDEN EI MH hRABDON MONON (MONHN D); A(cts) 11:19 MHDENI EI
MH MONON (MONOIS D) IOUDAIOIS, 1 Jn 5:6 OUK EN TWi hUDATI MO;NON (MONWi B).
If 'alone, only' is plainly connected with a verb (or a pred. noun like
AKROATAI Ja(s) 1:22 ARGAI 1T 5:13), only MONON is possible; but also H(eb)
12:26 OT SEISW OU MONON THN GHN, ALLAK KAI TON OURANON 'I am not content
with shaking the earth alone' is not un-Greek; like OU MONON DE EMOI, ALLA
KAI PASIN 2 T 4:8 (an award to one would be too little).
==================

My point is that BDF show a few examples of adjectives "outside the article
noun group" (OANG in Moon's terminology) or in what is traditionally termed
"predicate position" functioning adverbially. I haven't done the testing,
but I rather suspect that quite a more could be found by searching
contemporary Hellenistic literature.
--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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