[b-greek] Re: DEIGMA in Jude 7: Nominative or Accusative?

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 05 2001 - 19:37:49 EST


At 4:39 PM -0500 12/5/01, Randy Leedy wrote:
>>>> "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> 12/05/01 04:31PM >>>
>
>Well, it's customary to call KEIMAI and it's cognates a "deponent"
>verb; to
>be sure it's often said (especially with regard to classical Attic)
>that
>KEIMAI and its compounds are functional passives to TIQHMI and its
>compounds, so that PROKEIMAI might be envisioned as a functional
>middle-passive of PROTIQHMI and take DEIGMA as an accusative OBJECT:
>translating as a middle most literally it would be: "have set
>themselves
>forth as an example [have put on display their monstrous example],
>undergoing punishment of eternal fire."
>
>So the "outrage" lies in seeing PROKEINTAI as a middle that can take
>a
>direct object. and the accusative is DEIGMA as direct object of
>PROKEINTAI
>(if one is willing to accept the "outrage").
>
><<<
>
>Yes, and "have set themselves forth as" seems to me to be essentially
>a copula, taking "themselves" as reflecting the middle voice rather
>than an understood accusative. If I may deal just with the root
>KEIMAI, "to lie," wouldn't you expect an expression like "He lies
>dead" to use NEKROS, nominative? Revelation 16:21 has "The city lies
>foursquare": hH POLIS TETRAGWNOS KEITAI. So I'm still not quite ready
>to give up the nominative in the construction you suggest.
>
>Perhaps I should reiterate that I do realize that this point is a
>pretty arcane one, and probably not worth going on with, but to me it
>is a fun one to consider. And I do find in teaching that students
>sometimes have difficulty understanding that the nominative can
>complete verbs other than EIMI, GINOMAI, and hUPARCW, so the
>significance of properly understanding constructions such as this one
>is not by any means limited to this passage.

Well, to confess the truth, I wasn't really very seriously expecting
anybody to buy into the middle voice + accusative direct object. No, I
really do think it (DEIGMA) is a predicate nominative (and there's no
problem with the plural verb here working with a singular predicate
nominative (I think George Somsel was objecting to viewing DEIGMA as a
nominative SUBJECT to PROKEINTAI, but so far as I know, that was never
contemplated.
--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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