Interpreting datives without prepositions.

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MAubrey
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by MAubrey »

mikeatnip wrote: December 31st, 2022, 8:00 pm
MAubrey wrote: December 31st, 2022, 6:42 pm Rachel and I gloss its spatial sense as "a preposition denoting anterior location of a TRAJECTOR in front of a LANDMARK".
Thank you. That is what I had in mind, but not being a linguist who knows off hand the terms TRAJECTOR and LANDMARK.
Prepositions are relators between a stable participant the LANDMARK and the moveable, manipulable participant the TRAJECTOR.

So:
"The BOOK (trajector) is on the TABLE (LANDMARK)."
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
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mikeatnip
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by mikeatnip »

mikeatnip wrote: December 31st, 2022, 8:05 pm And, of course, the limitations of spatial charts. Prepositions do funny things. Am I going up to town today, or going down to town today? Might depend on whether I say that while standing or sitting. :-)
:oops:
That should say "our spatial and trajectoral concepts do funny things." :D
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by Jonathan Robie »

mikeatnip wrote: December 31st, 2022, 8:00 pm
MAubrey wrote: December 31st, 2022, 6:42 pm Rachel and I gloss its spatial sense as "a preposition denoting anterior location of a TRAJECTOR in front of a LANDMARK".
Thank you. That is what I had in mind, but not being a linguist who knows off hand the terms TRAJECTOR and LANDMARK.
Mike, do you have a convenient resource that shows your glosses of each of these prepositions? I'm looking for something for beginners that takes your work into account. I'm willing to teach them about landmarks and trajectors ;->
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
mikeatnip
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by mikeatnip »

@MAubrey
I would be interested in any commentary you may have on the idea of μετα having a spatial concept of behind/following. In that sense, it would be the opposite of αντι. So the landmark would be a truck and the trajector would be a trailer that is μετα the truck. It is accusitively behind the truck and genetively with the truck. And following the truck wherever it goes, if it goes, just like metadata follows along with data wherever it roams.
I assume that linguistic "landmarks" can be moving landmarks, not always static. :-)
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
MAubrey
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by MAubrey »

Jonathan Robie wrote: January 1st, 2023, 11:16 am
mikeatnip wrote: December 31st, 2022, 8:00 pm
MAubrey wrote: December 31st, 2022, 6:42 pm Rachel and I gloss its spatial sense as "a preposition denoting anterior location of a TRAJECTOR in front of a LANDMARK".
Thank you. That is what I had in mind, but not being a linguist who knows off hand the terms TRAJECTOR and LANDMARK.
Mike, do you have a convenient resource that shows your glosses of each of these prepositions? I'm looking for something for beginners that takes your work into account. I'm willing to teach them about landmarks and trajectors ;->
It would be simple for me to collect those. Let me pull something together. Related: the digital Logos book will be available for individual sale in the next week or so, too.
mikeatnip wrote: January 1st, 2023, 1:05 pm @MAubrey
I would be interested in any commentary you may have on the idea of μετα having a spatial concept of behind/following. In that sense, it would be the opposite of αντι. So the landmark would be a truck and the trajector would be a trailer that is μετα the truck. It is accusitively behind the truck and genetively with the truck. And following the truck wherever it goes, if it goes, just like metadata follows along with data wherever it roams.
I assume that linguistic "landmarks" can be moving landmarks, not always static. :-)
Yes, I think we have that. Rachel was exploring μετά in that regard last spring.

And yes, landmarks are 'stable', but not necessarily stationary. Their stability is a project of their function: as a reference point to the trajector. For example, there are certainly contexts where one might say say: "the table is under the plate", but it would be predicated on a prior knowledge of (1) the audience not knowing where a specific table was and (2) the status of a specific plate. But usually, landmarks are less moveable/manipulable than trajectors.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
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mikeatnip
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by mikeatnip »

MAubrey wrote: January 1st, 2023, 6:58 pm Related: the digital Logos book will be available for individual sale in the next week or so, too.
Thank you for the reply.
I was just browsing this month's Logos sale when I noticed this book in the Greek Studies XL set: Greek Prepositions in the New Testament: A Cognitive-Functional Description.
I assume this is the referenced book, or do you mean another?
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by MAubrey »

mikeatnip wrote: January 1st, 2023, 8:25 pm
MAubrey wrote: January 1st, 2023, 6:58 pm Related: the digital Logos book will be available for individual sale in the next week or so, too.
Thank you for the reply.
I was just browsing this month's Logos sale when I noticed this book in the Greek Studies XL set: Greek Prepositions in the New Testament: A Cognitive-Functional Description.
I assume this is the referenced book, or do you mean another?
That's the one. The blog post that Jonathan referred to initially was our announcement of its release.
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Back to Sebastian's question:
Sebastian Satkurunath wrote: December 29th, 2022, 9:36 pm The question gives the Greek as "ὁι δουλοι ποιουσιν ὁδον τῳ Κυριῳ" and the answer as "the slaves make a way for the Lord", which I can see fits, but what I can't see is how one can distinguish it from "the slaves make a way to the Lord", and the textbook doesn't seem to have a section on prepositions that I can skip ahead to.
I don't think Wenham goes into great depth on case and prepositions, this is not a reference grammar.

Here's what I see in Wenham. He starts out with the dative as a way of expressing an indirect object, which does not involve a preposition:

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This is the meaning he wants you to have in mind with that writing exercise. I think it's probably easier to think of this as a separate use of the Dative than the prepositional use. Mike Aubrey may disagree - is there a case for thinking of the dative use for indirect object in terms of the target / trajector model?

Prepositions are discussed later, starting here with the notion of "further use of cases":

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His fullest discussion of prepositions - still quite thin, it's a beginner's grammar - is in Chapter 16:

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ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
mikeatnip
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by mikeatnip »

That's the one. The blog post that Jonathan referred to initially was our announcement of its release.
Obviously, I was responding here on B-Greek without looking at the blog post. ;) I did read all three posts now. Thanks!
I wish the book was offered separately on Logos (or elsewhere). I am not sure I need 101 other books that I may never read, even if they are priced very economically.
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Interpreting datives without prepositions.

Post by Jonathan Robie »

mikeatnip wrote: December 31st, 2022, 5:14 pm Off the mainline topic here, but can anyone tell me why my latest post has an edit button, but the previous one not? Timed edit button? Thanks.
Yes, you can edit for some period of time, then you can no longer edit.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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