Re: Quirky Case

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 06:40:57 -0400

At 1:25 AM -0400 6/05/98, Micheal Palmer wrote:
>I need exmaples of verbs which assign a Case other than accusative to their
>object. AKOUW, for example, sometimes assigns genitive. PISTEUW usually
>assigns dative. AKOLOUQEW is often used with a dative.
>
>Do any of you have a list of verbs which would fit this category? If not,
>do you have a few favorite examples?
>
>Thanks for any help you can provide.

The verbs of perception--you've mentioned AKOUW--but also hAPTOMAI,
AISQANOMAI, and the like, tend to take partitive genitives.

My all-time favorite is CRWMAI (usually listed in the dictionaries as
CRAOMAI, although I've always thought it should be listed as CRHOMAI),
which takes an instrumental dative, exactly like Latin UTOR and French SE
SERVIR DE.

Verbs of want or need: CRHiZW with ablatival genitive.

I don't have a list, but I would point you to Smyth, ##1339-1411, pp.
320-332. Of course quite a few of these may not remain current in NT Koine.
BDF's listing is probably more useful: ##169-182, pp. 93-98. Those are just
the genitives; there are similar lists for the dative that should be
consulted. Many of these verbs (especially CRWMAI) are VERY idiosyncratic,
while I guess the majority are intelligible in terms of the case functions.

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