From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 02 1998 - 14:05:46 EST
At 9:25 AM -0600 1/2/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>At 07:54 AM 1/2/98 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>>Yes, and in Classical Attic, at least, I think that's the reason why the
>>predicate word tends to be first.
>
>Hmmm...if I put both the subject and the predicate before the copulative
>verb, does the predicate still come first? Consider these sentences:
>
>1. KAI hO LOGOS QEOS HN
>2. KAI QEOS hO LOGOS HN *
>
>My intuition, which has 40 years less experience than Carl's intuition,
>says that #2 is not grammatical, but #1 is perfectly reasonable Greek.
>
>Does this match the intuitions of more experienced Greeks?
My intuition is that "ungrammatical" may not be quite the right way to
describe #2, but I would agree that it seems unnatural, unless, at least,
we read the KAI as adverbial rather than as a conjunction. I'd hesitate to
be dogmatic on this point, but it seems to me that the predicate word ought
to be in pretty close proximity to the copula.
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 OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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