From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 14 1998 - 06:49:10 EST
At 5:07 PM -0600 1/13/98, Daniel Ria–o wrote:
>Re: Nominativus absolutus, I quoted "Il:"3.211:
>a)/mfw d' e(zomevnw gerarw/teros h(=en )Odysseu/s
>
>Carl William Conrad wrote:
>>the Homeric passage, very interesting, beginnng
>>with AMFW hEZOMENW in the dual number, a form that is presumably
>>nominative, although it could also be accusative.
>
> Yes: certainly it is not the best example to prove the existence of
>this rara avis (rara in Greek: it's easy to find examples in other IE
>languages).
>
> I'll quote Chantraine's "Grammaire Home'rique" vol. 2 # 20:
>
>"Avec des ve'ritables anacoluthes, le nominatif arrive `a s'employer
>absolument:
>B 350-353:
>fhmi\ ga\r ou)=n kataneu=sai u(permene/a Kroni/wna
>h)/mati tw=| o(/te nhusi\n e)n w)kupo/roisin e)/bainon
>)Argei=oi Trw/essi fo/non kai\ kh=ra fe/rontes
>a)stra/ptwn e)pide/ci'
>
>le nominatif au dernier vers, comme si le po'ete avait dit *kate/neuse
>Kroni/wn*
>Od.21.322-323
>ou)/ ti/ se to/nd' a)/cesqai o)i+o/meq', ou)de\ e)/oiken,
>a)ll' ai)sxuno/menoi fa/tin a)ndrw=n h)de\ gunaikw=n ...
>(= *a)ll' ai)sxuno/meqa* et *ou)de\ e)/oiken* constitue une parenth`ese)
>
>Od.11.606
>o( d' e)remnh=| nukti\ e)oikw/s,
>gumno\n to/con e)/xwn kai\ e)pi\ neurh=fin o)i+sto/n,
>deino\n paptai/nwn, ai)ei\ bale/onti e)oikw/s.
>
> Maybe none of the examples would suffice to prove the existence of
>the AN construction in Greek, *but*, the clear existence of the
>construction in Vedic, Latin, etc and examples like the ones quoted above
>(inter alia) proves the living existence of the construction in Greek. Was
>the nominative created to comply such function? certainly not, but IMO the
>possibility was open for the nominative to function in absolute
>construction in, certain, very restricted conditions.
These are very interesting examples, and they all do involve the use of
what I am willing to call NOMINATIVUS PENDENS--or what English grammarians
used to speak disparagingly of as a "dangling participle"--and I would
think "dangling" is a pretty good English equivalent of PENDENS. The chief
point I was trying to make previously is that there's a great difference
between a "dangling participle" or a "dangling nominative" and what I think
would better be termed an "absolute" construction--i.e. a real grammatical
construction as such--wherein both a subject and a predicate are expressed
in a case form such that the construction is not bound syntactically to the
main clause. I think the problem lies in the way we use the word
"absolute." You cite Chantraine as saying:
>"Avec des ve'ritables anacoluthes, le nominatif arrive `a s'employer
>absolument:
"S'employer absolument" means "to be used independently" (a good instance
of what I'd call Romance-Language middle/reflexive used to express passive
meaning, by the way), and moreover he's talking about "real anacolutha." I
guess I'm fighting a rear-guard battle for use of the term "absolute" for a
syntactically complete construction including an explicit subject and
predicate and used consistently thus of a standard construction employed
regularly in ordinary usage. I think that's different from an anacoluthon.
I might add also, with regard to Homer, that anacoluthon there is something
I think formulaic composition lends itself to much more readily than does
formal composition in a written text.
So the main thing I'm protesting here is the way the header in this thread
has shifted back and forth from NOMINATIVUS ABSOLUTUS to NOMINATIVUS
PENDENS and back again while generally talking about anacolutha, almost all
of which I'd prefer to call "dangling" nominatives.
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/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:55 EDT