From: Daniel Ria–o (danielrr@mad.servicom.es)
Date: Wed Jan 14 1998 - 15:39:40 EST
To avoid quotations of the previously quoted text ad nauseam, I'll start by
the end of Carl W. Conrad's message:
Carl wrote:
>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."
<long snip. I'll go back to the snipped text latter>
>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.
I agree completely with Carl's argument. "Nominativus absolutus"
and "nominativus pendens" are two very different things. The "nominativus
pendens" is not a grammatical construction "strictu sensu" inasmuch as the
main characteristic of anacolutha are the lack of the syntactical cohesion
that makes a linear succession of words a syntagm. Usually, anacolutha are
close enough to a grammatical construction, or can be traced back to a
familiar pattern, to be understood without problem by the receptor. A
"nominativus pendens" is such a grammatical phenomenon. Here the nominative
(usually at the beginning of the sentence) serves only to introduce a new
element of the next sentence (typically the "thema") but does not agree
with any other member of the following clause, that may have his own
explicit subject.
Since none of the items in discussion ("Nominativus absolutus" and
"nominativus pendens") have a clear syntactic relation with the rest of the
sentence, it is easy to find examples not easy to place in any of the
categories, but it is clear that in the absolute construction we have a
clearly definable syntactical structure with his laws, and in the
nominativus pendens what we have is a claudication of the syntax, of the
speaker's side. The "appositive construction" another construction to be
taken in account, is also a purely grammatical one, but may resemble an
anacoluthon if used with a vague concordance (constructiones ad sensu, etc.)
An absolute construction is IMO exactly what Carl says it is, and
it's a pity that "absolute" stands in many Grammars (even in the one I have
as the best compendium of Koine/ grammar, viz. Radermacher's
"neutestamentliche Grammatik") for anacoluthon (but changing from one label
to another in e-mail interchange is almost inevitable since the "reply"
function was implemented).
Now I would like to made explicit a point here that's probably
implicit in Carl's excellent resume. Since Greek requires the verb to agree
with his subject in all the morphological categories they both share, it is
the case that most of the times the morphemes of the verbs express they
alone the subject: I mean, it is redundant or emphatic to say "e)gw\
poreu/omai" since *-mai* already expresses 1 pers. sg. The same with
participles in any construction (absolute or not). It is true, that in the
"absolute" construction most of the times the subject of the participle is
explicit, but it is by no means impossible the absolute participial
construction only with the presence of the participle, the subject being
omitted. Examples like e.g.
*feugo/ntwn de\ ei)s to\n Peiraia= kai\ e)nteu/qen pollou\s
a)/gontes e)ne/plhsan kai\ ta\ Me/gara kai\ ta\s Qh/bas tw=n
u(poxwrou/ntwn* X."HG" 2.4.1
are not so strange and the grammars are full of them. It's specially common
when the subject appears already in the sentence, or in another absolute
construction, like the second absolute genitive of "Eu.Luc."2.42.
And here I will repeat the first of the previous examples I gave:
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'
Carl wrote:
>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"
This is not only, on not necessarily, a nominativus pendens. *a)stra/ptwn*
is a participle, clearly not substantivized. I'll add a very beautiful new
one example, not quoted by Chantraine, but a good example, to my view:
*kai\ pri/n per qumw=| memaw\s Trw/essi ma/xesqai
dh\ to/te min tri\s to/sson e(/len me/nos* Il.5.135-136
It is from Holland's article, who translates: "even though earlier he was
eager in his heart to fight with the Trojans, then indeed three times as
much fury seized him"
Here *memaw/s* does not look like simply as a nominativus pendens,
but as a real absolute. It is, of course, mainly the comparison with other
IE languages what make us consider the possibility of such construction (in
addition to other facts like word order, etc.). And here's a singular
question to do: how did the Greeks of the V century a.C. and latter
(without any knowledge of comparative linguistics) understand those
nominatives?. I tend to think that they considered all of the examples that
you can make a case for its "absoluteness" as pendentes. And maybe it's the
time to say that there's absolutely no absolute nominative construction in
NT Greek (to the best of my poor knowledge)
All the other comments of Carl about Chantraine's commentary are of
right, and I should apologise for choosing very randomly my examples and
waste so many bandwidth.
Daniel.
___________________________________________________________________
Daniel Rian~o Rufilanchas
c. Santa Engracia 52, 7 dcha.
28010-Madrid
Espan~a
e-mail: danielrr@mad.servicom.es
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