From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 24 1998 - 06:46:48 EST
At 7:23 PM -0600 2/23/98, Paul S. Dixon wrote:
>On Mon, 23 Feb 1998 15:47:36 -0600 Benjamin Raymond <braymond@ipa.net>
>writes:
>
><snip>
>
>>Are there any general rules of thumb when it comes to determining
>>antecedents?
>
>The general rule, I suppose, is that normally we should look for the
>nearest antecedent. As usual in Greek, however, it is not a rule unless
>there are exceptions to it (and, undoubtedly, there is probably an
>exception even to this one). A relative pronoun, of course, agrees in
>gender and number with its antecedent, so that is helpful.
Paul and also Robert Hill have said useful things in response to the query.
I would add only that one runs occasionally into seeming anomalies,
particularly where a neuter pronoun, singular or plural as the case may be,
may refer to an antecedent (usually preceding, but occasionally in a
following clause) that is a list of items of different gender or even an
abstract noun, as in, e.g. (this is not a real Biblical text): OUK ECEI hO
QEOS PROSWPOLHMYIAN: TOUTO GAR PONHRON ESTIN which I mean to say: "God does
not have partiality, for that is a bad thing." Here the TOUTO will pick up
the idea in PROSWPOLHMYIA. That's something one does see occasionally, even
in the NT. In Aristotle it is maddening to seek exactly what a neuter
pronoun must take in some constructions as an antecedent. This violation of
a principle of agreement between pronoun and antecedent is neither very
common nor uncommon--which is why I thought I'd mention it.
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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