From: Daniel Ria–o (danielrr@mad.servicom.es)
Date: Thu May 13 1999 - 13:52:18 EDT
I wrote:
>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>>But I don't think that the content of POREUOMENOU
>>AUTOU is really temporal so much as it is explanatory of the reason why the
>>disciples were gazing skywards (this despite my earlier endeavor to see it
>>as a parallel temporal clause).
>
>Do you mean that the reason why the disciples stood gazing at his
>resurrected Master as he was leaving from them was the fact that he was
>ascending to heaven, but they could have been looking anywhere else in case
>Jesus had decided leaving the room by, say, just crossing the door?
>Hmmmmmm, well, maybe that's just different interpretations, but in
>POREUOMENOU AUTOU I just can perceive a temporal semantic value.
As I was walking down the street, after writing the quoted
paragraph, that teasing voice inside my head started parodying my words:
"Do you mean, dear Daniel, that at Luke's eyes the disciples gazing to the
sky and the Lord's leaving to the skies where just to synchronic events,
without causal relation whatsoever?" Well, not: I meant that the syntax
simply says that all the time the Lord was ascending, the disciples kept
their eyes on him. The situation as described by the speaker is clear
enough to make the hearer deduce a relation between the two actions, but
--that was my point-- it is not the construction what determines the
interpretation. IMO, the absolute construction with participle, always a
construction with a temporal value, delimits a range of possible
interpretations, but the fact that a causal, explicative, etc subordinate
can concur in the same sentence with an absolute construction susceptible
of a causal, explicative, etc value, makes me consider absolute (and
predicative) participles into a separate category.
P.D. This time I am CC to myself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daniel Ria–o Rufilanchas
Madrid, Espa–a
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