From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 11 1999 - 16:14:51 EST
At 9:33 AM -0500 12/11/99, Lauren Porter wrote:
>Dear List,
>
> I am fairly new to B-Greek and so, as I have followed the recent
>discussion
>of syntax grammars, I have noted that there seems to be an underlying thread
>amid all of the talk. While some are content merely to speak of the virtues
>and vices of various intermediate and advanced grammars, others have extended
>the conversation to a debate between the five-case system and the eight-case
>system.
Steven Miller has already given the sort of answer I would myself have
given to this question; I would have referred primarily to Smyth's grammar,
but the others that Steven listed are also to the point. By way of
clarification, I certainly haven't taught eight different cases as such,
but I've taught and urged my own students to think in terms of distinct
functions of:
1) Nominative
2) Genitive-Pertinentive ("of")
3) Genitive-Partitive ("some/any of")
4) Genitive-Ablative ("from")
5) Dative-original (referential to person/s)
6) Dative-Instrumental/comitative ("with")
7) Dative-Locative ("in/on/at")
8) Accusative
I realize that most people don't make that three-fold distinction in the
Genitive and mark Partitive as distinct, but I believe it's a distinct
function, in that the partitive genitive word or phrase may function as the
subject or object of a verb. I also realize that the Vocative is usually
taught as a distinct case; I use the term, but consider it essentially an
endingless form of a noun-stem (with -O in the -E grade in 2nd declension
O-stems).
In sum then, I teach four sets of case-endings, but distinguish the
functions as noted above--and that amounts, I think to an eight-case system
in the same sense, more or less, as is used in our recurrent
agreements-to-disagree on B-Greek over which is the right way to go about
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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