From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 14:52:56 EST
At 7:45 PM +0100 1/18/01, Iver Larsen wrote:
>Fair enough, Carl. I'm willing to learn the jargon used in Greek classrooms in
>the US.
Actually, I have to confess I was being facetious there; I think that the
distinction between attributive and predicative positions of the adjective
is not so simply a matter of what's taught in the U.S. but of traditional
Greek grammar in most parts of the world; perhaps Denmark is an exception.
I think the first considerable account of it I read was years ago in a
German grammar of classical Greek.
>I would still be interested in your comment about the exception I found to the
>rule.
>
>You said
>> what we DON'T see with forms of PAS is hOI PANTES ANQRWPOI.
>
>How would you then explain Acts 27:37: HMEQA DE hAI PASAI YUCAI EN TWi PLOIWi
>276?
>
>As far as I can see hAI PASAI YUCAI is a construction with PAS in the
>attributive position, something that we are not supposed to see in Greek.
Yes, this is unquestionably attributive positioning; certainly an exception
to what I've thought to be a general rule. It does seem rather anomalous to
me, but it's certainly there in the text. Can you point to several others
like that?
>Carlton said:
>"The attributive position for an adjective would
>be following the article either preceeding the noun or following the noun.
>PAS never occurs in the attributive position with the article."
>
>In the following instances PAS follows the article and the noun. Is this still
>an attributive position or is it predicative because it follows the noun
>but is
>not immediately preceded by an article?
>Matt 9:35 TAS POLEIS PASAS
>Matt 26:56 hOI MAQHTAI PANTES
>Mark 1:5 hOI IEROSOLUMITAI PANTES
>John 5:22 THN KRISIN PASAN
These are all predicative; they would be attributive only if configured as
TAS POLEIS TAS PASAS, hOI MAQHTAI hOI PANTES, hOI IEROSOLUMITAI hOI PANTES,
and THN KRISIN THN PASAN.
>While it is possible to have article+noun+article+adjective, such a
>constuction
>is not possible with PAS, because PAS is a different kind of "adjective",
>often
>called quantifier in descriptive linguistics. I believe it is helpful to
>distinguish between different kinds of "adjectives" in order to describe why
>they behave differently.
I have no objection to that description; I think it's pretty much what I
was saying without using the language of descriptive linguistics.
>Another question. How do you explain to your students the difference in
>meaning
>between PANTES hOI MAQHTAI and hOI MAQHTAI PANTES?
I don't think that there is a great difference between the two
formulations; the first, I'd say, is far more common, the second probably
makes PANTES more emphatic, yielding perhaps in English (a) "all the
students" or "every student" and (b) "the students without exception."
>Even if we speak different "languages" I would like to keep up the
>cross-cultural communication. I believe we can learn from each other, even
>though - or maybe especially because - we look at the same data from different
>angles.
I heartily agree, and I should apologize for the huffiness of my earlier
post. I certainly DO think that there's much in traditional Greek
grammatical pedagogy that is questionable or could stand great
improvement--the big thing I'm really hoping we can clarify is the way
voice works in ancient Greek because I think traditional teaching of this
is misleading at best and brings more confusion than clarity to the issues
involved. On the other hand, what often disturbs me is a focus upon ancient
Greek usage that is so strictly synchronic that it fails to take into
adequate consideration the fact that Hellenistic Greek especially was very
much in flux and that Hellenistic Greek usage is illuminated considerably
by what one can know of the history of Greek before and after the
Hellenistic period.
--
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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