From: Kenneth Litwak (javajedi2@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 24 2001 - 13:30:05 EDT
For some reason I can't Yahoo to let me copy and
paste, so I'll skip the long quotation and cut to the
chase. I'm surprised at the responses I've gotten.
What they all seem to be saying is that grammatical
categories are modern myths (Carl) that have nothing
to do with the syntax of Greek sentences. I've never
encountered the term adnominal before, but let me say
this. If oen wants to maintain that the lables for
grammatical constructs are for the purpose of helping
non-native speakers understand how the language is
uwed by native speakers, and that native speakers
would not have understood the question, "what kind of
genitive is this", I've got no quarrel with that. IF
what is being siad, hwoever, and this is what I
interpret Carl and Chet in particular to be saying,
that the conceptual categories themselves do not
exist, I disagree completely. If I say I am coming by
car," I maynot know what, if any, technical term is
used in English grammar for using by with a noun to
express instrumentality, but I certainly recognize
that this is different from saying "I am coming in a
car," which states only location, and does not express
instrumentality, as the car could be in a plane, on a
ferry, on a truck, etc. Just becvause I have no
labels for these two constructs does not mean that I
do not see the difference between them and does not
mean that I do not intend my audience to know the
difference.
When LUke wrote PROSEUCH QEOU, I'm absolutely
certain that he knew what he meant, and culd have
chosen to say other things that might have a
diffeerent or even a similar significance. Not
agreeing with Stanley Fish, I think that Luke expected
his audience to understand the relation between the
dative and the genitive, regardlesss of whether they
stopped to say, "oh, that syntax represents a y". I
can slso agree that by itself, the wording does not
clearly show the relation of these two nouns. SInce
the wording itself is not clear, how can we decide to
transalte it?
1. We can attempt to make the wording to similar
patterns which reflect known conceptual
categories/semantic functions, and explain this one by
analogy.
2. We can simply say what te think it ought to be
based ona gut feel.
I suggest that #1, which is what Greek grammars are
all about, is a desirable technique, even though I
hear it being scorned by those who ahve responded to
me and that #2 equals "the sentence means whatever I'd
like it to mean."
So which is it?
Ken Litwak
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