Splitting Compound Verbs?

Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Syntactically structured polysemic verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:So when learning vocabulary, it's best to start with what the word actually means when it's used.
I teach Greek in a language which does not have the type of similarity with Greek that exists between Greek and English which you are finding is sufficient enough to allow analogous phrasal verb structures to "speak for themselves", so to speak.

When a native language lacks similarity to Greek, the Greek has to learnt in itself, without using pedagogical aid of "that's just like in English", which seems to be the basis of the minimalism that you are suggesting.

I am finding that learners need to have syntactical structures explained in a way that I had never needed to do for native English speakers. Perhaps I will not exactly answer your questions, but perhaps let you see things from a different perspective.

The first thing that I notice, is that you are talking about the meaning of Greek words. The dictionary has many breakdowns for the meaning. I'm sure you're familiar with polysemy. You might consider incorporating that into your model.

If we take what Barry mentioned about words being used in given situations then the one word one meaning principle doesn't even exist in Greek if you look at it a bit closely. Let's look at παραθεῖναι in a couple of its meanings;
  • "to serve some type of food to someone" and
  • "to entrust something to someone for them to take care of it", and
  • "to entrust somebody to somebody else's care"
**That is not the full list of meanings.**

What you have probably noticed is that there are a lot of variables there - the stuff I've italicised.

Where the language of the learners is similar to Greek, it is a little more obvious How the other elements in the sentence relate to the verb. I find that I have to spell it out. That is to say that I have to teach how the language is used to a far greater degree than for English speakers.

To present the word παραθεῖναι in the way that it will be found when it is used
  • "to serve some type of food (accusative of word for food) to someone (dative of person)" and
  • "to entrust something (accusative of something valuable) to someone (dative of person) for them to take care of it", and
  • "to entrust somebody (accusative of person) to somebody else (dative of person)'s care"
What's key in that apart from the verb? The class of meanings that the noun in the accusative belongs. That determines the meaning. Meaning is derived in part from the verb itself as you want it to, and in part from the collocation - where in the case of this verb, the significant collocation is the range of meaning of the accusative.
  1. Where would I begin in teaching this word?
    -With the serving of food, because it relates to daily activities.
  2. Next?
    -Even though it's an LXX example, with the accusative of something valuable, because in the New Testament, the noun παραθήκη "a deposit" is correspondingly the closest to that in meaning, dealing with deposits is part of adult life.
If the phrase found in the text matches any one of those patterns, well and good. If it doesn't, they can look in the dictionary.

It is difficult to illustrate it in digital form, but I present the Greek in an interrelated way. On paper, I've prepared all the interrelations graphically, but in a digital format, after the text has been suitably xml-ised I would want just one to display at a time.

Some examples just using underlining to mark the relevant syntactic elements:
Mark 6:41 wrote:Καὶ λαβὼν τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους καὶ τοὺς δύο ἰχθύας, ἀναβλέψας εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, εὐλόγησεν, καὶ κατέκλασεν τοὺς ἄρτους (accusative of a type of food), καὶ ἐδίδου τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦἵνα παραθῶσιν αὐτοῖς (dative of person)· καὶ τοὺς δύο ἰχθύας ἐμέρισεν πᾶσιν.
Luke 11:6 wrote:ἐπειδὴ φίλος παρεγένετο ἐξ ὁδοῦ πρός με, καὶ οὐκ ἔχω (accusative of a type of food) παραθεῖναιπαραθήσω αὐτῷ (dative of person)·
Tobias BA 1:14 wrote:καὶ ἐπορευόμην εἰς τὴν Μηδίαν καὶ παρεθέμην Γαβαήλῳ τῷ ἀδελφῷ Γαβρια (dative of person) ἐν Ραγοις τῆς Μηδίας ἀργυρίου τάλαντα δέκα (accusative of something valuable)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
drdwilkins
Posts: 1
Joined: July 23rd, 2011, 7:05 pm

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by drdwilkins »

I am hesitant to comment because this deserves more thought and research than I can give it at the moment, but I would suggest keeping compound verbs intact, for (at least) two reasons: 1) I don't think you can underestimate the danger of misunderstanding the meaning of the dissected word (even though "under estimate" probably works in this case), and 2) if you actually dissect a compound verb within a given text, it becomes immediately obvious that the writer and his audience understood it to be part of the verb; i.e. only the verb follows, not an object. On that latter point, which I admit seems overly simplistic, classical style preferred repetition of the compounded preposition with the following object if simple motion or some other spatial relationship was the meaning, and even if that seems to underscore the validity of the simplest understanding of the compounded meaning (as you noted, verbs of motion often have simple compound meanings), it also indicates that treating the compounded verb as a single word was the standard thinking. I don't know that we have any way of determining how children of the time learned these verbs, but I doubt that it would have been that much of a burden to learn them as complete words. In view of the non-intuitive meanings that many of them took on (like "read" or "answer"), I would think that a parent or tutor would dare not encourage them merely to guess the meaning by splitting the words and combining the resulting meanings. I certainly wouldn't advise a student to do that on a vocabulary exam for Greek or any other language. So I would recommend that you save yourself the extra trouble; but by all means don't do it just because we've always done it that way. One other possible reason for the status quo, though: the lexicons keep compounds intact. If a student were inclined to complain about the extra memorization, I would send him/her to a lexicon to look up compound verbs and see firsthand how predictable or unpredictable they are. Even when they have a simple compound meaning (e.g. ἐμβλέπω, "look at"), they often have a somewhat abstract meaning (e.g. "consider") as well that is not obvious, or not intuitive. Matt. 6:26 is a good example both for illustrating that point and (possibly) for revealing how the compound preposition seems to have been considered part of the verb, since a different preposition follows before the object (if ἐισβλέπω was an option). Exegetically, was it "Look at the birds" or "Consider" them? I can't imagine any reliable way of guessing whether even a simple compound verb might have one or more meanings that would not directly translate its components, or if it did, what the meaning(s) would be.

Don Wilkins
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Taking it in easy steps would be better and more effective.

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Ideally, a learner should use the vocabulary flexibly - and with this verb, as we said, that means determining an appropriate meaning for the class of meanings that the accusative falls into. (Food is eaten, Money kept safe, and People are given hospitality).

What is behind all that is that person A gets someone else to do it for them (The food is eaten by others, the money is deposited with others, hospitality is offered to the guest on person A's behalf).

At the start just learning them individually and being told what is key to the meaning is adequate, but a proficient user needs flexibility in their vocabulary and that will come with time and training.

Your method wants to jump to that end goal without preparation or training. A few learners will make it, most won't. Those that do gain the flexibility in meaning are probably going to miss the "on behalf of" significance of it all.
Last edited by Stephen Hughes on April 19th, 2014, 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by cwconrad »

A couple points/questions:

1. If ἐπίσταμαι is a compound of ἐπί and ἵσταμαι, it is very old -- in Homer, one would expect ἐφίσταμαι. ἐπροφήτευσα from προφητεύω is intelligible in terms of the verb derived from the noun προφήτης. LSJ suggests that the augment between προ- and -φητευ- is the irregular form.

2. It would seem that there are regular rules of usage in the matter of prefixes, augments, and reduplication. I wonder whether the usage of verbs with separable prefixes in German is analogous in any way (e.g. auszuschließen when used with an auxiliary verb, schließt ... aus otherwise. That is to say, there's a clear distinction between the verb-form itself and its separable prefix(es).

3. Of course a child learning the Greek language naturally wouldn't ever be analyzing these verb forms or learning them analytically, but would imitate the usage learned in regular conversation.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by RandallButh »

I agree with Don's reply. The compound words need to be treated as individual words. ἀπο-κρίνεσθαι was a good case in point.
1. If ἐπίσταμαι is a compound of ἐπί and ἵσταμαι, it is very old -- in Homer, one would expect ἐφίσταμαι.
The verb ἐπίστασθαι is particularly tricky because ἐφίστασθαι is also a word. (Maybe the ancient form of ἐπίσταμαι comes from the *πιστ root and had a prefixed ε- like ἐθέλω, ἐμέλλω?)

For learning, students, and children, it is important to provide the past tense forms.
thus
ἡπίστατο, ἠπιστάμην (technically, this is imperfect, but the aorist ἠπιστήθην is so rare that the imperfect can be considered the 'past', like with ἦν 'was' and ἔφη 'said/was saying'.)

This must be contrasted with, and used in a different collocation from
ἐπέστη ἐπέστην (the intransitive aorist form which is part of ἐπιστῆναι ἐφεστᾶναι (and ἐφἰστασθαι?)

The present tense forms keep themselves apart nicely because of the π/φ distinction.
ἐπίσταμαι ἐπίστασαι ἐπίσταται (cf. ἐπιστάμενος ἦλθεν 'understanding, he came)
versus
ἐφίσταμαι ἐφίστασαι (used in 'historical present contexts' or potential 'about to happen') while the actual present uses ἐφέστηκα ἐφέστηκας.
- (cf. ἐπιστὰς εἶπεν having come he said)

Gotta get these real good into the heart if we want fluency and language control approaching a four/five-year old.
Maybe the advantages of keeping middle lexical entries separate will become clearer, along with intransitive perfect 'k' forms. No one would learn an etymological paradigm and be able to use it lfuently. These things were obviously learned separately by real language users.

Greek is so easy and the forms keep everything separate just like you'd want. We can't complain.
OTH, Did Greeks ever mix these up and do a lay/lie sort of thing (transitive/intransitive)? LSJM lists an example or two, but they can be ignored for practicality. Methinks the Greek ignored them, too.

And we can tie this into 20 april 2014 with the phrase
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη
ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη

(OK enough of the annual etiquette breaking. :D )
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Syntactically structured polysemic verbs

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:So when learning vocabulary, it's best to start with what the word actually means when it's used.
I teach Greek in a language which does not have the type of similarity with Greek that exists between Greek and English which you are finding is sufficient enough to allow analogous phrasal verb structures to "speak for themselves", so to speak.

When a native language lacks similarity to Greek, the Greek has to learnt in itself, without using pedagogical aid of "that's just like in English", which seems to be the basis of the minimalism that you are suggesting.
Just for the record, since you cited me above, I am not suggesting any comparison between Greek and any other language, but that you have to learn how the word is used in Greek without necessarily referencing any other language. We want to get the students thinking in and about Greek as much as possible, although if such similarities exist, occasionally pointing them out can help the student.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Your house of congress, rules of debate.

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Ha ha. Interesting comment.

Perhaps it's an alternate understanding of power structures in threads. I was quoting you (BS) and addressing the thread initiant (AB).

As in debate oriented Parliaments "And to/through you Mr acting deputy speaker..."

The way I work, more or less, is that the interaction in a thread is with the one who started it. In the case of incompetent thread starters things flow more from one to the other of the contributors than always back to thread starter. That sometimes becomes a problem as when RB and I got carried away with the dreams of reform and Jonathan stepped in, but often the interaction of Greeked contributors even without reference to the topic of the tread is both positive and productive.

You blokes have developed these unwritten rules of discourse which are at times a bit subjective - which is not unsuitable for a small group of 30 regularly (monthly) contributing individuals - and at times stipulated. I never experienced the free-flowing nature of the list, do I can only comment by observation, but it seemed to contain more development of thought. Compared with what I've read on the list archives there is less reference back to the original question than here.

In other words, Barry, I was giving my thoughts to expand the part of your statement that impressed me. The sevond person in my post was the thread starter.

That is not to say that they were the same thoughts that you would have had if you had done yourself what I did.

Not being understood is a recurring problem. Things were much easier when I just read alone. This speaking and discussing in English about Greek is sometimes very troublesome.
Last edited by Stephen Hughes on April 20th, 2014, 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Alan Bunning
Posts: 299
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Alan Bunning »

After a few posts, I think some of you are now finally beginning to understand what I have been struggling with. Let me propose the following analogy which I think might further illustrate the issue. Suppose that one day some grammarian decide to join all adjectives to nouns as compound words. Thus, there would be a lot more lexical entries to represent all of the new combinations of words. There would be separate entries for “browndog”, “happydog”, and “watchdog” detailing all of the different nuances of usage. But one day, a student wondered why the adjectives couldn’t be split apart, noticing that some of them contained suffixes such as “y” to show where the words should be divided (or in my case augmentation/reduplication). Using the rule, “words should be divided into the smallest units possible that can stand alone as individual words without sacrificing any loss of meaning” would then result in the following word divisions: “brown dog” and “happy dog” (like κατα λαμβανω), but still “watchdog” (like αποκρινομαι). The student asks for evidence why this should not be the case, and gets responses such as:

- That is a fallacy because the divided words would have a different meaning. (No, “watchdog” still remains as “watchdog” and the other divided words must still be understood by context.)
- Students always learned them together as one word. (Well, in this analogy they surely did not!)
- What is gained by splitting them? (Well, you don’t have to learn “reddog”, “yellowdog”, “happydog”, “saddog”, etc. as separate lemma, you just have to learn how adjectives work!)
- You have to use context to determine what the words mean. (Of course. Nothing is changed by splitting the words, context must still dictate what they mean. Obviously, a “watchdog” is not a dog with a watch and this is true whether the words are joined together or not.)

Here, as possibly in the case of Greek, the words were never joined together, only some grammarian did that! Thus, it would appear that any number of entries could be generated on a whim anytime someone used another adjective before a noun. And right now that is somewhat how it appears to me with verbs. Notice that in Jude 14, the scribe of 01 had no trouble at all of attaching another “προ” in “προεπροφητευϲεν” thereby generating a brand new lexical entry for all eternity! After all, that must just be how everyone learned it! As you read ancient Greek and come across a new prepositional combination that was used on the fly by only that author, then lo and behold, you have discovered a new lexical entry! Thus, it is no wonder that as in the article by Holmes, the prepositions are most likely attached to verbs that express pure motion. And then it even begins to seem comical that some grammarians created a new class of “improper” prepositions for the ones that never did attach to a verb.

So far, the only type of evidence I have been given, is to simply point out a few examples where they should not be split, which is already accounted for by the rule. If there were even as many as 30 examples where they should not be split, that would not be a lot among the hundreds of lexical entries with compound verbs. This line of reasoning, though, would sway me if there were a large number of these “exceptions”. I must say, that the more I look at this, the more fearful I am that these compound verbs might have to be split (except for the exceptions of course). And I have since discovered two more pieces of evidence:

4. The principal parts are the same for the root verb as the compound verbs.
5. Some of these prepositions like “κατα” already function as adverbs in some cases.

And I am still wondering if there are examples where the accent can recede back into the preposition, and if that would be a rule or special case. If there is no other evidence that can be offered, then the next thing I would have to do is go through all of the compound verbs and get an exact count of how many could be split without losing meaning (like “κατα λαμβανω”), how many could be explained idiomatically (like “αναγινωσκω”), and how many simply should remain together (like αποκρινομαι). I am not looking forward to doing that. Has anyone already done this? Are there other types of evidence that anyone can still offer?
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

unsuffixed, desuffixed prepositons proper, and insulating im

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Are you interested to discuss the surrounding syntax being included as I introduced about παραθεῖναι?

Are you aware that in earlier times (Homer) the preposition was separate from the verb that we later see it joined to?

Are you aware that in the New Testament there are three patterns of usage for the verbs you are considering:
  1. with the object without preposition
  2. with the object governed by the same propisition as is prefixed onto the verb
  3. with the object governed by a different preposition than is suffixed onto the verb
The situation is not so clear as you might think looking at the lexicon. Should that group (c) be understood as an extra preposition affixed to the verb? They are not currently dealt with in that way. But whether they were attached or not they were still there. Was that arbitrary choice by an early lexicographer? Yes. Will you take them in that way? I guess so. To do otherwise requires we other an enormous amount of active interpretative work.

There are around 20 nominal/adjectival suffixes that are added to verbs too that you could consider what you wanted to do with too, like αγαθό, κακό, φίλο, and mostly other sort broadly general things. To me, and surely to others who have read more widely, the language of the New Testament is noticeably lacking in the range of words suffixed in this way.

In answer to your question about improper prepositions in the original post, broadly speaking you are right in your "never been..." understanding. Within the sentence structure, to use a noun as a kind of adverb, I.e. as something unaffected by the verb and which in some cases adds clarification about the manner (usually) of the verb the improper preposition suggests in what way those other nominal elements further describe the action of the verb. In some cases prepositions proper do the same and in some cases the prepositions proper filter / further define the way that the action of the verb acts on the nouns they govern as I mentioned above in (b) and (c). That is to say, syntactical they act as insulators - diodes put the other way round with the the line facing the flow rather than the open end of the triangle. In some cases they act as zenith diodes with a relatively high breakdown voltage - from the verb in a way that prepositions proper act as conductors (b) or resistors (c). To put it simply, they remain improper prepositions because what they govern is separated from the verb, whereas prepositions proper progressively come to be suffixed to the verb because they modify the relationship of a nominal unit to the verb and that relationship evolves by transferring the modification to the meaning of the verb from the nominal unit to the verbal.

As I mentioned yesterday you need to consider the nominal units with compound verbs, to see whether something has happened beyond the change of position.

Today, I have mentioned that an unsuffixed preposition may act in overall meaning like a sufficed one, and that is because from our English speaker's point of view the arrangement of where the modification /filter for the verb's meaning is in Greek, it is still going to come out the same in English in the learning scheme you are envisioning. That information and those arrangements will require creation of data, not just rearrangement of the currently available data-set.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Alan Bunning
Posts: 299
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: unsuffixed, desuffixed prepositons proper, and insulatin

Post by Alan Bunning »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you interested to discuss the surrounding syntax being included as I introduced about παραθεῖναι?
Sorry, I was meaning to get to that but I was travelling and had a bad Internet connection. I was trying to respond to the issue in general with this statement:

“- You have to use context to determine what the words mean. (Of course. Nothing is changed by splitting the words, context must still dictate what they mean. Obviously, a “watchdog” is not a dog with a watch and this is true whether the words are joined together or not.)”

Context always matters. But specifically in the case of παραθεῖναι, I would probably let the separate words παρα and τιθημι stand alone to cover the meaning for “put beside” as in the food, and have a separate entry for παραθεῖναι to cover the “entrust” meanings. Of course, such decisions are debatable but that does not mean the method is invalid. This is no different than having separate entries for “over” and “pass” and then another entry for “overpass”.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you aware that in earlier times (Homer) the preposition was separate from the verb that we later see it joined to?
Yes, and I am not sure how much they have really been joined, other than an editorial decision by some later grammarian to always attach them no matter what, which seems just as extreme as the “concordant” method which always splits them no matter what.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you aware that in the New Testament there are three patterns of usage for the verbs you are considering:
  1. with the object without preposition
  2. with the object governed by the same propisition as is prefixed onto the verb
  3. with the object governed by a different preposition than is suffixed onto the verb
Thanks for mentioning that. I had forgotten that and that could be the type of evidence I am looking for. I haven’t studied that area very closely, but off the top of my head I wonder if you could say that the attached preposition is an adverb and the following preposition begins a prepositional phrase? Or are their cases where the following preposition is an adverb too? Could it be for added emphasis? Definitely something worth looking into! Can anyone elaborate on this more?
Stephen Hughes wrote:There are around 20 nominal/adjectival suffixes that are added to verbs too that you could consider what you wanted to do with too, like αγαθό, κακό, φίλο, and mostly other sort broadly general things. To me, and surely to others who have read more widely, the language of the New Testament is noticeably lacking in the range of words suffixed in this way.
Yes, I have noticed that, but in the cases I have seen (and also the case with nouns) the syntax shows them to be compound words.
Stephen Hughes wrote:In answer to your question about improper prepositions in the original post, broadly speaking you are right in your "never been..." understanding. Within the sentence structure, to use a noun as a kind of adverb, I.e. as something unaffected by the verb and which in some cases adds clarification about the manner (usually) of the verb the improper preposition suggests in what way those other nominal elements further describe the action of the verb. In some cases prepositions proper do the same and in some cases the prepositions proper filter / further define the way that the action of the verb acts on the nouns they govern as I mentioned above in (b) and (c). That is to say, syntactical they act as insulators - diodes put the other way round with the the line facing the flow rather than the open end of the triangle. In some cases they act as zenith diodes with a relatively high breakdown voltage - from the verb in a way that prepositions proper act as conductors (b) or resistors (c). To put it simply, they remain improper prepositions because what they govern is separated from the verb, whereas prepositions proper progressively come to be suffixed to the verb because they modify the relationship of a nominal unit to the verb and that relationship evolves by transferring the modification to the meaning of the verb from the nominal unit to the verbal.
Okay, I think? But I am not sure if that is arbitrary simply because they were connected to the verb. In other words, if one day we find an improper preposition attached to the front of the verb will we simply re-categorize it as a regular preposition? Or will we think of it as an “error”?
Stephen Hughes wrote:As I mentioned yesterday you need to consider the nominal units with compound verbs, to see whether something has happened beyond the change of position.

Today, I have mentioned that an unsuffixed preposition may act in overall meaning like a sufficed one, and that is because from our English speaker's point of view the arrangement of where the modification /filter for the verb's meaning is in Greek, it is still going to come out the same in English in the learning scheme you are envisioning. That information and those arrangements will require creation of data, not just rearrangement of the currently available data-set.
I am not averse to doing more work if I have to and I will if that is warranted by the evidence. Sounds like I still have some more digging to do.
Post Reply

Return to “Syntax and Grammar”