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Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 20th, 2015, 9:30 pm
by Jacob Rhoden
While doing some translation practice, I wasn't sure if Sabbath should be considered in this sentence as genitive or accusative.
Do you (s) keep the Sabbath because of the law?
τηρεις το σαββατον δια τον νομον;
I know it doesn't matter in this case because nominative and accusative of sabbath have the same form.
Is it correct to say that σαββατον is the subject? (I guess it feels like "you" us the subject, not "sabbath")

Re: Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 20th, 2015, 9:54 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Did you mean "nominative" instead of "genitive"? Otherwise, that would have the article τοῦ.

Re: Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 20th, 2015, 10:04 pm
by Jacob Rhoden
Thanks, your right, in an attempt to go back and edit for clarity, I've mixed it up. I'd fix the original post, but I can't find the edit button, it looks like it might disappear after a while, I am sure there was an edit button there before.

Re: Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 20th, 2015, 10:12 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Jacob Rhoden wrote:Thanks, your right, in an attempt to go back and edit for clarity, I've mixed it up. I'd fix the original post, but I can't find the edit button, it looks like it might disappear after a while, I am sure there was an edit button there before.
You can edit for a certain period of time, then a post is no longer editable.

Re: Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 21st, 2015, 2:13 pm
by Brent Elkins
Jacob,

It is my understanding that since "the law" is in the accusative form, that "the Sabbath" would be understood to be nominative.

-Brent

Re: Sabbath genitive or accusative

Posted: January 23rd, 2015, 5:08 am
by Stephen Hughes
Hi Brent and Jacob,
I think that nominatives are the subjects of third person verbs and vocatives refer to the same person that a second person verb does. This is a second person verb, so it is either vocative or accusative. Is it more usual to talk to (vocative) a sabbath, or about it (accusative)?

A preposition cuts part of the sentence off and we deal the preposition and the few words immediately following it separately.