I'll see what I can do:Ken M. Penner wrote:You know I couldn't leave you there in your confidence, Mike! Some texts to explain:MAubrey wrote: At the very least, I can rather confidently promise that when you find a name that does has the article with it, that particular participant has already been introduced earlier in the text (or that particular name refers to a person that is so incredible well-known to the writer's audience that he or she has absolutely no need of introduction).
Direct Speech needs to be treated differently than narrative proper because it involves not the knowledge of the reader based on what has been said before, but rather on the shared knowledge of speaker and hearer and what God views Isaiah as being identifiable, in this case, God and Isaiah. With that said, its still the same principle, just functioning on a separate level from author & reader. I'd say in this case, both τὸν Οὐρίαν and τὸν Ζαχαρίαν are, at the very least, known extremely well to Isaiah. But I should revise my statement to say a speaker's audience rather than writer, since a speaker's audience may or may not be the writer's audience.Isaiah 8:1-2 wrote:1 Καὶ εἶπεν Κύριος πρός με Λαβὲ σεαυτῷ τόμον καινοῦ μεγάλου καὶ γράψον ἐκεῖ γραφίδι ἀνθρώπου Τοῦ ὀξέως προνομὴν ποιῆσαι σκύλων· πάρεστιν γάρ. 2 καὶ μάρτυράς μοι ποίησον πιστοὺς ἀνθρώπους, τὸν Οὐρίαν καὶ τὸν Ζαχαρίαν υἱὸν Βαραχίου.
In each of these cases, there has been sufficient space in the discourse that it is necessary to reintroduce Ἐλιακεὶμ for each of these. It is necessary to present him as a new participant only until the speaker can be sure that his audience can identify the Ἐλιακεὶμ in question. The late of the article here is necessary until the participant has been in a sense "reactivated" in the mind of the audience.Isaiah 22:20; Isaiah 3:3, 22 wrote:20 Καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ καλέσω τὸν παῖδά μου Ἐλιακὶμ τὸν τοῦ Χελκίου
3 καὶ ἐξῆλθεν πρὸς αὐτὸν Ἐλιακεὶμ ὁ τοῦ Χελκίου ὁ οἰκονόμος καὶ Σόμνας ὁ γραμματεὺς καὶ Ἰὼχ ὁ τοῦ Ἀσὰφ ὁ ὑπομνηματογράφος. ...
22 Καὶ εἰσῆλθεν Ἐλιακεὶμ ὁ τοῦ Χελκίου ὁ οἰκονόμος καὶ Σόμνας ὁ γραμματεὺς τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ Ἰωὰχ ὁ τοῦ Ἀσὰφ ὁ ὑπομνηματογράφος πρὸς Ἑζεκίαν ἐσχισμένοι τοὺς χιτῶνας καὶ ἀνήγγειλαν αὐτῷ τοὺς λόγους Ῥαψάκου.
Are you sure? I have to say, David, you're in comfortable territory because you're perfectly safe to make negative assertions, which cannot be proven one way or the other, whereas my claims are positive and thus open to challenge and verification. You seem to be too quick to assume that because you don't understand why something would be done (or that it isn't done in English) that it isn't meaningful. If using the accusative as the subject of an infinitive isn't meaningful, why did speakers ever begin to do it in the first place? The answer is that the original assumption must be wrong: the accusative is meaningful. And in fact, accusative subjects of infinitives in indirect statements are the easier way to demonstrate this fact. But that's another topic. If you're curious, start a new thread.David Lim wrote:Actually I would like to agree with you, but there are many grammatical constructions where the individual constituents are essentially lexically empty but must all be used in a certain construction. One example is the accusative and infinitive in indirect statements. The case of the subject has no meaning until it is put together with the infinitive.
Its okay if you're wanting to subsume identifiability with specificity. But I would encourage you to make it explicit so that everyone knows you're doing that. While we can probably safely say that all identifiable entities are specific, we cannot say that opposite that all specific entities are identifiable. Because of that you must always talk about both and make explicit what you're doing.David Lim wrote:I was actually including your second aspect in my definition, because I consider that if a specific person is in view, either previously mentioned or easily identifiable, then it is natural for the article to be used, whereas if it is a new character, the article is less natural.
Let's look at the clauses in question (NA27).David Lim wrote:But still I cannot see any clear distinction in function or meaning in the occurrence or absence of the article. Looking at John 1 alone, "φιλιππος" appears without the article at 1:45,46,48 even though it is with the article at 1:44. "ναθαναηλ" on the other hand appears for the first time with the article at 1:45 but then without at 1:46 and then with it again at 1:47 and then without again at 1:48,49. So my conclusion is that the article with proper names in Koine Greek is essentially superfluous, even if it may have had any grammatical or semantic function earlier.
v43: καὶ εὑρίσκει Φίλιππον καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Ἀκολούθει μοι.
v44: ἦν δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος ἀπὸ Βηθσαϊδά
v45: εὑρίσκει Φίλιππος τὸν Ναθαναὴλ
v46: λέγει αὐτῷ [ὁ] Φίλιππος· ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε.
v48: πρὸ τοῦ σε Φίλιππον φωνῆσαι ὄντα ὑπὸ τὴν συκῆν εἶδόν σε.
Philip is introduced in verse 43 without the article and thus in 44, we find him being referred to by the narrator with the article. In verse 45, Φίλιππος is used post-verbally and thus has no need of the article (see below). Verse 46 is complicated by the fact that you seem to be using the majority text, which doesn't have the article. My text does, so there's no problem here. Verse 48 is direct speech and thus the lack of the article here has more to do with what Jesus think Nathanael knows than with what we have read thus far. Nathanael, of course, knows who Philip is, but he needs to be activated and brought to the forefront of Nathanael's mind before he would have the article before his name. Were Jesus and Nathanael to continue talking about Philip, we can expect that the article would now appear in their dialogue.
You're right. And I apologize for making things fuzzier than they needed to be. You're absolutely correct that ανθρωπος in John 1:6 isn't definite. I should have clarified here that it isn't the position that makes a noun definite. Rather the position makes the article that would go with an already definite noun unnecessary. Does that make sense? ανθρωπος wasn't definite to begin with, so placing it after the verb isn't going to make it definite. Equally important is the fact that the clause itself is presenting entirely new information: Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος. There was a man. When you see a clause initial γίνομαι in a piece of narrative proper at the beginning of a paragraph like this, you can expect that whatever follows is going to be new.David Lim wrote:As for your suggestion that the placement after the verb indicates definiteness, the verb is often used in front. John 1:6 surely does not indicate that "ανθρωπος" is definite. Unless you mean that this kind of influence of word order is only relevant to proper names? But John 1:48 has "προ του σε φιλιππον φωνησαι".. So it does not apply to this kind of construction as well?
This is a lot of information. I really hope that I'm writing clearly and what I've said is remotely comprehensible...