a most difficult text

clayton stirling bartholomew c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net
Mon Nov 9 16:45:39 EST 1998


Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> 
> I just did a search for EIMI as infinitive in the GNT in Accordance and came up with plenty
of instances, of which I'm only going to mention a handful:
> 
> Matt. 16:13 TINA LEGOUSIN hOI ANQRWPOI EINAI TON hUION TOU ANQRWPOU?
> Matt. 22:23 SADDOUKAIOI, LEGONTES MH EINAI ANASTASIN ...
> Mark 14:64 hOI DE PANTES KATEKRINAN AUTON ENOCON EINAI QANATOU.
> Luke 2:44 NOMISANTES DE AUTON EINAI EN THi SUNODIAi ...
> Luke 20:41 PWS LEGOUSIN TON CRISTON EINAI DAUID hUION?;
> Acts 5:36 ANESTH QEUDAS LEGWN EINAI TINA hEAUTON, ...
> 
> Here are six instances of subject acc. + inf. EINAI as objects, 4x of LEGW, 1x of
KATAKRINW, and 1x of NOMIZW. Clearly it is Lk 2:44 that comes closest to the construction
in Acts 16:13. I hope this is what you meant by your question.
> 

Carl,

While you were searching the GNT I did search of the grammars and found an
extensive discussion of this in BDF #392.  Porter (Idioms) deals with it on
page 196. The most strait forward explanation was in Richard Young page p.174
which I will quote:

"Verbs denoting mental activity often take an infinitive as a complement. . ." 

Young cites Luke 2:44 NOMISANTES DE AUTON EINAI EN THi SUNODIAi as an example.

Apparently this pattern is common enough. 

Thanks again. 

-- 
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062



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