Adverbials in the Acc Neut Sing

clayton stirling bartholomew c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net
Sat Oct 3 22:19:37 EDT 1998


Maurice Taraschi wrote:
> 
> clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
> 
> > While I was pondering the function of TI in Acts 15:10 I began to speculate
> > about why a number of adjectives and pronouns in the accusative neuter
> > singular function as adverbs in their context.
> >
> > Is there some history behind this phenomenon?  Do Sanskrit and other languages
> > of this family show a similar pattern?
> >
> > Is this adverbial function considered part of the functional domain of the
> > accusative? If so how do we account for it being primarily manifest in the
> > Neuter?
> 
> Clayton,                Adverbs in I.E. were for the most part cases of nouns,
> adjectives and pronouns.  The cases most frequently used for these purposes were the
> Accusative, the Ablative and the Locative.  Any student of Greek or Latin will come
> to recognize this in time, and eventually it just becomes "old hat".  Did other cases
> do this too?  Yes!  In fact there are even Nominative adverbs.  As to why there are
> so many Neuter examples: I.E., and then Greek and Latin, used the Neuter (and this is
> purely my conjecture) so as to distance it from any reality as an adjective that is
> might otherwise possess.
> 

Maurice,

If this is the case then what is the difference between the adverbial function
in a clause and what are called verb complements (e.g., subject, object,
indirect object). It seems that it doesn't require much of a logical leap to
consider these complements as adverbial in function since they all LIMIT the
main verb. I guess what I am asking for is a working definition of the verb
complement that would help me distinguish it from a working definition of the
adverbial function.

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



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