'instrumental-comitative dative' - beginners guide to grammatical terms
Jonathan Ryder
jpr1001 at cam.ac.uk
Wed Jun 16 11:26:45 EDT 1999
"Carl W. Conrad" wrote:
> So far as "instrumental-comitative case" is concerned, I'd suggest looking at
> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+1503&vers=english
> (i.e. Smyth's Greek Grammar, #1503).
>
> Occasionally there is (pedagogical) discussion on this list as to whether
> we should teach/learn a five-case system or an eight-case system. When I
> start out in Greek on the case-system, I usually go over the following very
> elementary introduction; here's the account I offered of it last Fall on
> this list in a brief thread entitled "Re: 5 case system vs. 8 case system":
>
> >At 2:56 AM -0500 10/22/98, Byron P. Knutson wrote:
> >>I was out looking at grammars today ( haven't bought any for a few years)
> >>and it seems that all those I've found that are new are 5 case system
> >>grammars. ATR pushed the 8 case system and I thought many thought highly of
> >>his work and scholarship enough to follow it. The newer scholarship must
> >>have reasons for going back to the 5 case system like the Classical Greek
> >>grammars do/did. Is there any discussion on this by those who have kept up
> >>on this aspect of the research?
> >
> >I don't think this is so much a matter of research, personally. I work more
> >with Classical Attic than with Koine, and I only refer to five cases, but I
> >think that some of the functions are so readily distinguishable in terms of
> >original IE cases that I teach the cases at the outset as:
> > Partitive Genitive: basic sense of "part of," "some of"
> > Pertinentive or Adnominal Genitive: basic sense of "of"
> > Ablatival Genitive: basic sense of "from"
> > True Dative: basic sense of "to," "for"
> > Instrumental-Comitative Dative: basic sense of "with"
> > Locative Dative: basic sense of "in," "on," or "at"
> >Of course Nominative and Accusative are distinct cases reasonably clearly
> >defined; and some would refer to Vocative as a real case, although I'd say
> >it's just a form of the noun without a distinct ending.
> >
> >It's true that some secondary Genitive meanings may appear difficult to
> >assign to one of the three Genitive categories, and I think that more than
> >economy is involved in the historical assimilation of originally distinct
> >case functions to a smaller number of case endings--but it's hard to get
> >too precise about that. I just personally think it's easier to
> >understand--and explain-- the great bulk of functional case usages if they
> >are broken down as I have suggested in terms of the historical IE
> >antecedents.
>
> I hope that helps a little, but there's a sizable literature on the subject.
Ok so far, but what about prepositions. Do the cases following the prepositions still
fit into the 8 categories suggested above? The example we've been discussing (EN +
dative) obviously does. Would it be true to say that EN + dative is always
'instrumental-comitative'? Can such statements be made about all prepositions with
their respective cases?
Jonathan Ryder
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