Singular or Plural?

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Wed Oct 13 08:05:41 EDT 1999


To: Carl W. Conrad,

SCM: << KAI HN hO PATHR AUTOU KAI hH MHTHR QAUMAZONTES (Luke 2:33). Here we
have a compound subject with a single verb and a plural participle! >>

CWC: << Good example, although I don't really think this is quite the same
thing; it IS a matter of agreement, of course, but it involves the
periphrastic imperfect which is more common in Koine than earlier; of
course one might expect HSAN ... QAUMAZONTES with more careful writing, but
this is pretty clearly an instance of "constructio ad sensum," which is
hardly a real grammatical category in its own right--rather a way of
referring to a sort of grammatical anacoluthon wherein the speaker/writer
starts with one conception of the construction and changes halfway through
to a different conception of it. >>

That makes sense to me. I almost didn't include the example of Lk 2:33 in
my message, for it doesn't seem to be the same as the other examples. Smyth
even suggests that HN was originally plural, but I don't know if one could
assume that Luke knew that.

SCM: << So, while your interpretation of Jude 2 as an ellipsis is
reasonable enough, I see nothing wrong with just assuming that it is a
Pindaric construction. What do you think? >>

CWC: << Quite honestly, I think it's "six of one and half a dozen of the
other"; I'd see the "Pindaric" construction as essentially elliptical; ... >>

But which is it, six or a half a dozen? <g> FWIW ... I felt that I
presented two examples (Mt 5:18 & 1 Cor 15:50) which couldn't be explaned
as an ellipsis.

-Steven Craig Miller (scmiller at www.plantnet.com)




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