2 Cor 6:10

Joe A. Friberg JoeFriberg at email.msn.com
Thu Sep 2 22:38:18 EDT 1999


----- Original Message -----
From: clayton stirling bartholomew <c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net>
To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> >From: "Joe A. Friberg" <JoeFriberg at email.msn.com>
> >To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> >Subject: Re: 2 Cor 6:10
> >Date: Thu, Sep 2, 1999, 12:15 PM
> >
>
> > KATA- generally has an intensifying effect.
>
> Joe,
>
> I wonder about this. I have read a number of KATAs both independent ones
> and ones in compound verbs. I know that there are grammars which say
> that " KATA- generally has an intensifying effect" but I remain
> unconvinced of this by my observation of KATA in actual use. I suspect
> that any statement about what KATA generally means will be generally
> wrong. But you know I am a contrarian by nature, always attacking the
> conventional wisdom on questions like "what does KATA mean?" I am not
> sure that questions like  "what does KATA mean?" are the sort of
> questions that can be answered in any general way. To the b-greek
> veterans this observation will draw a lot of yawns and perhaps a some
> remark like "there he goes again."

Clay:

I rightly eanred the reprimand!  I fell into the trap of speaking in a vague
and grossly overstated generality rather than making a valid generalization!
You are correct: the polysemy of KATEXW is derived at least in part from the
polysemy of KATA- prefixal.  So, thanks!

Now, I think I could have said 'frequently', 'often', or 'sometimes', no?
Just for confirmation, there is the EXW/KATEXW pair of the current passage
(but *not* other senses of KATEXW); also:
ESQIW eat    KATESQIW devour
KATAKAIW burn up

Does anyone know of any exhaustive investigation of such categories of
meaning of prefixes such as KATA-?

Joe F.






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