Do prepositions govern or merely clarify case functions in Koine Greek?

yochanan bitan ButhFam at compuserve.com
Fri Sep 10 04:31:15 EDT 1999


jay wrote:
>In my limited brain, I am unable to see the difference of EN + the dative 
>or the naked dative which expresses sphere.

[good. because 'sphere' isn't a grammatical function or relationship
anyway. it is a metaphor used by grammarians that says their analytical
system has run out of distinctions. it could have been called the 'brown
paper bag' function.]

on your question, en + dative is more explicitly restricting a dative
phrase by excluding benefactive from among the possible options as well as
providing redundance for its contextual dative function. 
[unless you want to include the semitizing en+ dative= "against" as a form
of benefactive.]

erroso
randall buth



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