On "Cancelability"

Alan B. Thomas a_b_thomas at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 7 14:08:31 EST 2001



--- Mark Wilson wrote:
> 
> In John 8:23 we have:
> 
> hUMEIS EK TWN KATW ESTE EGW EK TWN ANW EIMI
> 
> 
> Here KATW and ANW, both adverbs, have their
> adverbial natures
> cancelled by the articles. 

What cancels their adverbial natures is other
grammatical and contextual features. In essense, your
question recognizes a violation of a grammatical
principle.

The definite article is needed to create a grammatical
construct of which the adverb is a part. The whole is
as you say...not an adverb. But disecting the whole
into parts leads to all kinds of problems when you
disect a grammatical "unit."

It is non-sense to disect UNDERSTAND into "under" and
"stand." Or to split PET FISH into "pet" and "fish."
Spliting grammatical or syntactical units is always
inappropriate in understanding a language.

Also, how does the unit function? In your above
example, they function as "nouns." 

A similar mistake takes place in Dr. D. Wallace's
GGBB. In discussing the Aorist, he categorizes
incorrectly the Aorist as GNOMIC. An Aorist can be
used in a gnomic CONTEXT, but the Aorist itself is not
gnomic.

For example, 1 Pet 1.24 is given the following
translating....

"the grass WITHERS and the flower FALLS OFF"

Here WITHERS and FALLS OFF are Aorists, but context
makes this proposition gnomic; the Aorist does not
make it gnomic, and in fact, does not contribute to
its gnomic nature.

Note that Greek does not have a verb tense form for a
proposition like this (timeless). Peter could not have
used the Present Tense Form since he was not intending
to identify a CURRENT situation. He was describing a
GNOMIC (timeless) situation. There is no tense form
available to a Greek writer for this.

The error is made by attributing "gnomicity" to the
tense form found WITHIN this gnomic context, which
itself is a larger unit (at the proposition level).

Always remember that a "cat" is not the sum of three
letters (c,a,t). Equally, do not disect "the above
place" into three words.


=====
Sincerely,

Alan B. Thomas

"Actually, there was no final "s" on "toward," but
now it's acceptable. Languages just change."

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. 
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list