Temporal Adj in nominative

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Aug 10 17:21:18 EDT 2002


At 12:25 PM -0700 8/10/02, c stirling bartholomew wrote:
>Temporal Adj.  in nominative
>
>Homer (Monro #162) and Classical Greek (Smyth #1042) both use an idiom which
>sounds strange to native speakers of English. It is an adjective which
>appears to limit the predicate like an adverb (e.g. temporal)  but it agrees
>in case, and number with the subject.
>
>There are a few cases of this in the NT (see A.T. Robertson p. 657).
>
>----
>
>ACTS 28:13 hOQEN PERIELONTES KATHNTHSAMEN EIS hRHGION. KAI META MIAN hHMERAN
>EPIGENOMENOU NOTOU DEUTERAIOI HLQOMEN EIS POTIOLOUS,
>
>DEUTERAIOI here agrees with the subject of HLQOMEN.
>
>----
>A better example is found in:
>
>LUKE 24:22 ALLA KAI GUNAIKES TINES EX hHMWN EXESTHSAN hHMAS, GENOMENAI
>ORQRINAI EPI TO MNHMEION,
>
>Here ORQRINAI agrees with GUNAIKES.
>
>----
>
>Note that this idiom is not really limited to temporal adverbials, it can
>also be found with other adverbials, for example:
>
>2COR. 8:17 hOTI THN MEN PARAKLHSIN EDEXATO, SPOUDAIOTEROS DE hUPARCWN
>AUQAIRETOS EXHLQEN PROS hUMAS.
>
>where AUQAIRETOS is an adverbial of manner.
>
>----
>
>BTW, I ran into this idiom reading Homer.

I don't know that it's really quite an idiom; it's a predicate usage of an
adjective in agreement with the subject, not really all that rare in both
Greek and Latin. I've argued (although I know that others disagree) that
PRWTH in Lk 2:2 is an instance of this also:

hAUTH APOGRAFH PRWTH EGENETO hHGEMONEUONTOS THS SURIAS KURHNIOU,

where I understand PRWTH EGENETO to mean "was first held (when Quirinius
was governing Syria)."
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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