Apology & Accusatives

Mark House mark at thehousehouse.com
Fri Jun 21 14:13:14 EDT 2002


Art Fox wrote:

>>GINWSKEIN DE hUMAS BOULOMAI, ADELFOI (Philippians 1:12)

In cases like this, is there a fixed rule to determine whether the
accusative is the object of the finite verb or the subject of the
infinitive?<<

I know it's common for infinitives to be described as having a subject,
normally expressed in the accusative case. This certainly helps us make
sense of the verbal behavior of the infinitive. However, since infinitives
are verbal *nouns*, one might think of the infinitive and its "subject" as
actually in apposition to one another. That is, in this context, both the
pronoun hUMAS and the infinitive GINWSKEIN are the appositional objects of
the verb BOULOMAI, and hence both logically accusative.

To help my students think through this kind of relationship in English, I
encourage them to try translating the infinitive as a gerund rather than as
an English infinitive. In this case it would be "knowing" instead of "to
know." If Paul had simply said, "I want to know," the alternative
translation would be, "I want knowing." The English is awkward, but it
brings out the nominal force of the infinitive more effectively: "I want
something, and that something is knowing." Inserting the pronoun in
apposition to the infinitive does not change this basic nominal force of the
infinitive, although the appositional relationship puts a descriptive spin
on the infinitive, making it more adjectival: "I want you knowing." "I want
you to be a knowing person."

I'm not advocating these alternative renderings as ways of translating the
passage, but simply as tools to grasp the nominal character of the
infinitive, whose "subject" is really an appositional co-referent which
naturally agrees in case with the infinitive.

This being the case, the accusative is in a sense BOTH the object of the
leading verb and the "subject" (popularly conceived) of the infinitive at
the same time.

Mark House
mhouse at fuller.edu





More information about the B-Greek mailing list