Apology & Accusatives
Mark House
mark at thehousehouse.com
Tue Jun 25 12:52:06 EDT 2002
Mark Wilson 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?<<
>You wrote:
-----
>>... in this context, both the
>>pronoun hUMAS and the infinitive GINWSKEIN are the appositional objects of
>>the verb BOULOMAI, and hence both logically accusative.
-----
>Would this mean then:
>
>Object 1: I desire you +
>Object 2: I desire to know =
>
>I desire you knowing X,Y, and/or Z...
>
>If so, and I realize you are giving us an English grammar aid to
>understand this construct, but would the idea "I desire you" really
>capture the function of hUMAS as object of BOULOMAI? (Can the object
>of a verb be incomplete?)
>
>Mark Wilson
-----
I'm finally getting back to this thread. Please pardon the delay.
I'm not sure if I understand the focus of Mark Wilson's question regarding
the incompleteness of the object of a verb. However, in answer to the
question regarding whether "I desire you" captures the function of hUMAS as
the object of BOULOMAI in Philip. 1:12, I would say that in itself it does
not, any more than saying that "I want you" captures the function of the
first three words in the statement, "I want you dead."
To come at the question from a bit different angle, suppose that instead of
translating the biblical passage: "I want you to know XYZ," we were to
render it, "I want you aware of XYZ," or (more in keeping with this context)
"I want you aware that XYZ is the case." The alternative rendering brings
out more effectively the noun function of the verbal noun (in this case
functioning adjectivally because of its apposition to the pronoun), and has
the advantage of explaining why both the pronoun and the infinitive (here
rendered into English as an adjective) are in the same case, or why
infinitives are considered as having case at all.
Mark House
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