[B-Greek] predicative, attributive and case
James Forsyth
james at bigbeing.com.au
Wed Aug 13 01:16:31 EDT 2003
Hi B-Greek,
First of all, many thanks to Carl for his helpful answer to my clumsily
worded question. And also thank you to some off-list responders.
To very briefly clarify my question: What if a Greek sentence has a
predicative construction but the predicative construction doesn't make
sense (as in my English example)? Does one then revert to an attributive
reading? If not, which other alternatives can be employed?
James Forsyth.
At 07:11 AM 12/08/03 -0400, you wrote:
>At 5:54 PM -0700 8/12/03, James Forsyth wrote:
> >Hi B-Greek,
> >
> >Apologies in advance for the basic question:
> >
> >Is there a rule or guideline which assists in exceptions to translating the
> >predicate adjective construction? My feelings tell me that there may be,
> >and that it is dependent on case and whether the sentence makes sense in
> >English.
> >
> >An example of the difficulty, in English, is as follows:
> >
> >"We are going to the church is good on Sunday."
> >
> >If all the elementary clues indicate that this should be translated as a
> >predicative (i.e. the article is not seen next to the adjective), what
> >guidelines are placed alongside this to prohibit a nonsensical translation
> >and bring us back to the attributive?
>
>There's nothing wrong with basic questions--they often clarify things that
>we take for granted as understoond but haven't ever really thought through
>very carefully. The difficulty with your question is that it isn't at all
>clear what you're asking: (a) your question seems to be more about
>translating than understanding, but it isn't clear whether you're focusing
>on usage in English or usage in Greek--and one dare not assume that the
>usage in one corresponds (even "more or less") to usage in the other; (b)
>your English sentence is ungrammatical and unintelligible in its
>fundamental syntax: it is unclear what subject of "is good on Sunday"
>might be intended: do you mean that what is good on Sunday is "our going to
>the church" or "the church" or simply "going to the church"?
>
>Your question looks like it derives from difficulties understanding one or
>more constructions that you've been dealing with; it might be easier if
>you'd illustrate your (reformulated) question with texts (Greek texts,
>presumably) that you have found troublesome with regard to predicate and
>attributive usage and case.
>
>For example, let me cite an instance of a construction that is predicative
>and that may seem slightly out of the ordinary (although it isn't). In
>classical Attic one occasionally finds something like TOIS STRATIWTAIS
>EKEINOIS CRWMAI FILOIS; in idiomatic English that's "I am on friendly terms
>with those soldiers"; more literally it's "I make-use-of (or
>'enjoy-a-relationship-with' or 'deal-with those') soldiers (as) friends."
>Here FILOIS is predicative to TOIS STRATIWTAIS; "predicative" means
>'involved with the predicate' or 'belonging to the predicate.' In many
>instances it means 'explanatory of how the verb and its complement are
>functioning syntactically.'
>
>I can use the same elements to construct a sentence wherein FILOIS is
>attributive rather than predicative thus: EKEINOIS TOIS FILOIS STRATIWTAIS
>CRWMAI KAQ' hHMERAN, "I make-use-of (lit. 'serve myself by means of') those
>friendly soldiers every day." Here FILOIS is simply descriptive of the
>SOLDIERS in the noun-phrase which functions as the complement of the verb
>CRWMAI; it is not related to the linkage between the verb and its
>complement at all.
>
>I don't know if that helps or not; I'm not trying so much to make a point
>myself as I am trying to show how you might explain what it is you want to
>ask.
>--
>
>Carl W. Conrad
>Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
>1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
>cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
>WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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