[B-Greek] preposition vs case endings (was Job 3:24)
Clwinbery at aol.com
Clwinbery at aol.com
Sat Dec 13 14:39:40 EST 2003
In a message dated 12/13/03 12:28:59 PM, bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca writes:
>> >> > (Albert Pietersma)
>> > ..... One needs to remember, of course, that
>> >> prepositions are first and foremost structure words, with a very wide
>> >> range of meaning.....
>
> (Bert de Haan)
>> > I have come to realize that prepositions have a very wide range of
>
>> > meaning.
>> > I was wondering if you could explain what you meant by prepositions
>
>> > being first and foremost stucture words.
>
> (Albert Pietersma)
>> Dear Bert,
>> Perhaps the easiest way is to think of case-endings. As case-endings
>
>> establish a syntactic/structural relationship between constituents of
>
>> phrase/clause/sentence, so do prepositions. With that in mind it is not
>
>> surprising to see that in the history of Greek case-endings tended to
>
>> give way to prepositions. E.g. EIPEN AUTW > EIPEN PROS AUTON.
>> The DIFFERENCE is that prepositions have greater semantic content than
>
>> do case-endings. Yet in distinction from full lexemes (content words
>
>> like GUNH) they are often referred to as bleached lexemes (relatively
>
>> empty, fluid words whose primary role it is to mark relationships)
>> As an aside, note that in Greek certain prepositions nuance their
>> semantic content by taking different cases. E.g. DIA + accusative means
>
>> roughly "on account of" while DIA + genitive means roughly "through."
>
>> Thus qua prepositions they are even more fluid than the rest.
>> In sum, case-endings and prepositions are on a continuum.
>>
>> Cf. Handouts 6 (Cases) and 14(Preposition) on my website (below).
>> Al
>
>Thank you for your reply.
>This reminds me of one of the first questions I asked as list-member.
>
>This is the question;
>"Is there a significant difference between PISTEUW with the dative and
>PISTEUW
>with the preposition EIS? Compare PISTEUSWMEV TWi ONOMATI .... in 1 John
>
>3:23 with TOIS PISTEUOUSIN EIS TON ONOMA...."
>
>I can't find the reply in the archives so it must have been of-list. I
>think Carlton Winberry was the one who replied and if memory serves me
>right, the gist of it was something like -Just using the dative case endings
>could have more possible meanings than using the preposition-.
>
>Assuming that my recollection is correct, this seems to be at odds with
>what you said about prepositions have a greater semantic content than
case-endings.
>(Maybe I misunderstood you)
>If you don't mind, I would like to hear your comments on this.
>
Bert, I do not remember the discussion you mentioned, but I would agree with
Al that the role of the preposition was expanding during the Helenistic
period. Its interesting that the dative case has fallen out of modern Greek in favor
of the accusative case with certain prepositions.
What grammarians usually call "datives of root idea" are more dependent on
certain verbs than "meaning" of prepositions. Cf. Mt.15:25 BOHQEI MOI with Mt
10:32 hOSTIS hOMOLOGHSEI EN EMOI. I would translate one "Help me." and the
other as "confess me." We could understand other words such Render help to me or
confess faith in me, but I do not think that is necessary. I think that some
times the preposition is almost unnecessary.
Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College
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