[B-Greek] definition of syntax?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue May 27 06:40:37 EDT 2003
At 7:21 PM -0700 5/26/03, waldo slusher wrote:
>I am reading Wallace's Greek Grammar book where he
>refers to how a genitive can function when it involves
>a verbal noun (Subjective or Objective or Plenary).
>But to avoid confusion, he distinguishes verbal nouns
>(where there is a corresponding cognate verb) in
>general from infinitives specifically. Of infinitives,
>he says that an infinitive is a verbal noun
>"syntactically." That is not how I have learned to use
>this word. Is he using this term as others would? If
>not, how would you label an infinitive?
The terminological problem here seems to be that the adjective "verbal" is
being used in different senses when we speak of the infinitive as a "verbal
noun" and when we speak of a noun derivative from a verbal root.
An infinitive is a "verbal noun" in the sense that it can function
syntactically in any way that other nouns can: subject, object of verb,
object of preposition, etc., and it can also function as a verb in taking a
subject or object or a complement. e.g., TAUTA QELW GINWSKEIN, where the
infinitive GINWSKEIN functions as a complement to QELW but also takes a
direct object TAUTA.
Nouns derivative from verb-roots are somewhat different: GNWSIS is
derivative from GINWSKW but it has a noun-ending and its own cases. It
cannot take a direct object or have a subject as can an infinitive, but its
subject and/or object must be expressed by the syntactic linkages proper to
a noun; thus the idea of the sentence above might become a verbal-noun
phrase, hH GNWSIS MOU TOUTWN where MOU is a "subjective" genitive
indicating who holds the knowledge, while TOUTWN is an "objective" genitive
indicating that of which knowledge is held.
I don't think the grammatical implications here are anything complicating;
the problem seems rather to be with the alternative senses in which the
phrase "verbal noun" is being used.
--
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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