[B-Greek] Correct notions about "deponent" verbs

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Thu Nov 20 20:49:27 EST 2003


On Thursday, November 20, 2003, at 06:53 AM, James Ernest wrote:

>>> I think this ultimately depends upon the genius--the native
>>> feeling latent within the speakers of each language regarding
>>> self-involvement in actions. English speakers, at least by
>>> contrast with French speakers and German speakers, don't seem
>>> very self-conscious about actions they perform, and I think
>>> that's why there are so few reflexive verbs in English,
>>> relatively speaking.
>
> I wonder whether this (evidently six-year-old?) paragraph is similar to
> the kind of thing James Barr (The Semantics of Biblical Language)
> suggests is fallacious in his discussion of earlier speculation on the
> difference between Hebrew and Greek thought? Should we conclude any more
> from grammatical structures about un-self-aware English-speakers than we
> would about egocentric French- or German-speakers? --unless one
> disagrees with Barr, which is always possible (but I suspect never safe)
> ;-) .
>
> Puckishly yours,
>
> James
>
> --------------------------------
> James D. Ernest, Ph.D., Editor
> Baker Academic
> +1 616 891 5625 (office)
> jernest at bakerbooks.com
> --------------------------------

No offense to James, but personally I think Carl's comments are every 
bit as valuable as Barr's, and more useful. I suppose the elephant in 
the room that we're trying to ignore is a charge that such thinking 
about a native feeling is politically incorrect. But aside from that, 
it's also very difficult to find the root of the issue because it's a 
chicken-and-egg situation from a practical or pragmatic viewpoint; i.e., 
does the native language mold one's thinking, or did the native mind 
originally tend toward certain though patterns and invent the structure 
in the language to suit them? Idioms pose another issue, and here again 
Hebrew and Greek provide good points of comparison. Hebrew is loaded 
with idioms that almost defy translation into sensible English, and are 
often translated literally into Greek. My favorite is "What to you and 
to me?" In this case the structure of the language has less to do with 
the meaning of the expression than the cultural context in which it 
arose. It's not a syntactical mindset that matters.

Don Wilkins	
head translator, The Lockman Foundation




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