[B-Greek] Prepositional Phrases

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Oct 7 07:26:34 EDT 2003


At 12:41 AM -0400 10/7/03, Doug Hoxworth wrote:
>just one last question. if i were to read up more on how
>to exegete prepositional phrases where would i go. i
>looked at all of my grammars first and second (mounce,
>wallace, dana and mantey, black 1st yr, chamberlain,
>goetchius) and there is a complete dearth of info
>regarding how to understand prepositional phrases. all of
>the sections dealing with prepositions and prepositional
>phrases deal with the translating of the phrase itself and
>not on how to exegete the entire phrase (as adjectival or
>adverbial). perhaps you could direct me to a better source
>to read up on this subject a bit more. thanks!

Doug, you're raising an interesting issue and one that I think is indeed
important. I too have taken a quick look through the reference grammars I
have on hand (Wallace, Robertson, Smyth, BDF) and can't really find any
distinct and separate discussion of prepositional phrases--and I think it
is the adverbial rather than the adjectival phrases that really deserve
discussion. I think that the relevant discussions bearing on this issue in
the grammars must be the sections on function of adverbs and (in the
fuller, "better" grammars) the extensive breakdown discussions of each
preposition and the phrases formed with them. I've certainly never done any
study of this matter as such, but I rather suspect that different judgments
about the syntactic linkage of adverbial prepositional phrases may account
for many very serious disagreements about what a clause or sentence must
mean. Where's Micheal Palmer when we need him (his e-mail option at the
Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway is disabled)? Rod Decker, do you
know of any treatment of the syntax of prepositional phrases?
-- 

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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