[B-Greek] Predicative (adverbial) adjectives (was Col 3:16a)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Apr 20 06:53:15 EDT 2004
I'm sending this back to the list as well as responding to an off-list
follow-up question from Mitch Larramore on Col 3:16a because it may bear
upon recent discussion of adverbial functioning of nominative forms; I
think we've talked about the problem of PLHRHS CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS at the
end of John 1:14 before, but I'm not sure there's ever been a definitive
accounting for the syntactical relation of that phrase to the rest of the
verse.
At 7:54 PM -0700 4/19/04, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>Dr. Conrad:
>
>The reason I thought to call PLOUSIWS a "relative"
>adverb on this occasion was because a source (Dr.
>Harris) I read indicated that PLOUSIWS could either
>modify ENOIKEITW (and be a simple adverb; let it
>richly dwell in you), or it could modify hO LOGOS TOU
>CRISTOU, almost like a relative(?) clause. If one does
>take PLOUSIWS as modifying hO LOGOS TOU CRISTOU, how
>would PLOUSIWS then function (not modifying the verb)?
Mitch, there's no way that PLOUSIWS as an adverb could modify the noun
phrase hO LOGOS TOU CRISTOU--that noun phrase is not a relative clause and
if it were modified in an adverbial way it would be with a predicative
adjective, more or less like this:
hO LOGOS TOU CRISTOU ENOIKEITO PLOUSIOS EN hUMIN ('dwell in you as a rich
one' or 'dwell in you so that it is rich')--but that's really a strange
Greek. The nearest thing to that in the GNT that I know is John 1:14 KAI hO
LOGOS SARX EGENETO KAI ESKHNWSEN EN hHMIN, KAI EQEASAMEQA THN DOXAN AUTOU,
DOXAN hWS MONOGENOUS PARA PATROS, PLHRHS CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS. If that
nominative adjective PLHRHS is rightly transmitted in the manuscripts, it
can only agree with hO LOGOS, the original subject of the verse and mean
"dwelt among as one full of grace and truth." But it's not usually
translated to make any such meaning clear and I have the impression (I've
never seen it commented on) that it is understood as parallel to the
genitives AUTOU ... MONOGENOUS, i.e. as if it were a genitive PLHROUS--and
it's viewed as a grammatical anacoluthon. It's really a very strange
grammatical collocation.
I don't really know, but it sounds to me like your commentator Harris is
talking more about English translation than about the structure of the
Greek text, because there's no way that PLOUSIWS can directly modify the
noun phrase.
I hope this doesn't simply add to your confusion, but I don't know how else
to explain it.
Regards, Carl
>--- "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>wrote:
>> At 6:30 PM -0700 4/19/04, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>> >hO LOGOS TOU CRISTOU ENOIKEITW EN hUMIN PLOUSIWS
>> ...
>> >
>> >Can PLOUSIWS be taken as a "relative adverb" here
>> and
>> >be translated into English:
>> >
>> >The word of Christ, in all its richness, let it
>> dwell
>> >in you.
>>
>> You can translate it that way, but it's still a
>> simple adverb; RELATIVE
>> adverbs are generally forms beginning with hO- and
>> corresponding to
>> INTERROGATIVE adverbs: hOPWS - PWS ('how'), hOPOU -
>> POU ('where'), hOPOTE -
>> POTE ('when').
>> --
>>
>> 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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--
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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