[B-Greek] Mk 5:8 voc or nom?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Dec 5 08:04:00 EST 2004


At 4:19 PM -0600 12/4/04, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>On Dec 1, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Scott Wells wrote:
>
>> EXELQE TO PNEUMA TO AKAQARTON EK TOU ANQRWPOU
>>
>> Should TO PNEUMA TO AKAQARTON be understood as a vocative in
>> apposition to
>> the unexpressed subj, or is it a nom of address, or ...?
>
>Hi Scott:
>
>Vocative is correct. It is important to keep in mind that neuter nouns
>have the same form in the nominative and vocative. Also, you shouldn't
>think of a vocative as being in apposition to an unexpressed subject,
>since a vocative is not grammatically related to the rest of the
>sentence.

One question I'd raise about this is whether there is a vocative form of
the article; there's no question, of course, that the nominative plural
with the article is used in place of a vocative, but I'd still wonder
whether there are any indisputable instances of a singular vocative
definite article.
-- 

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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