[B-Greek] some lingustic questions on Jn 7:8
Harold R. Holmyard III
hholmyard at ont.com
Thu Jan 29 08:05:24 EST 2004
Dear Iver,
>I don't have a copy of Wallace's GGBB and live in a small
>town in Africa far from any library. However, the quote listed here raises
>another question. I hinted at this in my parenthesis above, but now it seems
>I ought to enlarge on the parenthesis.
>IF the quote was taken from a section describing demonstratives, which I
>suspect, it is correct, except that it should, IMO, have been worded using
>"demonstrative" rather than "adjective". (And it would be better to not use
>the misleading terms "attributive" and "predicate" position, since both are
>attributive in the sense that the adjective or demonstrative is part of the
>noun phrase and modifies the head.) Demonstratives should not be lumped
>together with adjectives, because that will bring confusion. Demonstratives
>function quite different from normal adjectives in several respects.
HH: I apologize for confusing things. Wallace has a section about
demonstratives under pronouns, but he only treats them there when they
function as pronouns, So I used the section on adjectives for the
information. But I see at the start of the section Wallace has this comment:
The adjective may be either attributive or predicate in relation to the
noun. That is, it may either modify the noun or assert something about it.
Except for the use of pronominal adjectives with noun (e.g. PAS, hOLOS,
hEIS), when the article is present, it is usually easy to discern the
relationship..
HH: So that is his warning that hOUTOS does not function like other
adjectives. Under the Article, he has a paragraph on it with
Demonstratives, and he says:
The article is used with demonstratives in predicate position to indicate
attributive function. Demonstratives cannot stand in attributive position
(e.g., between the article and noun). If they are related to an anarthrous
noun, they function independently, as pronouns. Only when they are in
predicate position to an articular noun can demonstratives be considered
dependent and attributive.
HH: So, I'm sorry. You're right. I forgot that.
HH: I did not give the whole picture with Wallace, because I was only
dealing with the two possibilities that I mistakenly thought you cited in
your comment. You said:
> >Well, I think that if you do a comprehensive study of nouns modified by
> >hOUTOS you will find that the default, unmarked position is to
> >have hOUTOS follow the head noun, and there is no reason for that order
> >to "stand out" if we look at the Greek rather than the English.
> >When it is fronted, it indicates emphasis on that part of the meaning
> >of the noun phrase that is carried by hOUTOS, that is, THIS x is
> >contrasted to another x.
HH: Since we were talking about (In John 7:8) an article-noun-demonstrative
adjective situation, and you talked about fronting, I assumed you meant an
article-demonstrative adjective-noun situation in contrast. But now I see
that is impossible. But anyway, I see that with the demonstrative used as
an adjective with an articular noun its unemphatic position is following
the noun.
>IF the quote referred to adjectives in general, it would be incorrect,
>because there the situation is much more complex. For normal adjectives you
>have two orders in arthrous constructions (the case is different and simpler
>for anarthrous constructions):
>1: article-adjective-noun
>2: article-noun-article repeated-adjective
HH: I only mentioned with Wallace the two categories of relation between
nouns and articles and adjectives that I wrongly thought you were dealing
with. Actually, he has a more complex arrangement of categories. Under
"When the Article Is Present" he puts:
1. The Attributive Positions: 1) First Attributive Position
(article-adjective-noun), 2) Second Attributive Position
(article-noun-article-adjective, 3) Third Attributive Position
(noun-article-adjective)
2. The Predicate Positions: 1) First Predicate Position
(adjective-article-noun), 2) Second Predicate Position
(article-noun-adjective.
HH: He has another set of positions when the article is absent.
>In the GNT the significance of the order varies from one author to another.
>Let me quote an excerpt from my article on word order in the GNT:
>
>"Matthew almost always places the adjective before the noun and following
>the article [1], and Peter always does so. This is then the basic order by
>these writers. We cannot draw any conclusion about emphasis from this
>pattern. However, if the noun precedes the adjective [2] in Matthew, we
>might expect the noun to be relatively more prominent than the adjective.
>Mark is the opposite. His basic pattern is that the adjective follows the
>noun [2]. (The article is then repeated before the adjective, following the
>usual rule.) We cannot draw any conclusion from this pattern. But when Mark
>moves the adjective in front of the noun [1], we might expect emphasis on
>the adjective.
>The other New Testament authors use both patterns much more equally. Luke
>has a tendency to prefer [1] the adjective before the noun. (This applies to
>Acts as well.) The same applies to Paul, James, and the author of Hebrews.
>John, on the other hand, prefers [2] the adjective after the noun, and this
>applies to Revelation as well. In Revelation the tendency is stronger than
>in the Gospel."
HH: Thanks, Iver, it is hard to remember this.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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