[B-Greek] Anarthrous Convertible Expressions
John Schwandt
jschwandt at nsa.edu
Wed Feb 16 15:14:49 EST 2005
Mea culpa for not including my name on my last post-
Thanks for responding Kevin. You are right. I should have included
"normally" or "usually" in my reference to Colwell.
However, my reason for writing was to question whether interpretations of
Wallace's work on the non-convertibility of anarthrous preverbal PNs always
held. My assumption would be that just as Colwell even allows for
exceptions, we should not say that an anarthrous PN may never be definite
and thereby convertible.
This is in response to arguments like this (taken from a previous post on
this list):
"2. Further support for the qualitative idea is provided by the fact that
within this particular subject-predicate nominative construction, only the
subject, O QEOS, is articular and the predicate nominative, FWS, is not a
pronoun nor is it a proper name. Whenever this happens, the relationship
expressed is a type of subset relationship with the predicate nominative
being the general term, or metaphor and the subject expressing a type,
clarification, or meaning of the general term. In this way, what is being
expressed is not a mathematical truth O QEOS = FWS; FWS= O QEOS, but a way
of perceiving, and presenting the qualities, nature of O QEOS."
Blessings,
John Schwandt
*****************
I believe you are misquoting Colwell. His argument is not that "every
definite predicate nominative (PN) preceding
the copula will not have an article" but that the majority of definite PN's
in that position will not have an article, or conversely, that one cannot
assume that the lack of the article equates with indefiniteness. He
actually lists those occasions where his rule does not seem to apply in his
article.
Kevin Riley
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