[B-Greek] verbless sentences - semantic force?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Feb 23 06:27:10 EST 2005


At 9:07 AM +0100 2/23/05, A. Dirkzwager wrote:
>Dear professor Conrad,
>
>Being subjective you are in good company. Wilamowitz saw Chrysostomus as a
>puristic atticist (writing a smooth style), whereas Norden thought he was an
>asianist (using bombastic stilistic tricks).
>I understand that in your opinion there was a semitic influence in the
>writings of Paul. So you can see the use of "to be" as an exception. Am I
>right?

I'm not so convinced that Paul's Greek is heavily influenced by Semitic
usage, but that depends upon some issues that are not appropriate for
discussion in this forum. Suffice it to say that omission of the copula
characterizes both Greek and Hebrew nominal sentences, and that's why I
think that when the copula is explicit it's likely to be emphatic.
-- 

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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