[B-Greek] Adjectival and Adverbial Prepositional Phrases

James Davis jamesdavis at focusonthescriptures.com
Sat May 14 12:21:36 EDT 2005


Concerning my questions regarding the proper understanding of NT adjectival and adverbial prepositional phrases, I appreciate so very much the comments of Carl W. Conrad, James Tauber, Iver Larsen and Oun Kwon.

 
Fri, 13 May 2005 17:15:02 -0400 Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> Now regarding the prepositional phrase "META + the genitive AFROU"  does it not characterize AUTOU, the preceding pronoun.  Is this not  a case where the evil spirit convulses and he foams. Mark 9:18  says: "and whersoever him it seizes, it dashes down him; and he  foams (KAI AFRIZEI).

I suppose you mean "does it not characterize AUTON?" No, I don't  think so; rather I think that META AFROU is an adverbial phrase to be  taken with SPARASSEI: "convulses him with accompanying foaming at the  mouth." Nor do I think I've ever seen a prepositional phrase  modifying an accusative pronoun. No doubt you've rightly understood  what the sentence as a whole is saying, and yes, the spirit convulses  the man and he foams--but the foaming is an attendant circumstance of the convulsion; it is not describing the man adjectivally.



Fri, 13 May 2005 02:52:13 +0800 James Tauber wrote:

Re: [B-Greek] Adjectival and Adverbial PrepositionalPhrases in Biblical Greek. 
To: "Iver Larsen" <iver at larsen.dk>, "JAMES DAVIS" <jamesdavis at focusonthescriptures.com> 

On Fri, 13 May 2005 09:10:19 +0300, "Iver Larsen" <iver at larsen.dk> said:
Consider the English sentence: 'I saw the man with my binoculars.'

> Sometimes deep-structure, semantic distinctions are neutralized at the surface level (the syntax) as here.

Even at the surface level, the syntax is different in the two readings.
Assuming this has no effect on phonology (e.g. prosody) then I agree the distinction is neutralized at the *phonetic* surface level. Your sentence has two possible semantic interpretations:

Right. And it has two syntactic interpretations too. It's a prepositional phrase (PP) attachment ambiguity.

> A hypothesis such as "META with the genitive is always adjectival and META with the accusative is always adverbial" may have merit on semantic grounds but I don't see it as being "because of case". 

A genitive prepositional phrase in general can be either adjectival or adverbial. I don't see that it has merit on any grounds, and certainly not on semantic grounds.

PP attachment can be ruled out on semantic grounds in many cases.

Consider:'I saw the man with my hat.'

The syntactic analysis:I [VP saw [NP the man] [PP with my hat]]can be ruled out on the semantic grounds that a hat isn't a reasonableinstrument with which to see.


On Fri, 13 May 2005 20:12:14 -0400, Oun Kwon wrote: 

Hi, there.
>From my professional life, I remember the two prepositional phrases as the most commonly overused expression in writings in the field of medicine.   One is 'with ~' and another one is 'due to ~'.  It reads like everything is 'with something' and everything is caused 'due to something'. 

Luke 9:39 'with foaming' is a typical example.  Usually the context tells us what it means, even without getting down to the grammatical or syntactical analysis. 

As to the example of 'I saw a man with my binocular.'  This case, the listeners usually take the with-phrase connected to the immediate antecedent.  If I want to mean the other way, I had better put the phrase in the beginning of the sentence, breaking it away from 'man' and bringing it close to 'I'.


Well, I said in the beginning that I am an amateur, and that many years have gone by since I was in school.  So, you will understand when I tell you that I am still a little confused.  

Concerning the sentences: 'I saw the man with my binoculars' and 'I saw the man with my hat': if 'with my hat' and 'with my binoculars' could be expressed in NT Greek as META + a genitive characterizing a noun, the object of a verb; what if the noun were the pronoun him, could META + a genitive not characterize the pronoun?  

James Davis



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