[B-Greek] Genitive vs Adjective

James Tauber jtauber at jtauber.com
Fri May 27 21:06:26 EDT 2005


On 25/05/2005, at 7:21 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
> The meaning of the second formulation is essentially the same as  
> that of the first
> formulation, because the syntactic relationships between subject  
> and object are
> indicated by grammatical case-endings, NOT by word-order.
>
> So I think it's important NOT to confuse word-order with syntax; in  
> some languages
> word-order may be a key to syntactical relationships, but by-and- 
> large it isn't in
> ancient Greek.

I know what you are saying, Carl, but the way linguists use the word  
"syntax" is very different from the way you have used it here and  
these two competing senses might be what's leading to some of the  
confusion in this thread.

Firstly, in modern linguistics, word order (at least from the  
perspective of what is permitted) is very much a part of syntax.

Secondly, relationships like "subject" and "object" are generally  
referred to as "grammatical relationships" in linguistics and NOT  
"syntactic relationships" because they might not have anything to do  
with "syntax" (as the term is used by linguists). This is exactly the  
point you are making but I just want to point out that, to the ear of  
someone trained in the terminology of formal linguistics, the quote  
from you above sounds like a contradiction in terms.


James Tauber



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