[B-Greek] Article before QAVATOS

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun Oct 16 00:12:35 EDT 2005


On Oct 15, 2005, at 5:53 PM, TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com wrote:

> Is there usually an article before QAVATOS (death)?
>
> I'm double translating the Greek to English exercises in Machen  
> chapter 7
> back into Greek, and I noticed that one sentence used the article  
> before death,
> and one of them didn't. What is the general rule for using the  
> article with
> death?

Kat,

The general rule is that there is no general rule. QAVATOS is  
alternatly a state, a substantive, a semi-personification. Machen's  
first example looks like a state and the second looks like a  
substantive. This may or may not explain the use of the article.  
Machen's examples are without co-text, which means the are free  
floating fragments of discourse and for that reason they do not  
provided much useful information for syntax analysis. The exercise is  
to provided a literal translation not a syntax analysis.

NT grammars on QAVATOS and the article BDF #257 N. Turner p.175.

 From a cognitive approach QAVATOS may always be used with the  
article. It is always present in the active cognitive framework  
(context). It does not need to be introduced.


Elizabeth Kline







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