[B-Greek] Predicate Nominative in 1 John 2:7

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Wed Oct 26 13:05:36 EDT 2005


On Oct 26, 2005, at 9:03 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

> On Oct 26, 2005, at 6:38 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>
>>> HH: It seems to me to be the context. The subject before this
>>> sentence is the "the old commandment." The subject of the next verse
>>> (v. 8) is "a new commandment." The topic is the commandment, and  
>>> "the
>>> word which you heard" seems to be the predication made about it.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I don't really disagree with what Harold has said, but I'd call
>> attention to a couple general points:
>> (1) Normally when two substantives are linked by an explicit (or an
>> implicit) copula (ESTIN/EISIN) the subject is the substantive with
>> the article, regardless of which substantive comes first (cf. John
>> 1:1c KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS, where the subject is hO LOGOS rather than
>> QEOS).
>> (2) When both substantives have the article, it doesn't really matter
>> which of the two you deem to be the subject and which the predicate
>> nominative. Therefore there is no difference at all between the
>> alternative formulations (a) "The message that you heard is the old
>> commandment" or (b) "The old command is the message that you heard."
>> That is to say, in this formulation we simply have an equation as in
>> the mathematical formula, X = Y.
>>
>>
>
> hH ENTOLH hH PALAIA ESTIN hO LOGOS
>
> I would agree with Harold on this one. If we choose to divorce syntax
> from pragmatics then one might suggest that "there is no difference
> at all between the alternative formulations" but hH ENTOLH is the
> TOPIC and as TOPIC it ties what follows into the preceding paragraph.
> Note that TOPIC is not always identical with grammatical subject but
> it often is.
>


1John 2:7 AGAPHTOI, OUK ENTOLHN KAINHN GRAFW hUMIN ALL' ENTOLHN  
PALAIAN hHN EICETE AP' ARCHS: hH ENTOLH hH PALAIA ESTIN hO LOGOS hON  
HKOUSATE.  8 PALIN ENTOLHN KAINHN GRAFW hUMIN, hO ESTIN ALHQES EN  
AUTWi KAI EN hUMIN, hOTI hH SKOTIA PARAGETAI KAI TO FWS TO ALHQINON  
HDH FAINEI.

Wallace Chafe (The Meaning and Structure of Language pp. 211-212)  
notes that subject and predicate as "surface structures" should not  
be confused with topic/comment or theme/rheme which are semantic  
structures. However in  some languages (e.g. English) the  
propositional topic is often the grammatical subject and for that  
reason alone NT Scholars (native English speakers) are prone to  
assign the grammatical subject tag to a constituent which functions  
as propositional topic without giving a second thought about the  
distinction between semantic and syntactic structures.

There is another potential confusion where propositional topic is  
mixed up with paragraph topic. The propositional topic is the old  
information in a predication. It need not be the topic of the  
paragraph. 1John 2:7b hH ENTOLH hH PALAIA is the old information and  
ESTIN hO LOGOS hON HKOUSATE is the predication as Harold has clearly  
explained.

As you can see I am not really taking issue with Dr. Conrad's statement.

Elizabeth Kline







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