[B-Greek] Left order prominence and construction -- Acts 5.18

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Dec 28 11:55:13 EST 2006


Am I missing something here? In the one passage (Acts 5:18) DHMOSIAi is an adjective in agreement with THRHSEI; in the other (Acts 16:37) it is adverbial. I've understood that THRHSEI DHMOSIAi is "the city jail"; I don't know if there's an equivalent THRHSEI IDIAi that would be like "house arrest." But "public jail" just isn't English. I suspect "city jail" is what I ver meant.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)

 
On Thursday, December 28, 2006, at 11:30AM, "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Iver,
>
>I'm glad you mentioned Acts 16.37 where Paul was publicly beaten since this concept is my concern here.  Are we to understand that what is envisioned is the placing of the apostles in full view of all?  Are we to think of a situation such as that in colonial New England where people had their arms and legs fastened into stocks and were subject to scrutiny by their neighbors?
> 
>george
>gfsomsel
>_________
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org>
>To: George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 4:59:09 AM
>Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Left order prominence and construction -- Acts 5.18
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
>
>
>> I'm wondering what Iver's theory would say regarding the usage of DHMOSIAi in this verse.
>>
>> KAI EPEBALON TAS CEIRAS EPI TOUS APOSTOLOUS KAI EQENTO AUTOUS EN THRHSEI DHMOSIAi
>>
>> george
>> gfsomsel
>
>No problem (after correcting your various typos):
>
>And they laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail.
>
>DHMOSIAi is an adjective that occurs in its expected position after the noun it modifies. It is just 
>a (public) JAIL, not a PUBLIC jail. There is no prominence to the final adjective. At the clause 
>level, the dative complement of to "put" (a trivalent verb) is in the least prominent position. 
>There is nothing surprising about them being put in a public jail after they have been "laid hands 
>on". The adjective DHMOSIOS carries so little semantic weight when combined with THRHSIS that it is 
>left out in the similar sentence in Acts 4:3. On the other hand THRHSIS is a more general word than 
>English jail, basically meaning "(place of) keeping", so the word DHMOSIOS helps to clarify that the 
>text is talking about an official place for keeping alleged criminals, what we call a jail.
>
>There is much more prominence to DHMOSIAi in Acts 16:37 as shown by the relative placement of the 
>constituents.
>
>Iver Larsen
>
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