[B-Greek] Subject, or appositive to the subject indicated by the person inflection?

Mitch Larramore mitchlarramore at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 2 17:29:04 EST 2006


Dr. Leedy:

This is not an answer, just a request for
clarification.

Are you asking how the Greek Nominative should be
understood in GREEK or how it should be understood and
labeled in ENGLISH?

Mitch Larramore

--- Randy Leedy <Rleedy at bju.edu> wrote:

> It seems to me that I have seen in numerous grammar
> books the idea that
> the nominative that is commonly called the subject
> of a finite verb is
> actually an appositive renaming and specifying the
> subject indicated by
> the verb's personal ending. I am not aware of any
> widespread tendency,
> though, to insist on this complication in naming the
> use of the
> nominative with 3rd-person verbs. Any grammarian who
> insisted on calling
> it an appositive to the subject contained in the
> verb's person
> inflection, it seems to me, would have no need at
> all of a
> nominative-case usage category named "subject."
> 
> But what about 1st- and 2nd-person verbs? For
> example, Eph 4:13 has
> MECRI KATANTHSWMEN hOI PANTES... ("until we all
> arrive"). I don't see
> any grammatical reason that I should not call this
> nominative the
> subject, even though English does not provide a
> construction in which
> "all" can function directly as subject of a
> first-person verb. It seems
> to me that the person information that fills the
> English subject slot is
> in Greek contained in the verb ending, freeing the
> Greek subject slot to
> accept a subject specifier that the English slot
> cannot accept without
> losing the person information. A colleague of mine
> takes the opposite
> view, that a nominative with a 1st- or 2nd-person
> verb cannot be
> construed as its subject. I have not yet found the
> question directly
> addressed in any of the half dozen or so Koine
> grammars on my shelf.
> 
> I would appreciate any educated opinions and
> especially any pointers to
> any sort of grammar or linguistics literature where
> the question is
> treated explicitly.
> 
> Blessings in Christ! (Acts 3:26),
> 
> Randy Leedy
> Professor of New Testament
> Bob Jones University Seminary
> Greenville, SC
> RLeedy at bju.edu
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> 


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