[B-Greek] John 12:2a
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri May 5 10:23:02 EDT 2006
On May 5, 2006, at 9:50 AM, gfsomsel at juno.com wrote:
> I hate to have to be a wet blanket, but I think the commentator in
> question and Iver as well are guilty here of precisely what Iver
> has accused a commentator of doing in another post -- i.e. making
> things difficult. Even with the supposed deficiency of English in
> not having an impersonal form corresponding to some other
> languages, I think the passage is plain when read in a straight
> forward manner. "They" had a dinner in Jesus' honor. Who were
> "they"? Obviously "they" cannot be either Lazarus or Martha or Mary
> since they are single individuals while this must be more than one
> person. Well, Martha served, Lazarus was present, and Mary
> annointed his feet. Perhaps others were present as well, but these
> three are named.
For my part, I'm not convinced that "they" as an impersonal 3rd
plural isn't at home in English. I'm not saying that the passive
couldn't be used to express the same meaning, although the sense
really is impersonal.
> -- "Iver Larsen" <iver at larsen.dk> wrote:
>>
>> EPOIHSAN OUN AUTWi DEIPNON EKEI
>>
>> Strangely, EPOIHSAN is taken here as "passive in
>> sense" by one commentator. What is the difference
>> between a Causitive Active and an Active verb that is
>> "passive in sense"?
>>
>> Mitch Larramore
>> Sugar Land, Texas
>
> Hi, Mitch,
>
> You are very observant and asking some good questions.
> What you have here is the third person plural used in an indefinite
> sense. It is not a matter of "causative active".
> Some languages have an indefinite pronoun like "on" in French and
> "man" in German and Scandinavian languages. Other
> languages have an indefinite plural affix on the verb in addition
> to a normal third person plural affix. The function of
> this pronoun or verbal affix is to have a semantically empty
> subject slot, meaning that someone unknown or unspecified
> did the action.
>
> English lacks both of these options. It has neither an indefinite
> pronoun nor an indefinite verbal affix. To compensate
> for this lack in the English language, various means are employed.
> Sometimes we can say "you" meaning people in general,
> sometimes we can say "one", sometimes even "they". But the most
> common way of saying the same thing in English is by
> using a passive construction, because the semantic function of
> passive is to be able to describe an action without
> having to specify the agent. I work with an African language with
> an indefinite suffix but no passive. So, verbs with
> this indefinite suffix are always translated by a passive in English.
>
> Greek does not have an indefinite pronoun or verbal affix, but it
> quite often uses the third person plural verb form in
> this extended impersonal or indefinite sense, and Greek does that
> much more often than English. (Hebrew also sues the
> third person plural in an indefinite sense).
>
> In this verse you can see that the actors in the preceding verse
> are Jesus (with disciples implicit) and Lazarus. Then
> v. 2 says "They prepared a meal for him there". If you say "they"
> in English as every literal version would probably do,
> it is confusing, because neither Lazarus, Jesus or the disciples
> made the meal. That is why the communicative
> translations would prefer to use an English passive as the NLT
> does: "A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor." The NLT is
> a more accurate rendering in English of the semantic intent of the
> Greek text than the literal versions are, but it is
> further away from the Greek surface structure, because there is a
> mismatch between Greek and English grammar..
>
> Another famous example that comes to mind is Matt 1:23: KAI
> KALESOUSIN TO hONOMA AUTOU EMMANOUHL. Which translated into
> normal English is as NLT and GNB say: "and he will be called
> Immanuel".
>
> Iver Larsen
>
>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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