[B-Greek] Definiteness

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Mon Oct 9 17:09:45 EDT 2006


Dear Brian and Sean,

When I wrote my posts I did not have the grammar of Wallace at hand. But 
since Dixon has the view that indefiniteness and quality are mutually 
exclusive properties, and because of the way Wallace formulated his rule, I 
supposed that this also was the view of Wallace. Thanks to you both for 
giving references to Wallace indicating that his view is different from 
Dixon´s.

Wallace writes: :"A general rule about the construction can now be stated: 
An
anarthrous pre-verbal PN is normally qualitative, sometimes definite,
and only rarely indefinite."

If Wallace really accepts that a PN without article coming before the verb 
can be either definite and qualitative or indefinite and qualitative,
this would put his general rule in a very strange light. On this background 
his rule is very bad formulated, since the natural understanding of it is 
that there are three different categories that cannot be combined. Moreover, 
if the categories really can be combined, there simply is no rule at all 
dealing with PNs coming before the verb, because in that case it is the 
context that decides definiteness, indefiniteness, and quality, and not 
discourse function.  So I lean back on the following observation: PNs 
without article coming before the verb can be either definite or indefinite, 
and sometimes the quality of the referent is stressed.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo











----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Abasciano" <bvabasciano at gmail.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 5:41 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Definiteness


> RF: <Therefore I challenge Wallace?s rule (if Wallace?s meaning is that 
> the three
> concepts are mutually exclusive) and I ask for examples.>
>
> BA: I provide this quote as an assumption Rolf has been making in his 
> posts. I do not believe Wallace makes theses all mutually exclusive. I 
> believe that he allows for qualitative definites and qualitative 
> indefinites. See Wallace, 262-63 (note especially the chart on 263). Cf. 
> his comments on Phil 2:13 (264), where he seems to take a definite noun 
> (QEOS no less!) as also qualitative, and believes the emphasis to be on 
> the qualitative sense. He is a little hazy in his discussion because he 
> does seem to oppose the other two options with qualitative. But in total 
> context, I think he is categorizing nouns based on their primary meaning 
> (i.e., def, indef, or qual) and opposes qualitatives with defs, e.g., on 
> that basis, apparently with the understanding that a qualitative CAN (but 
> does not have to) also be def or indef. That's how I read him at this 
> point.
>
> God bless,
>
> Brian Abasciano
> ---

>
> 





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