[B-Greek] Word Divisions

Alan Bunning bunning at verizon.net
Thu Apr 19 07:31:47 EDT 2007


I am struggling with the best way to represent word divisions in Greek.
Various editors have chosen to split or not split words like:

 

DIATI - DIA TI

EKPERISSOU - EK PERISSOU

INATI - INA TI

TOUTESTI - TOUT ESTI

 

The general rule I am considering is to always split the words unless the
two words together would have a significantly different meaning. Thus, for
the words above, I would split them since there is not a *significant*
difference in meaning. For example, some would translate INATI as "why" and
INA TI as "for what purpose", but these are not *significantly* different in
my opinion, and indeed there was no space in Greek and thus they never were
different! Translation of words should never be decided on whether the
editor inserted a space or not, but whether the *context* dictates a
particular meaning. Thus, you are just as in your rights to translate INA TI
as "why" and INATI as "for what purpose" for there was no space! There are
word sets, however, that have significantly different meanings when
combined, and thus my rule would be to show them joined.

 

Okay, now for the real controversy. What about prepositions stuck on the
front of verbs? Again, sometimes the combination leads to a different
meaning than the two words separately and thus my practice would be to
represent them as one word. But in many other cases (most cases?) the
preposition can be treated as a separate meaning being applied with the verb
(much like an adverb). For example, do we really believe that Greek children
learned ANERCOMAI, ANTIPARERCOMAI, APERCOMAI, DIERCOMAI, EISERCOMAI,
EXERCOMAI, EPANERCOMAI, EPERCOMAI, ERCOMAI, KATERCOMAI, PAREISERCOMAI,
PARERCOMAI, PERIERCOMAI, PROERCOMAI, PROSERCOMAI, SUNEISERCOMAI, SUNERCOMAI
as separate lemme? Or did they simply learn ERCOMAI and saw the prepositions
as separate modifying words (perhaps much like adverbs)? In these cases, the
meaning of the words together is not *significantly* different than they
would be treated as apart. Just because we don't have a linguistic category
for prepositions preceding verbs in English, does not mean that the Greek
language did not view them that way. Indeed, notice that when the
prepositions begin with a vowel, it is not the preposition in the vowel that
is not augmented, but vowel in the underlying word. This seems to be clear
evidence that they were not treated together as one word! 

 

The only way I think one could ever know that two words should be considered
as one word, is that when used together they have a meaning that is
different than when they are used separately, and we would need someone like
Bauer to tell us that. Yes, there should be *evidence* that leads us to
treat words together, otherwise I believe that the default should be to
treat them separately. As an example in English, IPICKEDANAPPLE
ISAWAPINETREE IATEAPINEAPPLE. Here we see *evidence* that the words "apple"
and "pine" can stand alone. But we also notice that when combined they lead
to something different that you can eat. And then only from the context from
other writings would we know that these apples do not grow on pine trees and
should be treated together as a separate compound word in that context.
Thus, evidence lead us to a conclusion, not an editor's use of spaces. This
is obviously a radical change to the current way of thinking, but alas, no
one seems to be able to explain why this shouldn't be the case. Perhaps
there is something historical that Robertson failed to mention. I hope you
can shed some more light on this, for I am not really wanting to have to
reinvent this wheel, especially in the case of all those prepositions.

 

Alan Bunning

bunning at verizon.net




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