[B-Greek] Word Divisions
frjsilver at optonline.net
frjsilver at optonline.net
Thu Apr 19 09:53:08 EDT 2007
Dear Friends --
FWIW, I agree with Carl Conrad and George Somsel.
Not to mention how odd it would look -- and how incomprehensible it would become -- if we separated all prepositions/proclitics/enclitics from words in English, whether derived from Greek, Latin, or Anglo-Saxon, etc.:
'back ward'
'meta phor'
'in fusion'
'down fall'
'con found' (hah!)
This is just not a good idea in Greek, whose compound words, like poetic kennings in Germanic languages, mean something rather different than their individual parts would suggest when taken separately, even in close proximity.
Consider, for instance, how Greek's 18 prepositions affect the meaning or, say, LUW or FUGW , KAQIZW(MAI) or even a wonderfully 'regular' verb such as PAUW.
It's helpful for neophytes to learn what these lexical components are and how they're used in compounds to modify words into shades of meaning, but more advanced students and competent readers/speakers of Greek (or English, for that matter) would glide right over them without skipping a beat.
CRISTOS ANESTH!
Father James Silver
Monk James
Orthodox Church in America
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad"
Date: Thursday, April 19, 2007 8:54 am
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Word Divisions
To: bunning at verizon.net
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>
> On Apr 19, 2007, at 7:31 AM, Alan Bunning wrote:
>
> > 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
>
> Well, to anticipate questions coming in the rest of the message below,
> I really think this is a matter of unresolved conventions: it is
>
> clear to
> anyone who has read a fair amount of Koine Greek that these words
> have definitely become unitary expressions that have a meaning in
> combination that is consistent whether or not they are spelled
> as a
> single word or not. Another might be DIO (i.e. διὸ) which is, I
> think,
> the more common spelling rather than DI' hO (i.e. δι’ ὂ). I've
> seen
> these often enough that I recognize them and it doesn't really bother
> me whether an editor chooses to spell them as one word or two. They
> are like crasis (my example of DIO above) with the difference that
> no characters that are pronounced are lost. I guess that if one writes
> TOUT ESTI one really ought to put an apostrophe after the TOUT
> to indicate the elided final O.
>
> It seems to me that the Koine has lots more of these combinations;
> there's the penchant (seen already in Aristotle) of sticking an
> articlein front of an adverb (e.g. TO PRWTON for PRWTON where there's
> no difference of meaning). Comparable is the creation of new nouns
> from substantivized prepositional phrases: e.g. hH DIAPASWN
> from hH DIA PASWN CORDWN (musical "octave"), or KAQ'
> hOLOU that's more commonly written KAQOLOU or even
> substantived but still used adverbially as TO KAQOLOU, and
> there's it's counterpart, KATA MEROS or TO KATA MEROS.
>
> The one pretty-well established and important convention is the
> distinction in print between hOTI as a conjunction and hO TI
> as a pronoun, despite the fact that they are spelled the same way
> in the MSS.
>
>
> > 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.
>
> So your question is what convention you should adopt regarding these
> spellings. I have no objection to showing them joined if that's really
> common in the MSS>
>
> > 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?
>
> Children certainly would say "LEMME!" or "lemme have it NOW!"
> But I
> suppose
> that you mean "lemmata" -- since this is a word we generally
> pluralize au grec.
>
> > 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!
>
> Here again I think that the usage of the MSS is significant: the
>
> compounded
> forms are used. There is, however, some confusion and
> occasionally some
> compounded past tenses have double augments. I think that the Egyptian
> papyri are instructive here with regard to the different usage
> by the
> better-
> and less-well-educated writers -- so also with regard to
> spelling
> practice.
>
> What about the past of EPISTAMAI -- HPISTAMHN. This is surely a
> compound of hISTAMAI, but it is a compound so early that EPISTA-
> is conceived of as a verb stem or root.
>
> > 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.
> This is an interesting discussion. Some of it is dealt with in
> the
> opening
> section of BDF (pp. 7-1-, §§8-16). There was a fascinating book
> published
> not too long ago on the history of English orthography; it was
> astounding
> to learn (and I only got this from reviews; I haven't read the
> book) how
> RECENTLY some conventional distinctions in English orthography were
> established. If you read some 17th and 18th century printed
> English
> works
> you can find the same words spelled differently on the same page not
> infrequently.
>
>
> 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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