[B-Greek] Use of Accusative case
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Aug 20 05:03:15 EDT 2007
On Aug 19, 2007, at 11:34 AM, John M. Linebarger wrote:
> Please forgive what may seem like an obvious grammatical issue, but
> I'm just starting to teach an Elementary Greek class at our church
> and I need to have an explanation for my students. I'm trying to
> lighten the class up by singing songs on Bill Mounce's Web site,
> and I love the Doxology in Greek. (I'm a former student of J.I.
> Packer at Regent College, and he always started his class this way,
> so it brings back great memories.) The Doxology in Greek can be
> found at:
>
> http://www.teknia.com/public/pdf/Doxologia.pdf
>
> My question is the accusative case that starts the doxology off:
> TON THEON W DOXAZETE. Why is it in the accusative case instead of
> in the nominative case, especially since the relative pronoun
> appears to be in the dative case? I've scoured the usual grammars
> without success.
>
> Also, is this a reasonable working translation:
>
> God, whom we glorify
> The creatures which you have made delight in [your] gift
> Father, Son, and Spirit, Amen.
τὸν θεὸν ὠ δοξάζετε,
TON QEON W DOXAZETE,
"Oh praise God ..." (QEON is accusative direct object of DOXAZETE,
which is imperative present active 2 pl., W is exclamatory)
εὐδοκήσαντα δωρεάν,
EUDOKHSANTA DWREAN,
I think this was intended to be "who has blessed freely/generously"
-- but EUDOKHSANTA (aor. sg. acc. masc., presumably construing with
QEON) doesn't really seem like a verb that fits properly here -- I
would have thought that EULOGHSANTA would serve better metrically and
lexicographically. If, on the other hand, EUDOKHSANTA is neuter
plural acc, it might be intended to agree with TA KTISMATA in the
phrase that follows: "creatures taking delight" -- but it can't
really work well with DWREAN an adverbial accusative bearing the
sense, "freely, as a gift."
τὰ κτίσματ’ ἂ πεποίηκεν,
TA KTISMAT' hA PEPOIHKEN,
"creatures whom/which he has made," -- I take it that TA KTISMAT(A)
is vocative plural neuter (or nominative for vocative), perhaps to be
construed with the W that follows the initial QEON; hA is, of
course, the relative pronoun accusative neuter, construing with KTIMAT
(A) and object of the 3 sg. perfect active of POIEW.
πάτερα,υἱόν, καὶ πνεῦμα.
PATERA, hUION, KAI PNEUMA.
"Father, Son, and Spirit" -- all accusative singular and presumably
in apposition with TON QEON at the beginning. I don't understand the
acute accent on the first syllable of PATERA (normally it's on the
second syllable).
ἀμήν.
AMHN.
All this is guesswork, I think the composition displays some of the
perils of reverse composition in an alien language. One has to
question the value of using back-translated material like this
pedagogically. It may be "fun" to "play" with a language that one is
not intimately familiar, but one really has to question its
pedagogical value. I can recall a dreadful composition that my little
Greek class prepared for a Classics Christmas party in my Freshman
year in college (1952); it was a dreadful thing based on a pop tune
of the time, "Come onna my house, my house, I'm gonna give you
everything" (I think it was Rosemary Clooney); what we got was AGETE
OIKON, OIKON EMOU, DWSW SOI TA PANTA -- note the plual AGETE and the
singular SOI! Then there's the Saturday afternoon, Dec 7, 1996 when
some foolish people on B-Greek played around with putting Lewis
Carroll's "Jabberwocky" into Greek. What we (or I in my attempt)
ended up with was:
HN BRILLIG, hAI D' APOSTROFAI
GURWSAI OUABON HSTRAPTON:
hHSUXASAN MEN BORGOBOI,
MWMREIS D' EXESTHSAN.
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/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list