[B-Greek] Acts 5.18 and 4:3

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Tue Jan 2 07:21:20 EST 2007


George,

We are not making much headway, I'm afraid, but since you talk to me directly, I need to respond 
briefly, mainly for the sake of others who may still be listening in.

What you are attacking is not my theory, but your misconception of it. I believe I have mentioned 
that I operate with relative prominence, not just prominence. In the nominal phrase EN THRHSEI 
DHMOSIAi, the fact that the adjective comes after the noun, indicates that the adjective has 
relatively less prominence than the noun. The difference is somewhat like saying in English "the 
public jail" where public is just an ordinary adjective without particular stress and then saying 
"the PUBLIC jail" where there is stress on the word "public". If that had been the intention, I 
believe the text would have said EN DHMOSIAi THRHSEI.

But when you compare with 4:3, it is not a matter of word order. The question is whether there is a 
descriptive adjective or not. Remember that 4:3 said EQENTO EIS THRHSIN EIS THN AURION. "They put 
them in custody/jail until the next day". Here it really doesn't matter to the author where they put 
them in custody as long as they were kept locked up somewhere. By adding an adjective in 5:18 there 
is some inherent prominence indicated by using this adjective compared to using no adjective. In my 
view there are degrees of prominence, or what I call relative prominence.

It is the same phenomenon I mentioned earlier about numerals. You can say "people" without any 
number. You can say "three people" which gives a certain prominence to the number. Or you can say 
"THREE people" with a relatively higher degree of prominence on the numeral than on the noun.

Another example is the verb "to be". Sometimes the verb is not even there, and this indicates the 
lowest level of prominence (complete lack of it). Then the verb may be present at the end of the 
sentence, which gives a bit of prominence compared to it not being in the sentence. If the verb is 
moved towards the left of the sentence, there is relatively more prominence on the idea of 
"existing".

Iver Larsen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
To: "Iver Larsen" <iver_larsen at sil.org>; "BG" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 3:00 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Acts 5.18 and 4:3


Time for the text again since it has been excised.

KAI EPEBALON TAS XEIRAS EPI TOUS APOSTOLOUS KAI EQENTO AUTOUS EN THRHSEI DHMOSIAi

Really, Iver, you must make up your mind.  First you say "There is no prominence to the final 
adjective" with regard to DHMOSIAi in 5.18, now you wish to assert that there really is prominence 
when you wish to attempt to distinguish the place where the apostles were being held here from that 
in 4.3.  You can't have it both ways.  Either it has prominence or it doesn't. 




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