[B-Greek] DOKIMOS GENOMENOS in JAMES 1:12

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sat Jul 28 07:59:21 EDT 2007


>From Iver to Elizabeth:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] DOKIMOS GENOMENOS in JAMES 1:12


> Thank you Carl and Iver,
>
> JAMES 1:12 MAKARIOS ANHR hOS hUPOMENEI PEIRASMON, hOTI DOKIMOS
> GENOMENOS LHMYETAI TON STEFANON THS ZWHS hON EPHGGEILATO TOIS
> AGAPWSIN AUTON.
>
> On Jul 26, 2007, at 1:48 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> My view of this is that
>> (a) the subject of LHMYETAI is ANHR hOS hUPOMENEI PEIRASMON;
>
> On Jul 26, 2007, at 11:39 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> From the standpoint of general descriptive linguistics, every verb
>> has a subject, but it may be implicit or only marked by an affix on
>> the verb.
>> A clause does not fill a subject slot except possibly in special
>> circumstances of infinitives and impersonal constructions. The way
>> I would analyze this text, the subordinated clause doesn't fill any
>> syntactical slot in the following clause, since it is not a
>> constituent of that clause, but a subordinate clause in its own
>> right. (Constituents of clauses are phrases.) There is no explicit
>> subject for LHMYETAI except the third person suffix. The implicit
>> subject for both this verb and the participle is ANHR, which is
>> carried over from the previous clause, and this word could have
>> been repeated. However, there is no need to repeat it.
>
> Could we say that ANHR and the implicit subject of LHMYETAI are
> coreferential? Would that reconcile the apparent difference between
> Carl's and Iver's statements?

The syntactical term subject and the semantic term referent are different 
entities. Syntactically, ANHR is the subject of the verbless clause MAKARIOS 
ANHR. The hOTI ... LHMYETAI... clause does not have an explicit subject, but 
it is clearly understood that the implicit subject marked by a third person 
suffix is carried over from the preceding clause and has the same referent 
as the noun ANHR.

> I am a little bit hesitant to accept
> the notion that a clause cannot fill a slot in another clause. It
> appears to contradict some fundamental conceptions about embedded and/
> or recursive structures. It could be that I am misreading Iver's
> intended meaning here.

I didn't say that a clause can never fill a slot in another clause, but I am 
not aware of a participial clause doing so. If you can find examples, I 
would like to look at them.
>
> JAMES 1:12 MAKARIOS ANHR hOS hUPOMENEI PEIRASMON, hOTI DOKIMOS
> GENOMENOS LHMYETAI TON STEFANON THS ZWHS hON EPHGGEILATO TOIS
> AGAPWSIN AUTON.
>
> What impact would it have on our analysis if we insert hO in hOTI hO
> DOKIMOS GENOMENOS LHMYETAI ... ?  Would we say that hO DOKIMOS
> GENOMENOS fills the subject slot for LHMYETAI? This was the question
> lurking in the back of my mind when I submitted my original post.

That would be a different text with a slightly different meaning.
>
> Carl said:
>> (b) DOKIMOS GENOMENOS is circumstantial and probably best
>> understood as the protasis of a future-more-vivid condition,
>> equivalent to EAN DOKIMOS GENHTAI ("if he proves that he has 'the
>> right stuff,' ... ).

I am not sure about the "if" here rather than simply "when". It seems to me 
that the author fully expects that those who have endured the testing will 
also get the stamp of approval and therefore eventually receive the reward.

> ... for that reason I would have to take exception to Iver's
> comment:
>
> On Jul 26, 2007, at 11:39 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> That it is fronted in my view only suggests that there is a greater
>> emphasis on this condition relative to the result than if it had
>> not been fronted.
>
> It seems to me that the position of (hO???) DOKIMOS GENOMENOS relative to
> LHMYETAI has to do with information flow, a topic that Steve Runge
> brought up in our recent discussion of fronted participles. IMHO the
> position of hO DOKIMOS GENOMENOS relative to LHMYETAI cannot be
> adequately explained on the basis of "greater emphasis". Something
> more than that is going on here.

That is an option. It depends on your theoretical framework. Whatever theory 
you use it should be able to describe why some participial clauses appear 
before and some after the verb they connect to.

Iver Larsen 




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