[B-Greek] Re. PLHQW + EN + dative

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Fri Nov 9 13:29:48 EST 2007


On Nov 9, 2007, at 8:49 AM, Paul F. Evans wrote:

> This is the very nuance I am trying to verify... If the spring is  
> filled by
> means of water, at least conceptually it is filled with water.  Is  
> that a
> genuine semantic nuance of the dative in these kinds of cases?   
> That is why
> I am looking for other instances outside of the NT as well as in  
> the NT.
>
> Eph 5:18 has a similar construction... MH MEQUSKEQE OINWi EN Wi...
>
> Conceptually at least it takes imbibing the wine to produce  
> drunkenness,
> just as the spring is filled by and with the water.  I wonder if in  
> such
> cases the dative has that semantic force.


Eph 5:18 MH MEQUSKEQE OINWi EN Wi Makes perfectly good sense if OINWi  
is understood as an agent as that term is used with other drugs e.g.  
"active agent". The idea is NOT that a drunk is a container which is  
filled up with wine. In the commonly used grammatical semantic  
terminology I think OINWi would be an instrument since agent in that  
framework is reserved for conscious action.

Elizabeth Kline







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