[B-Greek] omision of the definite article

Harold Holmyard hholmyard3 at earthlink.net
Wed Feb 20 23:06:00 EST 2008


Hi, Elizabeth,
> On Feb 20, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Harold Holmyard wrote:
>
>   
>> HH: No, Levinsohn's principle is that an extra measure of attention is
>> added to a proper name by adding the article. The principle is not  
>> that
>> an extra measure of attention is added by not having the definite
>> article.
>>     
>
> Harold,
>
> I suggest you take another look at Levinsohn:2000 chapter 9.
>   


HH: That's fine. But I was only responding to the material that I was 
given. And in the material that Steve shared with me, the only statement 
was about proper nouns and their being marked for special attention 
because of the addition of the article. Steve was evidently referring to 
something else Levinsohn said that he did not share in his post to me. 
Later he sent me the chapter.


> G.Cooper (1.50.3.4) discusses both the referential aspects of [hO]  
> QEOS and the use of the article in different authors. It appears that  
> the historians Herod. and Thucid. preferred to use the article with  
> QEOS, QEON, QEOU, QEWi and that the anarthrous form was *marked*. On  
> the other hand Attic tragedy was much less likely to use the article  
> with any substantive and it seems like the articular form of QEOS,  
> QEON, QEOU, QEWi is *marked* in Aesch., Soph. and Eurip. I didn't  
> look at the comedies.
>
> QEOS almost always has a unique known referent in the NT so we would  
> expect to see it used with the article even when it hasn't been used  
> before in a particular discourse. There is no need to introduce QEOS  
> into a NT discourse since the cognitive framework of the NT authors  
> and audience included QEOS as a global VIP who was always there,  
> mentioned or not. For this reason alone the anarthrous form is  
> *marked* and draws attention.
>   



HH: I agree that anarthrous QEOS is marked at times. My only point at 
the time was that this could not be determined on the basis of the 
material from Levinsohn that I was given. It seemed that a false 
deduction was being drawn from that material. By the way, there seem to 
be other reasons why QEOS is anarthrous in some cases though. When it is 
in a genitive construction, it is sometimes anarthrous, but it is common 
for genitives to be anarthrous.

> The criteria for markedness is explained in great detail in Rutger  
> Allan, Middle Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study of Polysemy.
>   


HH: Thanks.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
>
>   




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