[B-Greek] Articular infinitives: distinguishing subjects from objects
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Nov 27 21:57:42 EST 2008
On Nov 27, 2008, at 7:58 PM, George F Somsel wrote:
> I haven't checked every instance to see whether this is the only
> type of situation in which this occurs, but it is evidently not the
> case that an accusative immediately following an articular
> infinitive is the subject when the infinitive is a passive.
>
> 12καὶ ἐν τῷ κατηγορεῖσθαι αὐτὸν
> ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ πρεσβυτέρων
> οὐδὲν ἀπεκρίνατο.
> 12 KAI EN TWi KATHGOREISQAI AUTON hUPO TWN ARXIEREW KAI PRESBUTERWN
> OUDEN APEKRINATO
>
> Mt 27.12
>
> Here the accusative AUTON is the object of the infinitive rather
> than the subject which is relegated to a prepositional phrase hUPO
> TWN … If this were expressed in the active [ignoring the temporal
> element] it would be something like
Quite honestly, I don't understand this. I certainly would have said
(and would say) that AUTON is indeed the subject of the infinitive
KATHGOREISQAI
> οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι
> ἐκατηγησάν αὐτόν
> hOI ARXIEREIS KAI hOI PRESBUTEROI EKATHGHSAN AUTON
Perhaps you intended to write
> οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι
> κατηγόρησαν αὐτόν
hOI ARCIEREIS KAI hOI PRESBUTEROI KATHGORHSAN AUTON.
AUTON is indeed the object of the active construction (re-
construction?), but in Mt 21:12 AUTON is the SUBJECT of the passive
infinitive KATHGOREISQAI.
> ________________________________
> From: Kenneth Litwak <javajedi2 at yahoo.com>
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:32:13 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Articular infinitives: distinguishing subjects
> from objects
>
> Articular infinitives, like all infinitives, of course take
> subjects in the accusative case. For example, we have Matt 13;4
> with a "circumstantial" articular infinitive:
> EN TW SPEIREIN AUTON ("while he sows/was sowing*")
>
> My question is whether every accusative that immediately follows
> an articular infinitive must be the subject and if not, how does
> know that it is the direct object instead? For example, Heb 8:3
> would seem to follow the articular infinitive with a direct object:
> PAS GAR ARCIEREUS EIS TO PROSFEREIN DWA TE KAI QUSIAS ("every high
> priest in order that he might offer gifts and sacrifices")
> Are there any rules that can be applied to determine whether what I
> find is a subject or an objectg? This case _seems_ easy because I
> think I know that gifts and sacrifices would not make sense as the
> subject of the articular infinitive. Is that the only rule, that the
> sentence only makes sense if one takes the accusative as the subject
> or the direct object? I'd like a better guideline than that because
> one person's "that makes sense" is another person's "what were
> thinking?" as anyone can tell by comparing any two commentaries.
> Thanks.
>
> Ken
>
> * I've been pondering whether we should translate present tense
> verbs in narratives as "historical presents" or not. Could it be
> that we do the gospel writes, especially Mark, a disservice by
> destroying the vividness of the text by changing the tense to a past
> tense? I don't think that all Greek narrative is written in the
> present tense like this, so its use has to be deliberate.
>
>
>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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