[B-Greek] POLIAS kai KNHMAS
John Sanders
john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Fri Apr 17 01:55:14 EDT 2009
I believe that I need to be more explicit in what I wrote because I think
that there may be some misunderstanding due to my presentation. Any one of
us can string a series of propositions to creat a rule. That is what I did,
I created a rule. I do not know whether that rule exists or not. But I
also do not think that a rule that says that the article in Greek can encode
in certain circumstances the possessive adjective exists either.
Daniel Buck posed a decent question. The answer will depend on how we
interpret the question. If the question was directed toward the Greek, then
his answer is correct. If the question was directed toward the English
rendering (and since he was using an interlinear I presume that is the
direction of his question), then his answer to his own question is
incorrect. Why? It is not related to a rule of grammar but to our
observations of common usage of these sentence patterns. Greek can omit the
possessive adjective, English speakers generally supply the possessive
adjective.
Let us look at two possible translations of this, one being literal to the
Greek and the other being literal but responding to English usuage:
1) Maiden daughter of Babylon...daughter of Chaldea...remove your veil,
reveal the grey hairs (or perhaps reveal the gem), bare the lower leg.
2) The maiden daughter of Babylon...daughter of Chaldea...remove your veil,
reveal your grey hair (or perhaps reveal your gem), bare your lower leg.
>From the MT I would assume the reading would be:
The maiden daughter of Babylon...daughter of Chaldea...remove your veil,
lift up your skirt and bare your lower leg.
Anyway, supplying the possessive adjective makes the English easier to read,
it has nothing to do with Greek grammar or pragmatics or anything else.
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Barry H. <nebarry at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Sanders" <
> john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com>
> To: <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
> Cc: <B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 6:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] POLIAS kai KNHMAS
>
>
> 3) Now concerning Mark's idea that in this case the Greek article can
>> be function as a possessive adjective. One can present it that way, but I
>> do not think it is accurate. For my part, I look at this in three
>> possible
>> steps: 1) how the Greek works, 2) how we can represent how the Greek
>> works
>> in English, and 3) how we would translate the Greek in English.
>>
>
> Actually, John, it's a pretty standard feature of the language to omit the
> possessive where it may be clear from context, but to retain the article.
>
> N.E. Barry Hofstetter
> Adjunct Faculty, Classics @ Montclair State University
> http://www.montclair.edu/
> Classics & Bible Instructor @ The American Academy
> http://theamericanacademy.net
>
> http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog
>
--
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
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