[B-Greek] Reverse Assimilation to the Relative (was Assimilation of the Relative.)

yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Tue Dec 15 16:56:09 EST 2009


Iver wrote:
> A sentence as a whole does not have a function in
> another sentence. A sentence does not have a case function. It is phrases that
> have syntactic functions in a clause and these functions are marked by case.

Is the above sentence supposed to be self evident? If so, I am not sure about it. It seems to me that the very subject of "relative clauses" has to do with embedded sentences and that every language has ways in which one sentence can function as part of another sentence. In fact, maybe a better way of thinking of dependent clauses and compement clauses is to think of them as sentence embeds. It is probably appropriate, to keep teminology from getting really crazy, to separate "case function" as a subset of "syntactic function" but these clearly overlap for me. 

I appreciate Elizabeth's suggestion about terminology on attraction. I'm not going to get in a wad about the classicist relative case "attraction" (what Elizabeth and others suggest might better be called assimilation) as a tag for describing the change of relative pronoun morphology of the case appropriate to its function in the embedded sentence (r-case, or relative clause case) to the morphology of case drawn from the matrix sentence in which it is embedded (m-case, or matrix case). Every discipline needs jargon. But I was intrigued about the notion of reverse assimilation.

What is going on here?

Λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· οὐδέποτε ἀνέγνωτε ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς·
	λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες,
		οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς κεφαλὴν γωνίας·
	παρὰ κυρίου ἐγένετο αὕτη
		καὶ ἔστιν θαυμαστὴ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν; 
LEGEI AUTOIS hIHSOUS: OUDEPOTE ANEGNOTE EN TAIS GRAFAIS:
LIQON hON APEKOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUTES,
hOUTOS EGENHQH EIS KEFALHN GWVIAS
Mat 21:42 (=Mark 12:0; Luke 20:17)
Would λίθον LIQON be a case of reverse attraction? Or would we just chalk this up to an anacolouthon because of direct quotation? I notice that the quote can be accomodated more grammatically to the grammar of the relative clause. λίθον is the subjet of the verb ἐγενήθη EGENHQH and as such should be nominative, but something has happened. Note also that the pleonastic οὗτος hHOUTOS must occupy the space in the subject slot to avoid the grammatical trainwreck. Cp. 1 Pet 2:7 where the quote has been assimilated more grammatically to its RC.
ὑμῖν οὖν ἡ τιμὴ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, ἀπιστοῦσιν δὲ λίθος ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς κεφαλὴν γωνίας.
hUMIN OUN hTIMH TOIW PISTEUOUSIN, APISTOUSIN DE LIQOS hON APEKDOKIMASAN hOI OIKODOMOUNTES, hOUTOS EGENHQH EIS KEFALHN GWNIAS.

What about this one, 1 Cor. 10:16
Τὸ ποτήριον τῆς εὐλογίας ὃ εὐλογοῦμεν, οὐχὶ κοινωνία ἐστὶν τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ; τὸν ἄρτον ὃν κλῶμεν, οὐχὶ κοινωνία τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐστιν; 
TO POTHRIAON THS EULOGIAS hO EULOGOUMEN, OUCI KOINWNIA ESTIN TOU hAIMATOS TOU CRISTOU? TON ARTON hON KLWMEN, OUCI KOINWNIA TOU SWMATOS TOU CRISTOU ESTIN?
Both POTHRION and ARTON are subjects of their their clauses and one would expect them to be nominative, putatively Τὸ ποτήριον ... κοινωνία ἐστὶν TO POTHRIAON ... KOINWNIA ESTIN  and ὁ ἄρτος ... κοινωνία ... ἐστιν hO ARTOS ... KOINWNIA ... ESTIN. Yet, in both instances they seem to me to be assimilated to the accusative of the relative.

How about this one, Luke 12:10?
Καὶ πᾶς ὃς ἐρεῖ λόγον εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ· τῷ δὲ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα βλασφημήσαντι οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται. 

One expects Καὶ πᾶντι ὃς ἐρεῖ λόγον just as you have in the second second part of the sentence, τῷ δὲ ... ἀφεθήσεται. So, the dative form of "everyone" seems to have been assimilated to the nominative of the relative pronoun.

So, as Robertson explained it, inverse attraction can happen when the realtive clause precedes the main clause, but the antecedent is pulled forward for emphasis to a position before the realtive. Anacolouthon results in these cases from abandoning a construction without adjusting it to the final form. Older transformational grammarians might say that a doom-form didn't get erased before the final, surface form was completed. From 

Goodwin and Gulick (#1035) also notes that the antecedent occasionally is assimilated to the case of the relative, when this immediately follows; as καὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι πάντων ὧν δέονται πεπραγότες εἶεν ELEGON hOTI hWN DEONTAI PANTWN PEPRAGOTES EIEN, "they said that they had done all things which (PANTWN hWN) they needed for the King," X[enophon] H[ellenica] 1.4.2,3 (I think this may be a textual variant). And  ὴν οὐσίαν ἣν κατέλιπε τῷ ὑεῖ, οὐ πλείονος ἀξία ἐστὶν ἢ τεττάρων καὶ δέκα ταλάντωνTHN OUSIAN hHN KATELIPE OU PLEIONOS ACIA ESTIN H TETTARWN KAI DEKA TALANTWN, the estate which he left is not worth more than fourteen talents, Lysias Orations 19,47.


Yancy Smith, PhD
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
yancy at wbtc.com
5636 Wedgworth Road
Fort Worth, TX 76133
817-361-7565






On Dec 15, 2009, at 1:42 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> Thanks,
> 
> I looked up the post and saw that it sprang from AF' hHS hHMERAS in Col 1:6,9.
> 
> This is a simple case of attraction or assimilation. It is just a word order
> variation of APO THS hHMERAS hHS.
> The fronting of the hHS is probably connected to the association between the
> relative pronoun and the implied demonstrative function. I believe it
> corresponds to English: "From that day which/that/when" rather than simply "from
> the day which/that/when".
> 
> There are similar expressions with other prepositions:
> 
> Matt 24:38 (Luk 17:27) ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας εἰσῆλθεν Νῶε εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν
> ACRI hHS hHMERAS EISHLQEN NWE EIS THN KIBWTON
> until the very day that Noah entered the ark.
> 
> Luk 1:20 ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας γένηται ταῦτα
> ACRI hHS hHMERAS GENHTAI TAUTA
> until that day when these things have taken place
> 
> Act 1:2 ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις...ἀνελήμφθη
> ACRI hHS hHMERAS ENTEILAMENOS TOIS APOSTOLOIS...ANELHMFQH
> until that day when he was taken up after having instructed his apostles
> 
> Act 1:22 ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἧς ἀνελήμφθη
> hEWS THS hHMERAS hHS ANELHMFQH
> until the day when he was taken up
> (notice the unemphatic word order here)
> 
> Act 20:18 ἀπὸ πρώτης ἡμέρας ἀφ᾽ ἧς ἐπέβην εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν
> APO PRWTHS hHMERAS AF' hHS EPEBHN EIS THN ASIAN
> from the first day on/from which I set foot in Asia
> (here PRWTOS has taken up the emphatic position. The word is inherently
> emphatic.)
> 
> Cooper's theory does not stand up to scrutiny, which is easy to see if you look
> at relatives in the accusative. The first one in the GNT is in
> 
> Mat 2:9: ὁ ἀστήρ, ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, προῆγεν αὐτούς
> hO ASTHR, hON EIDON EN THi ANATOLHi, PROHGEN AUTOIS
> the star, which they had seen in the east, went ahead of them
> 
> In this case the relative clause qualifies a noun in the nominative. In that way
> it is like an adjective and it is part of the noun phrase that functions as
> subject in the main clause. A sentence as a whole does not have a function in
> another sentence. A sentence does not have a case function. It is phrases that
> have syntactic functions in a clause and these functions are marked by case. hON
> is accusative above because it is the object of EIDON within the relative
> clause.
> 
> An interesting example of the nominative relative is found in
> 
> Mat 18:28: ἐξελθὼν δὲ ὁ δοῦλος ἐκεῖνος εὗρεν ἕνα τῶν συνδούλων αὐτοῦ, ὃς ὤφειλεν
> αὐτῷ ἑκατὸν δηνάρια
> EXELQWN DE hO DOULOS EKEINOS hEUREN hENA TWN SUNDOULWN AUTOU, hOS WFEILEN AUTWi
> hEKATON DHNARIA
> That slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves, who owed him hundred
> dinarii
> 
> hOS refers back to hENA - the head of the noun phrase "one of his slaves", and
> it is in the nominative because it functions as subject in its own relative
> clause.
> 
> So, attraction does not occur for nominative or accusative antecedents, only for
> genitive and dative  - unless someone can show me an example against this
> theory.
> 
> Iver Larsen
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
> To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: 15. december 2009 08:49
> Subject: [B-Greek] Assimilation of the Relative (was Attraction of theRelative
> ...)
> 
> 
>> I cited Cooper on this back April of 2007 here
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2007-April/042602.html
>> 
>> I think it is worth posting it again.
>> 
>> Assimilation of the Relative G.Cooper Attic Greek Prose Syntax vol 1.
>> #51.10.0 p. 529-530
>> 
>>  "A relative sentence functions in many ways as a syntactic
>> complex   equivalent to an adjective. Often such a relative sentence
>> is thought   of as being as a whole in agreement with a substantive,
>> whether noun,   pronoun or substantivization. The case of the relative
>> then has,   against the general rule, no regard for its function
>> within its own (relative) sentence. ... At first glance it seems that
>> the relative   has been drawn into the case of its antecedent, and it
>> is only upon   reflection and with practiced stylist perception that
>> it appears that   the relative is agreeing with the syntactic function
>> of its relative   sentence as a whole, the phenomenon is often spoken
>> of as   attraction ... it is more accurate to speak of the relative
>> as   assimilating ... to the case function of its sentence."
>> 
>> I find Cooper's treatment of this more attrative than anything I have
>> come across anywhere else.
>> 
>> 
>> Elizabeth Kline
> 
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