[B-Greek] Death by categories
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 5 22:09:11 EST 2009
I think we are all laughing with, not at, Mounce when
he says (I'm paraphrasing, but this is basically
what he says) that we "can" translate TON THEON in Mk 5:7
as by God (an idea normally associated with the dative) because
this is an Accusative of Oath. I know Mounce himself smiles
at some of the silly grammatical categories that we come up
with (Genitive after Verbs of Forgetting Your Wife's Birthday)
but what he is good at is empathizing with those struggling
to learn Greek. The fact is, beginning students of Greek (and
I am entering my third decade of Beginning Greek) learn a
basic category and then get uptight when something seems
to violate it. I know we shouldn't, but we need reassurance that
there is some principle at work that makes sense. I'm learning
Homer now, which makes me really a beginner agan, and I read
in Iliad 5:290 that Athena guides the arrow TO his nose
(BELOS D' IQUNEN AQHNH hRINA) and I expect there to
be a preposition before hRINA, or maybe for it to be in
the dative. The fact that it is in the accusative bothers me.
Maybe it shouldn't, but it does, and I want to know why.
So I look at the notes in Keep's editon and he tells me that
this is a "poetical accusative of the goal reached." Now,
this is silly. You might as well call it the Accusative of
Nasal Penetration. But, somehow, it makes me feel
better to know this. Double accusatives do throw off
newbies, and calling it an Accusative of Oath somehow
makes us feel better. It's easier to read Greek with
grammatical analysis, just likes it's easier for me to
read my 401k statements with a Gin and Tonic. I'm
not adddicted to either, but I'm glad they are there.
Mark L
--- On Thu, 3/5/09, James Spinti <JSpinti at Eisenbrauns.com> wrote:
From: James Spinti <JSpinti at Eisenbrauns.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] Death by categories
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thursday, March 5, 2009, 9:29 AM
A very nice post by Rick Brannon about translation and categories for cases. A
short snippet to whet your appetite:
But all of that stymies me. I'm really supposed to know (and recall?) all
that hooey before I can translate ὁρκίζω σε τὸν θεόν as "I
implore you by God"? The label doesn't help me understand the Greek any
better, it gives one shorthand to English it (lemma + parsing/declension + force
labels == English translation). Actually, I may even be understanding the Greek
less because I'm relying on the label to tell me how to English something
instead of actually understanding the Greek itself. Doesn't the occurrence
of ορκιζω along with the double accusative (σε + τον θεον) clue
me in to something different going on without having to label the blasted thing
"accusative of oath"?
--
The whole post is here:
http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog/2009/03/03/IReallyDontLikeCategories.aspx
Or, TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/caune9
James
________________________________
James Spinti
Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 30 years
Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com
Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
Fax: 574-269-6788
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