[B-Greek] Fwd: PRWTOS and PRWTON (was Adverbs)

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Fri Apr 1 01:45:43 EDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "=)" <p1234567891 at gmail.com>
To: "B-Greek List" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: 1. april 2011 05:43
Subject: [B-Greek] Fwd: PRWTOS and PRWTON (was Adverbs)
>
> Dear Iver and all,
>
>
> I somewhat agree that there seems to be multiple distinct usages of
> "prwtos/prwton", but wouldn't there be ambiguities sometimes (when the
> semantics permit both possibilities)?

We may have a somewhat different understanding of grammar, semantics and 
pragmatics. I take the verb to be the nucelus of any clause with a number of 
participants attached to it, such as Agent (usually subject), Patient (usually 
object), possibly a beneficiary/location/etc. (usually indirect object)  plus 
several optional prepositional phrases. A verb like "put" is a trivalent verb 
which in its full and most explicit construction would require three arguments, 
an Agent, a Patient/Undergoer and a Location.

Not being a native speaker of Koine Greek, I am unable to say for sure how the 
following would be expressed, so what I am suggesting is just my feeling. I am a 
native speaker of Danish, so I can comment on how we would use our word "first" 
(which is cognate: først).

> For example, starting with "the man put the book on the table",
> 1) adverb modifying complete clause: what happened first?
>    "first, the man put the book on the table" (subsequently, ...)

I doubt you could use PRWTON here in Greek. In Danish, we would have to place 
"first" after "put", or we could say "The first (action) the man did was to 
put..." Or you might say: "For the first, the man put..." I am familiar with 
(TO) LOIPON in the beginning of a sentence, but not (TO) PRWTON. PRWTOS could be 
used in a list of names as in Mat 10:2.

> 2) adjective modifying "man": which man?
>    "the first man put the book on the table" (the second man took it away)

No problem. PRWTOS is part of a noun phrase.

> 3) adverb modifying "the man": who was it out of those who put books on the
> table?
>    "the man first put the book on the table" (and then he took food)

Adverb PRWTON modifying "put" as the nucleus of the sentence. Why do you say 
that the adverb modifies "the man"? In Danish we would have to place "first" 
after "put", since it modifies the verb.

> 4) adjective modifying "the book": in what order did he put the things on
> the table?
>    "the man put first the book on the table" (and then the bread)

Adverb PRWTON modifying "put" as the nucleus. A contrast between book and bread 
is pragmatic and may be shown by stress in English and word order in Greek.

> 5) adjective modifying "book": which book?
>    "the man put the first book on the table" (and took the other books)

No problem. A simple adjective PRWTOS.

> 6) adverb modifying "on the table": why is the book not there?
>    "the man put the book first on the table" (and subsequently back on the
> shelf)

Adverb PRWTON modifying "put". In Danish we would have to put "first" after 
"put" and before "the book". A contrast between table and shelf is pragmatic and 
may be shown by stress or word order.

> Can you give the Greek equivalents for these? It would be helpful to me so
> that I can see how all possibilities can be distinguished.
>
> For the examples you listed, I take "prwtos" in John 1:15,30 to be a true
> adjective: "[he] was first/foremost", "first [before] me" / "foremost of
> me". For the others, I cannot really think of them as true adjectives
> because they cannot exist without both the verb and its subject.

I am not familiar with a restriction that an adjective cannot exist without both 
a verb and its subject. Nor do I know the difference between a true adjective 
and a false one.

> That is why
> I would like to know how the Greek would say the above. =)

> By the way,
> aren't verbs usually put in front or at the back?

There is not complete agreement about how word order functions in Greek. Many 
assume that Koine Greek has a default VSO order. I prefer to operate from the 
assumption of no default order, but a default principle: The more to the left a 
word occurs, the more prominent it is. Some linguists like to use a framework 
with both topic and focus. (And the rules, if we could agree on them, do not 
apply to poetry.)
So, my comment was based on the assumption that nothing in this sentence was 
considered to be more prominent than the verb. Or you might say that A finding B 
is the topic.

> I see John 1:41,45 to be
> somewhat parallel.. meaning that "simwna" is an additional detail and that
> "filippos" is "the second".
> [John 1:41] "euriskei outos prwtos ton adelfon ton idion simwna"
> [John 1:45] "euriskei filippos ton naqanahl"

But there is no DEUTEROS and no ADELFOS in 1:45, and the sentences are too far 
apart. I consider that a rather desperate attempt to make sense of a PRWTOS in 
1:41 which in my view is a scribal mistake for an original PRWTON.

Iver Larsen

> Thanks a lot,
>
> David Lim
>
>
>
>
> On 31 March 2011 14:29, Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org> wrote:
>
>> PRWTOS is a fascinating word. I am rather dissatisfied with how it has been
>> treated in BDAG, because they do not clearly address the different functions
>> when it is an adjectve and when it is an adverb.
>>
>> I prefer to focus on the semantics before looking at the grammar. The word
>> compares different things or events. It basically means "ahead of" which can
>> be temporal or in terms of position. If different events are compared,
>> usually with the same agent, then it is the adverbial function. If different
>> agents or objects are compared, it is the adjectival function. For the
>> adjectival function, it is usually possible in English to use the definite
>> article, since we are talking about things, and quite often even Greek has
>> the definite article before PRWTOS.
>>
>> It would take too long to mention all the NT examples, so let me just take
>> those in John:
>>
>> In 1:15 and 1:30 the two people compared by PRWTOS are Jesus and John. John
>> said that Jesus was "ahead of me".
>>
>> In 2:10 the events of setting out the good wine ahead of the bad wine are
>> compared. PRWTON as adverb.
>>
>> In 7:51 hearing a person's defense goes ahead of judging him. PRWTON.
>>
>> In 8:7 the potential stone throwers are compared. The one without sin may
>> go ahead of the others. PRWTOS.
>>
>> In 10:40, 12:16 and 19:39 we have the neuter adjective TO PRWTON in a
>> somewhat fixed phrase referring to a time before the present one or before
>> any later time reference.
>>
>> In 15:18 we have γινώσκετε ὅτι ἐμὲ πρῶτον ὑμῶν μεμίσηκεν.
>> GINWSKETE hOTI EME PRWTON hUMWN MEMISHKEN.
>> You should know that it has hated me ahead of you.
>>
>> Although my database tags PRWTON as an adverb, I would say that it is the
>> accusative adjective comparing me and you-plural. Notice that the genitive
>> is used for the second part of the comparison, similar to 1:15,30 (and dare
>> I say Luke 2:2 where the time of two censuses is compared.)
>>
>> In 18:13 Jesus is brought to Annas before anything else is done to him.
>> PRWTON.
>>
>> In 19:32 the first crucified person is compared to the others. Same action
>> to different objects. PRWTOS here in the genitive PRWTOU.
>>
>> In 20:4&8 John arrived ahead of Peter at the tomb. Same action, different
>> people. PRWTOS.
>>
>> These are all the occurrences in John, but I find the same pattern in the
>> other texts.
>>
>> Now, 1:41 has no problem if PRWTON was the original text. The first action
>> by Andrew was to find his brother, Simon.
>>
>> It is difficult to make any sense out of the PRWTOS here. In that case
>> Andrew would be ahead of somebody else in finding his brother Simon. As you
>> say it might conceivably mean that Andrew was the first to find his brother,
>> but that does not fit well with naming Simon as the brother. Nor does it fit
>> well with the verb being in the prominent first position in the sentence. It
>> is the finding of his brother that must be ahead of other actions by Andrew.
>> The PRWTOS would be: "He was the first to find his own brother, Simon, and
>> saying to him..." The PRWTON is clear enough in NIV: "The first thing Andrew
>> did was to find his brother Simon and tell him,..."
>>
>> The NET bible has the following comment here:
>>
>> Most witnesses (Aleph* L Ws Maj.) read πρῶτος (prwtos) here instead of
>> πρῶτον (prwton). The former reading would be a predicate adjective and
>> suggest that Andrew “was the first” person to proselytize another regarding
>> Jesus. The reading preferred, however, is the neuter πρῶτον, used as an
>> adverb (BDAG 893 s.v. πρῶτος 1.a.beta.), and it suggests that the first
>> thing that Andrew did was to proselytize Peter. The evidence for this
>> reading is early and weighty: P66, 75 Aleph2 A B Q Y 083 f 1, 13 892 al lat.
>>
>> Iver Larsen
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: =)
>> To: Iver Larsen ; B-Greek List
>> Sent: 31. marts 2011 05:52
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Adverbs
>>
>>
>> Dear Iver and all,
>>
>> I did the same as you, but I could not find conclusive evidence of the
>> difference, at least in the new testament. Although my initial thought on
>> seeing that "prwtos" was declined as an adjective was that it should
>> "modify" the noun as you stated, I could not find an occurrence in the new
>> testament where it was unlikely to act as an adverb "modifying" the verb. So
>> do you have any particular examples? And if "prwtos" does modify "outos", is
>> it possible that it could mean that Andrew was the first to find his own
>> brother (implying either that John later found his or that others like
>> Philip would also find their own brother) or that Andrew was the first to
>> find someone else in general (implying that others later would also bring
>> people to Jesus)? On the assumption that the other of the two is the author
>> of the gospel and that Philip is the brother or at least close to Nathanael,
>> I would favour the former as the implied meaning. Or have I misunderstood?
>>
>> Regards,
>> David Lim
>>
>>
>>
>> On 31 March 2011 03:04, Iver Larsen <iver_larsen at sil.org> wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
>>
>> To: "Iver Larsen" <iver_larsen at sil.org>
>> Cc: "=)" <p1234567891 at gmail.com>; "B-Greek List" <
>> b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Sent: 30. marts 2011 19:39
>>
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Adverbs
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 30, 2011, at 11:26 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
>> To: "=)" <p1234567891 at gmail.com>
>> Cc: "B-Greek List" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Sent: 30. marts 2011 11:53
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Adverbs
>>
>>
>> This question originally related to John 1:41 which in the NA reads:
>> εὑρίσκει οὗτος πρῶτον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν ἴδιον Σίμωνα
>> hEURISKEI hOUTOS PRWTON TON ADELFON TON IDION SIMWNA
>> This one (he) first finds his (own/real) brother, Simon.
>>
>> The original hand of Aleph wrote πρῶτος PTWTOS. It was corrected later in
>> the Aleph ms, and it has very little mss support.
>>
>>
>> But the Majority Text has PRWTOS. Tischendorf has it too.
>>
>>
>> IL: I suppose this is not really the place to argue textual criticism, but
>> let me copy from Metzger:
>> "The reading πρῶτος, attested by א* and the later Greek tradition, means
>> that Andrew was the first follower of Jesus who made a convert. The reading
>> πρῶτον, which means that the first thing that Andrew did after having been
>> called was to find his brother, was preferred by a majority of the Committee
>> because of its early and diversified support (P66, 75 אc B Θ f 1 f 13 cop
>> arm geo al)." The NA apparatus includes A among the supporters of PRWTON.
>>
>> The suggestion that Andrew was the first follower of Jesus to make a
>> convert just not fit with hEURISKEI in initial position nor does it fit with
>> the sentence as a whole. Both internal and external reasoning strongly
>> favours PRWTON.
>>
>> Before I studied all the occurrences of PRWTOS and PRWTON in the NT I was
>> unclear about the difference, but it became much clearer afterwards.  I can
>> only recommend the exercise, and it would be nice to go beyond the NT, but
>> there are sufficient examples within the NT to give a good feel for the
>> usage.
>>
>> Iver Larsen




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