[B-Greek] "Unwritten Ruless" (was "Dative as an adverb")

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Apr 10 12:28:02 EDT 2011


On Apr 9, 2011, at 6:20 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:

> Hi, David,
> 
> <Is there a way to tell when a dative form of X is used with the meaning "for
> X"?>
> 
> Indeed there is.  In the award winning formulation of Mr. George Somsel, Context 
> is King, here, there, and everywhere.
> 
> < I have always taken it to be "to X" by default when used as an adverb of
> a verb unless the verb does not allow "to X".>
> 
> Your rule implies that "to X" is the more common sense of the dative as opposed 
> to "for X" or "to the disadvantage of X" or "as far as X goes" or "by means of 
> X" or "along with X" or a million other ways to construe this case.  You may be 
> right.  I haven't counted up the numbers.  But it seems to me that a better rule 
> is "Context is King."

And that's sort of like the warning against the etymological fallacy: don't assume
that a word means what the formative elements in it add up to.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)

> FWSFOROS MARKOS
> 
> ________________________________
> From: =) <p1234567891 at gmail.com>
> To: B-Greek List <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Fri, April 8, 2011 10:35:47 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Dative as an adverb
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Is there a way to tell when a dative form of X is used with the meaning "for
> X"? I have always taken it to be "to X" by default when used as an adverb of
> a verb unless the verb does not allow "to X". Does the meaning of such a
> dative depend on the verb alone? An example would be Acts 7:46-49: "... and
> requested to find [a] tabernacle for the God of Jacob, but Solomon builded
> for him [a] house ... the heaven [is] [a] throne for me ... what house will
> you build for me?"
> 
> David Lim








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