Re: Infinitives as finite verbs

From: Jan Haugland (jansh@online.no)
Date: Wed Apr 09 1997 - 03:10:53 EDT


Ken,

> It also seems that the
>subject of the infinitive is in the nominative several times. That's
>not supposed tobe legal as far as I've been taught. Have I missed
>something? Thanks.

I'm a complete Greek novice, so I may certainly have missed something, but
since we learn as we go I will give your question a try.

An infinitive *purpose-verb* steers/makes (not sure how this is properly
expressed in English) the subject to be in accusative. However, in other
cases, when all verbs point to the same subject, it does not make an
accusative but nominative.

See one example -- which I incidentally read right now -- from Platon's
"Phaidon" II6a "hHGOUMENOI ... ORPHANOI DIAXEIN" (not certain about
transliteration). Don't know any NT examples myself.

Cheers,
Jan S. Haugland
Dept. of Rel. Studies and Classics
University of Bergen, Norway

Homepage: http://home.sol.no/jansh



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