Splitting Compound Verbs?
Posted: April 18th, 2014, 6:41 pm
As I am preparing to release my transcriptions for the Center for New Testament Restoration , there has been one issue that I have wrestled with for years that I first posted to B-Greek back in 2007 regarding word divisions. The general rule that the CNTR texts aspire to follow is that “words should be divided into the smallest units possible that can stand alone as individual words without sacrificing any loss of meaning.” This is a briefly addressed here (http://bunning.gweb.io/CNTR/downloads/manuscripts.pdf) along with a discussion of why the “concordant” method is inadequate. You could say that I am a “splitter” not a “lumper”, but you can only do so much splitting without sacrificing meaning.
My main struggle, however, is whether prepositions should be attached to the front of verbs as compound words. For example, do we really believe that Greek children learned ανερχομαι, αντιπαρερχομαι, απερχομαι, διερχομαι, εισερχομαι, εξερχομαι, επανερχομαι, επερχομαι, ερχομαι, κατερχομαι, παριεσερχομαι, παρερχομαι, περιερχομαι, προερχομαι, προσερχομαι, συνεισερχομαι, and συνερχομαι as separate lemma? Or did they simply learn ερχομαι and saw the prepositions as separate modifying words, meaning they functioned as adverbs? Beyond the Greek grammars and A.T. Robertson, I have looked for discussions dedicated to this topic and the best thing I found so far is this (https://archive.org/details/severalpapersonp00holm) which concludes: “In general the range of combinable prepositions of a verb is in direct ration to the nearness with which the verb expresses pure motion.”
Of course, there are several cases where treating the preposition and verb root as separate words would lead to a different meaning, but then this is no different than situations involving idioms which also involve more than one word. It seems that in most cases, however, the preposition can be treated as a separate word without changing the meaning of the alleged compound verb. Some compound verb actions do not involve direction, but then again, the prepositions themselves carry a wide range of meanings in various contexts not limited to direction. As a result, there are very few cases (perhaps none?) where the meaning of the two words would be different than the compound verb. One often cited exception is “αναγινωσκω” which would literally mean “I know up”, but is usually translated as “I read”. But even then, this issue is muddled when people do not understand the differences between meaning and translation. For example, in English one might say, “The couple got hitched up over the weekend” and so when translated to another language would you find the equivalent words for being “tied up” which may be an unfamiliar idiom to them, or would you use their word for “married”? In many instances, idioms and word play in the Greek are sacrificed in order to make nicer English translations. So with “αναγινωσκω”, it could literally mean to “know up” with the concept of receiving knowledge “up” off of a written page, and that may be exactly how the ancient Greeks thought about it idiomatically. Of course, when translating it to English it might be better to use “read”, but we are not translating the Greek here, we are merely showing where the words break in Greek, not indicating how people may want to translate the words into some other language! We must not let English conventions dictate how the Greeks understood and used their own language!
This is not random, the syntax of the Greek language clearly shows the augment/reduplication of a compound verb directly attached to the root word, not to the front of the preposition! The syntax alone is compelling prima facie evidence that they should be treated as separate words. During the New Testament period, it is said that these prepositional prefixes were beginning to be attached to the verbs and thus we occasionally see the augment moved to the front of the preposition such as “ηπισταμην” for “επισταμαι”. Look at what is going on at Jude 1:14: προεφητευϲεν (02), επροφητευϲεν (P72, 03), προεπροφητευϲεν (01). In these few cases then, the syntax dictates that they should be treated as compound words. But the same type of thing goes on in compound nouns, where originally two separate nouns later syntactically became one compound noun. In a language that was written scriptio continua, there were no word boundaries specified so we must rely on syntax and meaning to guide us.
So here would be my reasons for treating compound verbs as separate words:
1. The Greek syntax clearly indicates that they are separate words.
2. In most cases, the meaning of the separate words is not different than the compound words. (And in the cases where it is, they should be treated just like any other phrase or idiom where two or more words result in a different meaning, and they should probably have their own lexical entry.)
3. There would be far fewer lemma for students to have to learn (and this is how I think it was experienced by the Greeks).
And here are my reasons for keeping the prepositions joined to the verbs:
1. This is the way we have always done things (and again I don’t care).
2. I already have the words joined together and parsed this way and to split them would take a lot of work (here I do care, but that is not a very good reason).
Thus, the reasons for splitting them seem more compelling to me than my own laziness, but I really don’t want to buck tradition and do a lot more work unless I have to. So what I would like from you is to provide some valid reasons to keep them joined together based on evidence. What am I missing? Here are some other thoughts that may lead somewhere:
1. Am I correct in that the only difference between regular prepositions and improper prepositions is whether or not they have ever been attached to verbs?
2. When multiple prepositions are attached, do they always appear in the same order and why?
3. How many compound verbs are there where the meaning of the joined words would be changed if the leading prepositions were detached?
4. I think there is a general rule that the accent of a compound verb cannot recede back into the preposition, but I am wonder if there are cases when it does. (Of course, no accents were present in the New Testament texts but this could still be a form of evidence).
Splitting the compound verbs would obviously be a radical change to the current way of thinking. If you can come up with some good reasons for keeping the current convention of compound verbs, I would really, really appreciate it!
My main struggle, however, is whether prepositions should be attached to the front of verbs as compound words. For example, do we really believe that Greek children learned ανερχομαι, αντιπαρερχομαι, απερχομαι, διερχομαι, εισερχομαι, εξερχομαι, επανερχομαι, επερχομαι, ερχομαι, κατερχομαι, παριεσερχομαι, παρερχομαι, περιερχομαι, προερχομαι, προσερχομαι, συνεισερχομαι, and συνερχομαι as separate lemma? Or did they simply learn ερχομαι and saw the prepositions as separate modifying words, meaning they functioned as adverbs? Beyond the Greek grammars and A.T. Robertson, I have looked for discussions dedicated to this topic and the best thing I found so far is this (https://archive.org/details/severalpapersonp00holm) which concludes: “In general the range of combinable prepositions of a verb is in direct ration to the nearness with which the verb expresses pure motion.”
Of course, there are several cases where treating the preposition and verb root as separate words would lead to a different meaning, but then this is no different than situations involving idioms which also involve more than one word. It seems that in most cases, however, the preposition can be treated as a separate word without changing the meaning of the alleged compound verb. Some compound verb actions do not involve direction, but then again, the prepositions themselves carry a wide range of meanings in various contexts not limited to direction. As a result, there are very few cases (perhaps none?) where the meaning of the two words would be different than the compound verb. One often cited exception is “αναγινωσκω” which would literally mean “I know up”, but is usually translated as “I read”. But even then, this issue is muddled when people do not understand the differences between meaning and translation. For example, in English one might say, “The couple got hitched up over the weekend” and so when translated to another language would you find the equivalent words for being “tied up” which may be an unfamiliar idiom to them, or would you use their word for “married”? In many instances, idioms and word play in the Greek are sacrificed in order to make nicer English translations. So with “αναγινωσκω”, it could literally mean to “know up” with the concept of receiving knowledge “up” off of a written page, and that may be exactly how the ancient Greeks thought about it idiomatically. Of course, when translating it to English it might be better to use “read”, but we are not translating the Greek here, we are merely showing where the words break in Greek, not indicating how people may want to translate the words into some other language! We must not let English conventions dictate how the Greeks understood and used their own language!
This is not random, the syntax of the Greek language clearly shows the augment/reduplication of a compound verb directly attached to the root word, not to the front of the preposition! The syntax alone is compelling prima facie evidence that they should be treated as separate words. During the New Testament period, it is said that these prepositional prefixes were beginning to be attached to the verbs and thus we occasionally see the augment moved to the front of the preposition such as “ηπισταμην” for “επισταμαι”. Look at what is going on at Jude 1:14: προεφητευϲεν (02), επροφητευϲεν (P72, 03), προεπροφητευϲεν (01). In these few cases then, the syntax dictates that they should be treated as compound words. But the same type of thing goes on in compound nouns, where originally two separate nouns later syntactically became one compound noun. In a language that was written scriptio continua, there were no word boundaries specified so we must rely on syntax and meaning to guide us.
So here would be my reasons for treating compound verbs as separate words:
1. The Greek syntax clearly indicates that they are separate words.
2. In most cases, the meaning of the separate words is not different than the compound words. (And in the cases where it is, they should be treated just like any other phrase or idiom where two or more words result in a different meaning, and they should probably have their own lexical entry.)
3. There would be far fewer lemma for students to have to learn (and this is how I think it was experienced by the Greeks).
And here are my reasons for keeping the prepositions joined to the verbs:
1. This is the way we have always done things (and again I don’t care).
2. I already have the words joined together and parsed this way and to split them would take a lot of work (here I do care, but that is not a very good reason).
Thus, the reasons for splitting them seem more compelling to me than my own laziness, but I really don’t want to buck tradition and do a lot more work unless I have to. So what I would like from you is to provide some valid reasons to keep them joined together based on evidence. What am I missing? Here are some other thoughts that may lead somewhere:
1. Am I correct in that the only difference between regular prepositions and improper prepositions is whether or not they have ever been attached to verbs?
2. When multiple prepositions are attached, do they always appear in the same order and why?
3. How many compound verbs are there where the meaning of the joined words would be changed if the leading prepositions were detached?
4. I think there is a general rule that the accent of a compound verb cannot recede back into the preposition, but I am wonder if there are cases when it does. (Of course, no accents were present in the New Testament texts but this could still be a form of evidence).
Splitting the compound verbs would obviously be a radical change to the current way of thinking. If you can come up with some good reasons for keeping the current convention of compound verbs, I would really, really appreciate it!