Question concerning κατα
Posted: April 13th, 2021, 5:58 am
A question re the preposition κατά
I am reading a book by Mike Aubrey and Rachel Aubrey on prepositions, along with Silvia Luraghi’s book on this
Luraghi notes that the preposition is differentiated from ἀνά in part by κατά not being exhaustive in coverage/distribution. So κατά + accusative with mutiplex landmarks indicates that not every landmark was touched, and similarly with uniplex landmarks - not all of the area is covered.
The Aubreys discussing mutiplex landmarks with the accusative case state “A trajector moves along a trajectory toward each unit of the landmark. The landmark provides the source and endpoint of the trajectory along which the trajector moves.” which leaves the door open for every unit to be touched.
Similarly “Multiplex landmarks may also represent extended or continuous areas on which a trajector moves. Rather than moving from unit of the landmark to the next, the trajector is dispersed over the whole surface region.”
Luraghi (pg 202) on the other hand says “As we have seen in §3.10, aná with the accusative and multiplex landmarks can express a relation in which the trajector exhaustively covers the area occupied by the landmark. I have already remarked that exhaustiveness / vs. lack of exhaustiveness explains the choice of either aná or katá”
Similarly page 191 “Again, the meaning of aná in the above examples must be understood in contrast to the meaning of katá with the accusative: when motion verbs occur, katá denotes mutidirectional path, similar to diá with the accusative (see §3.9), but it indicates that only some points of the landmark are touched randomly. With verbs of rest, katá means that the trajector is scattered over the landmark, without covering its whole surface,”
It is entirely probably that I am misreading or misunderstanding, but my questions are
1: is Luraghi right about this exhaustive vs non-exhaustive usage in Classical Greek
2: if she is correct, did this still apply in Koine?
A further question about on the examples in the Aubrey’s book.
A use of the genitive is given for a landmark trajectory and Matthew 8:32 is given as an example
“καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Ὑπάγετε. οἱ δὲ ἐξελθόντες ἀπῆλθον εἰς τοὺς χοίρους· καὶ ἰδοὺ ὥρμησεν πᾶσα ἡ ἀγέλη [κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ]”. Couldn’t this just as well be a use denoting source with a steep incline envisaged off which they fell?
I am reading a book by Mike Aubrey and Rachel Aubrey on prepositions, along with Silvia Luraghi’s book on this
Luraghi notes that the preposition is differentiated from ἀνά in part by κατά not being exhaustive in coverage/distribution. So κατά + accusative with mutiplex landmarks indicates that not every landmark was touched, and similarly with uniplex landmarks - not all of the area is covered.
The Aubreys discussing mutiplex landmarks with the accusative case state “A trajector moves along a trajectory toward each unit of the landmark. The landmark provides the source and endpoint of the trajectory along which the trajector moves.” which leaves the door open for every unit to be touched.
Similarly “Multiplex landmarks may also represent extended or continuous areas on which a trajector moves. Rather than moving from unit of the landmark to the next, the trajector is dispersed over the whole surface region.”
Luraghi (pg 202) on the other hand says “As we have seen in §3.10, aná with the accusative and multiplex landmarks can express a relation in which the trajector exhaustively covers the area occupied by the landmark. I have already remarked that exhaustiveness / vs. lack of exhaustiveness explains the choice of either aná or katá”
Similarly page 191 “Again, the meaning of aná in the above examples must be understood in contrast to the meaning of katá with the accusative: when motion verbs occur, katá denotes mutidirectional path, similar to diá with the accusative (see §3.9), but it indicates that only some points of the landmark are touched randomly. With verbs of rest, katá means that the trajector is scattered over the landmark, without covering its whole surface,”
It is entirely probably that I am misreading or misunderstanding, but my questions are
1: is Luraghi right about this exhaustive vs non-exhaustive usage in Classical Greek
2: if she is correct, did this still apply in Koine?
A further question about on the examples in the Aubrey’s book.
A use of the genitive is given for a landmark trajectory and Matthew 8:32 is given as an example
“καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Ὑπάγετε. οἱ δὲ ἐξελθόντες ἀπῆλθον εἰς τοὺς χοίρους· καὶ ἰδοὺ ὥρμησεν πᾶσα ἡ ἀγέλη [κατὰ τοῦ κρημνοῦ]”. Couldn’t this just as well be a use denoting source with a steep incline envisaged off which they fell?