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Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: April 30th, 2021, 9:26 am
by nathaniel j. erickson
Could he simply have meant that it provides further description of the women, that is, it is just generally adjectival ?
Thanks for this interesting thought. I'll have to peruse some more examples that are "adjectival" as per this scholar and see if he is simply using the term in an anomalous way. Given that "adjectival" in reference to participles generally means "a participle in the attributive adjectival position", it would be odd to casually call a participle "adjectival" when the intended meaning is that it is simply adding non-required information about a noun/verb in the sentence. I appreciate the possibility of giving this a charitable interpretation, though.
vc Ἦσαν δὲ
p ἐκεῖ
s γυναῖκες πολλαὶ
adv ἀπὸ μακρόθεν
v.part θεωροῦσαι
I like this way of graphically breaking the text out within the constraints of the forum. To adopt a similar layout with a bit less detail, I would say:

Thetic Ἦσαν δὲ ἐκεῖ γυναῖκες πολλαὶ
> > > > adv ἀπὸ μακρόθεν
> > > > v.part θεωροῦσαι

Thetic simply meaning this whole clause is introducing some new participants into the story at this point: "Now there were many women there." I appreciate that "thetic" is odd metalanguage, but I don't know what else to call such a construction. (One German scholar calls it the use of εἶναι ~ es gibt, which is nice if you are German or know German). To avoid further introducing meta-language, I'll just call the participle predicate. It is fulfilling the very common function of providing information about the people just introduced into a discourse. This is often done with a participle in Greek, though other means can be used as well. It is not equivalent to an English relative clause identifying the women in more detail; rather, it is predicating what the women are doing.

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: April 30th, 2021, 11:42 am
by Jonathan Robie
nathaniel j. erickson wrote: April 30th, 2021, 9:26 am To adopt a similar layout with a bit less detail, I would say:

Thetic Ἦσαν δὲ ἐκεῖ γυναῖκες πολλαὶ
> > > > adv ἀπὸ μακρόθεν
> > > > v.part θεωροῦσαι

Thetic simply meaning this whole clause is introducing some new participants into the story at this point: "Now there were many women there."
That's very clear now. Thanks.

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: May 5th, 2021, 8:26 pm
by MAubrey
nathaniel j. erickson wrote: April 29th, 2021, 3:08 pm Sorry on the metalanguage puke. Perhaps the occupational hazard of writing a dissertation which touches in many ways on passages like this. Should have cleaned it up after I wrote it. I'm currently swimming in 4 or 5 other peoples' metalanguage and trying to carve out my own in the process. On top of that, there are the ways things are discussed in traditional grammars. I often find it difficult to avoid using the newer metalanguage because that is what is immediately in my mind and I often have to go look up what traditional grammars would call such issues, if they deal with them.
Nathaniel, if you ever need a metalanguage sanity check or feedback on best practices, I'd be happy to help out.

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: May 6th, 2021, 7:31 am
by Barry Hofstetter
MAubrey wrote: May 5th, 2021, 8:26 pm
nathaniel j. erickson wrote: April 29th, 2021, 3:08 pm Sorry on the metalanguage puke. Perhaps the occupational hazard of writing a dissertation which touches in many ways on passages like this. Should have cleaned it up after I wrote it. I'm currently swimming in 4 or 5 other peoples' metalanguage and trying to carve out my own in the process. On top of that, there are the ways things are discussed in traditional grammars. I often find it difficult to avoid using the newer metalanguage because that is what is immediately in my mind and I often have to go look up what traditional grammars would call such issues, if they deal with them.
Nathaniel, if you ever need a metalanguage sanity check or feedback on best practices, I'd be happy to help out.
I had a professor (thesis advisor) who insisted that his students, as far as possible, substitute "natural language" rather than technical terminology (what here we are calling metalanguage), particularly if we wanted non-specialists to read and understand what we were trying to say. "Avoid it, or define it carefully when you use it in the simplest possible terms." Good advice, I think, for any academic writing.

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: May 7th, 2021, 5:20 am
by Stephen Carlson
As far as metalanguage is concerned, "thetic" is really useful and the concept it refers to has no real counterpart in traditional grammar. Perhaps, "presentational" is less intimidating, but too many people expect terms to be definitions rather than labels of the concepts they refer to.

In other words, what's really important is to understand the concepts. And sometimes technical precision is really helpful for that, especially when there is no real alternative. Imagine trying to avoid the term "genitive"!

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: May 12th, 2021, 8:41 am
by MAubrey
Barry Hofstetter wrote: May 6th, 2021, 7:31 am
MAubrey wrote: May 5th, 2021, 8:26 pm
nathaniel j. erickson wrote: April 29th, 2021, 3:08 pm Sorry on the metalanguage puke. Perhaps the occupational hazard of writing a dissertation which touches in many ways on passages like this. Should have cleaned it up after I wrote it. I'm currently swimming in 4 or 5 other peoples' metalanguage and trying to carve out my own in the process. On top of that, there are the ways things are discussed in traditional grammars. I often find it difficult to avoid using the newer metalanguage because that is what is immediately in my mind and I often have to go look up what traditional grammars would call such issues, if they deal with them.
Nathaniel, if you ever need a metalanguage sanity check or feedback on best practices, I'd be happy to help out.
I had a professor (thesis advisor) who insisted that his students, as far as possible, substitute "natural language" rather than technical terminology (what here we are calling metalanguage), particularly if we wanted non-specialists to read and understand what we were trying to say. "Avoid it, or define it carefully when you use it in the simplest possible terms." Good advice, I think, for any academic writing.
I'm a big fan of transparent terminology. But we still need to balance that with respect for the grammatical tradition, whether in classics or linguistics. It isn't an easy needle to thread. ;)

Re: Participle in Matt. 27:55

Posted: May 13th, 2021, 8:31 am
by Barry Hofstetter
MAubrey wrote: May 12th, 2021, 8:41 am I'm a big fan of transparent terminology. But we still need to balance that with respect for the grammatical tradition, whether in classics or linguistics. It isn't an easy needle to thread. ;)
Absolutely, at times a bit like using a camel... :) But well worth the effort nonetheless.