Restrictive Adjectives

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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Alan Bunning wrote: May 7th, 2017, 10:55 pm
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 7th, 2017, 3:03 pm Would it help to provide examples where I doubt that the meaning is restrictive?
I wouldn't mind seeing a list of examples that aren't restrictive that follow the ο ανθρωπος ο κακος pattern.
In John, I think τὸ πνεῦμα refers to "the Holy Spirit" if it is not qualified.

Consider John 1:
32 καὶ ἐμαρτύρησεν Ἰωάννης λέγων ὅτι Τεθέαμαι τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον ὡς περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ἔμεινεν ἐπ’ αὐτόν· 33 κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν, ἀλλ’ ὁ πέμψας με βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι ἐκεῖνός μοι εἶπεν· Ἐφ’ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ’ αὐτόν, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ·
It does not say Τεθέαμαι πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον, it says Τεθέαμαι τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον, and it's clear - here and in other places - that τὸ πνεῦμα is the Holy Spirit. Compare that to John 14:
26 ὁ δὲ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ὃ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐκεῖνος ὑμᾶς διδάξει πάντα καὶ ὑπομνήσει ὑμᾶς πάντα ἃ εἶπον ὑμῖν.
If this had said ὁ δὲ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα ὃ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, I think it would still be clear that this was the Holy Spirit and not some other spirit. I do not think τὸ ἅγιον is added to "restrict" spirits to this particular one, or that other spirits are at all in view in this passage.

I think it's probably useful to consider various ways that πνεῦμα and ἅγιον are used together in phrases to get a feel for this.
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Alan Bunning
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Alan Bunning »

Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 11:29 am In John, I think τὸ πνεῦμα refers to "the Holy Spirit" if it is not qualified.
That argument doesn’t seem very compelling to me. Just because you think you know what τὸ πνεῦμα means without τὸ ἅγιον, does not mean that there is not a difference in emphasis when it is present. You are basically assuming that John 1:32 is already restrictive in meaning by theological implication, but that does not mean that it cannot also be made explicitly. In contrast, I would like to see an example of the ο ανθρωπος ο κακος pattern where its meaning is definitely not restrictive when it is present. Do you have some examples of that?
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Alan Bunning wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:03 pm
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 11:29 am In John, I think τὸ πνεῦμα refers to "the Holy Spirit" if it is not qualified.
That argument doesn’t seem very compelling to me. Just because you think you know what τὸ πνεῦμα means without τὸ ἅγιον, does not mean that there is not a difference in emphasis when it is present. You are basically assuming that John 1:32 is already restrictive in meaning by theological implication, but that does not mean that it cannot also be made explicitly. In contrast, I would like to see an example of the ο ανθρωπος ο κακος pattern where its meaning is definitely not restrictive when it is present. Do you have some examples of that?
I can look - this is not an automatic search, because I have to read through examples and think about each one. I'll do that.

But perhaps we should also put the burden of proof on the affirmative. Most grammars don't make the claim that this construction is restrictive in meaning. What evidence is there that it is?

And back to this example: I don't think it is restricted by theological implication in John 14, I think it is restricted by context. What other spirits would you claim are in view in John 14? Do you really think this construct is used to distinguish the Holy Spirit from other spirits, in a verse where no other spirit could be intended? Or if you think other spirits might be in view, which ones, and how? I think you have to do quite a bit of gymnastics to give this a restrictive sense. I agree that there is a difference in emphasis, but I don't think the emphasis is a restrictive one.
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Alan Bunning
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Alan Bunning »

Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:09 pm
Alan Bunning wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:03 pm
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 11:29 am In John, I think τὸ πνεῦμα refers to "the Holy Spirit" if it is not qualified.
That argument doesn’t seem very compelling to me. Just because you think you know what τὸ πνεῦμα means without τὸ ἅγιον, does not mean that there is not a difference in emphasis when it is present. You are basically assuming that John 1:32 is already restrictive in meaning by theological implication, but that does not mean that it cannot also be made explicitly. In contrast, I would like to see an example of the ο ανθρωπος ο κακος pattern where its meaning is definitely not restrictive when it is present. Do you have some examples of that?
I can look - this is not an automatic search, because I have to read through examples and think about each one. I'll do that.

But perhaps we should also put the burden of proof on the affirmative. Most grammars don't make the claim that this construction is restrictive in meaning. What evidence is there that it is?

And back to this example: I don't think it is restricted by theological implication in John 14, I think it is restricted by context. What other spirits would you claim are in view in John 14? Do you really think this construct is used to distinguish the Holy Spirit from other spirits, in a verse where no other spirit could be intended? Or if you think other spirits might be in view, which ones, and how? I think you have to do quite a bit of gymnastics to give this a restrictive sense. I agree that there is a difference in emphasis, but I don't think the emphasis is a restrictive one.
Again, I think the problem lies in the term “restrictive”. It occurs to me that the very use of an adjective in any position is necessarily more “restrictive”! (i.e. not “the car”, but “the green car”.) And how is that different than whatever someone thinks the word “ascriptive” means? The term that is used would be better if it merely indicated what position it is in, which as already noted, may indeed have a difference in emphasis.
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Alan Bunning wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:34 pm
Again, I think the problem lies in the term “restrictive”. It occurs to me that the very use of an adjective in any position is necessarily more “restrictive”! (i.e. not “the car”, but “the green car”.) And how is that different than whatever someone thinks the word “ascriptive” means? The term that is used would be better if it merely indicated what position it is in, which as already noted, may indeed have a difference in emphasis.
I agree. (In our treebanks, there is no reason to specify the position, it is always obvious and easy to query or see.)

And when you take positions into account, I should mention a case we have not been discussing: when neither the adjective nor the noun have an article. When the adjective follows the noun, only context can tell you if it is predicative or attributive. For instance, I would say this example is attributive:

Ἐφ’ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ’ αὐτόν, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ·

It's interesting to compare that to Mark 12:36 ...

αὐτὸς Δαυὶδ εἶπεν ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ· Εἶπεν κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου· Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν σου.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Alan Bunning
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Alan Bunning »

Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:50 pm And when you take positions into account, I should mention a case we have not been discussing: when neither the adjective nor the noun have an article. When the adjective follows the noun, only context can tell you if it is predicative or attributive.
What I would like to know in that case is how its emphasis compares (assuming it is not a predicate adjective). Would it be more like “ο κακος ανθρωπος” or “ ο ανθρωπος ο κακος” or is its emphasis different than both?
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Re: Restrictive Adjectives

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Alan Bunning wrote: May 9th, 2017, 8:33 am
Jonathan Robie wrote: May 8th, 2017, 12:50 pm And when you take positions into account, I should mention a case we have not been discussing: when neither the adjective nor the noun have an article. When the adjective follows the noun, only context can tell you if it is predicative or attributive.
What I would like to know in that case is how its emphasis compares (assuming it is not a predicate adjective). Would it be more like “ο κακος ανθρωπος” or “ ο ανθρωπος ο κακος” or is its emphasis different than both?
Hmmm ... I'm going to speculate here, and I'm sure others will. I'd be interested in hearing opinions on this. But emphasis, of course, is hard to prove.

I'm convinced of this much: ανθρωπος κακος can mean either ο ανθρωπος ο κακος (attributive) or ανθρωπος κακος (predicate), depending on context.

The attributive ο ανθρωπος ο κακος is probably more marked, it takes up more space and seems to want more attention. I wonder if it has a discourse function? The two passages we just looked at don't seem to support that:
John 1:33 wrote:Ἐφ’ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ’ αὐτόν, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ·
Mark 12:36 wrote:αὐτὸς Δαυὶδ εἶπεν ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ· Εἶπεν κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου· Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν σου.
In both cases, they occur after the main verb. Levinsohn does not say anything in particular about the phrase ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ in his discourse features. ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ and ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ seem to be functioning in much the same way. Subjectively, I'm inclined to say that they are both marked, but ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ is even more strongly marked. They seem more similar than different to me. But this is very subjective, and I am not sure that I'm right.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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