Splitting Compound Verbs?

Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Preposition as adverb

Post by Stephen Hughes »

I wonder if you could say that the attached preposition is an adverb and the following preposition begins a prepositional phrase? Or are their cases where the following preposition is an adverb too? Could it be for added emphasis?
0.01% rarely. Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:23 υπέρ- εγώ in my case very exceedingly [-περισσοτέρως]. I think it's split for emphasis.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

One of the middling chapters of Moule Idiom

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Alan Burning wrote:I am not averse to doing more work if I have to and I will if that is warranted by the evidence. Sounds like I still have some more digging to do.
There is a section in Moule dealing with what you want to ask. He considers which prefixed prepositions have a recognisable meaning and in which cases they do not. At best, your question is answered there, or at least your own decision-making is guided.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: One of the middling chapters of Moule Idiom

Post by Alan Bunning »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Alan Burning wrote:I am not averse to doing more work if I have to and I will if that is warranted by the evidence. Sounds like I still have some more digging to do.
There is a section in Moule dealing with what you want to ask. He considers which prefixed prepositions have a recognisable meaning and in which cases they do not. At best, your question is answered there, or at least your own decision-making is guided.
Thanks, I will take a look at it!
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3355
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

RandallButh wrote:The verb ἐπίστασθαι is particularly tricky because ἐφίστασθαι is also a word. (Maybe the ancient form of ἐπίσταμαι comes from the *πιστ root and had a prefixed ε- like ἐθέλω, ἐμέλλω?)
According to the etymologists I consulted, ἐπίστασθαι comes from ἐπί + ἵστασθαι, with loss of initial breathing and syllable, or possibly from the original, unreduplicated root form of ἵστασθαι (στάσθαι?)
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by RandallButh »

I like your second option ἐπί + στάσθαι (aka, later στηθῆναι).

In Koine times it was just another funky verb. ἐπίστασθαι, ἐπίσταμαι.

Gotta know these, inside and out.
As is visible here, etymology and roots are an academic interest that is not directly part of language use or language learning.
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: unsuffixed, desuffixed prepositons proper, and insulatin

Post by Alan Bunning »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you aware that in earlier times (Homer) the preposition was separate from the verb that we later see it joined to?
Going back to this question, since the language was written scriptio continua how did they know that the prepositions were separated from the verb in earlier times? I have discovered evidence that the prepositions were probably attached to the verb by at least the 4th-5th century, based on P99 (Chester Beatty Codex AC 1499 http://www.csntm.org/Manuscript/View/GA_P99) which appears to be a student’s school assignment. What is the evidence that shows that they were originally detached from the verb in the earlier times? And how did they know that they were beginning to join together around the NT time?
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: One of the middling chapters of Moule Idiom

Post by Alan Bunning »

Alan Bunning wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Alan Burning wrote:I am not averse to doing more work if I have to and I will if that is warranted by the evidence. Sounds like I still have some more digging to do.
There is a section in Moule dealing with what you want to ask. He considers which prefixed prepositions have a recognisable meaning and in which cases they do not. At best, your question is answered there, or at least your own decision-making is guided.
Thanks, I will take a look at it!
I got a copy of Moule from the library, and indeed there are several examples, where it appears that the prepositions ought to be detached from the verbs. This is not helping my cause at all to try to avoid doing further work! He states:

“Prepositions compounded with verbs tends to retain their original adverbial nature (‘prepositions when compounded are still the pure adverbs they were at the first’, Proleg. 112, n. 1); and therefore it frequently happens that the so-called prepositions, being in reality adverbial, ‘governs” no object...”

His section entitled “Without further preposition” on p. 90 was particularly interesting where he gives examples where the preposition attached to the front of the verb serves as the preposition beginning a prepositional phrase as in Luke 13:12, 2Peter 1:4, etc. Examples such as this, as well as several other examples I have since found (maybe I will summarize later), seem to indicate that the prepositions ought to be detached from the verbs in several cases. And, of course, there are several cases where they need to remain attached. I checked and there are over 1100 compound verbs in the New Testament and going through all of the examples of usage for each verb would indeed be a daunting task.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: unsuffixed, desuffixed prepositons proper, and insulatin

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Alan Bunning wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you aware that in earlier times (Homer) the preposition was separate from the verb that we later see it joined to?
Going back to this question, since the language was written scriptio continua how did they know that the prepositions were separated from the verb in earlier times? I have discovered evidence that the prepositions were probably attached to the verb by at least the 4th-5th century, based on P99 (Chester Beatty Codex AC 1499 http://www.csntm.org/Manuscript/View/GA_P99) which appears to be a student’s school assignment. What is the evidence that shows that they were originally detached from the verb in the earlier times? And how did they know that they were beginning to join together around the NT time?
Would stating it like this help... Prepositions come to exclusively take the position immediately in front of the verb.

Different genre based dialects remained flexible because poetry needs more flexibility to write more easily.

Evidence comes from things like not even being divided by pronouns or enclitics or things that must come second in the sentence. Nothing ever comes between them, so they were spoken as a unit. Therefore they are written together.

Can you take that at face value, or do you want actual textual evidence?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: One of the middling chapters of Moule Idiom

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Alan wrote:This is not helpimg my cause at all to try to avoid doing further work!
...
I checked and there are over 1100 compound verbs in the New Testament and going through all of the examples of usage for each verb would indeed be a daunting task.
Perhaps more daunting than you imagine

Many of those verbs occur too rarely for the results of a search confined to the New Testament to have any real meaning. It would be like watching people pass in the street, seeing who is wearing blue shoes, and then concluding that those wearing blue shoes didn't own red shoes. In different contexts they might wear that colour.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: unsuffixed, desuffixed prepositons proper, and insulatin

Post by Alan Bunning »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Would stating it like this help... Prepositions come to exclusively take the position immediately in front of the verb.
...
Can you take that at face value, or do you want actual textual evidence?
Well, actually that does help a lot and I can take that at face value. So because the adverbs began to take the position in front of the verb, some grammarian later decided to treat them all as “attached” to the verb, rather than considering them as separate adverbs that came to be preferred in the position before the verb. Thus over time, the “position” began to be viewed as “attachment”. I can think of all kinds of examples of where position of words change over time. In English, for example, we were taught in the past not to split infinitives, so the adverb had to go before or after. But today it has become normal part of speech for adverbs to be placed after the “to”, and you can now find experts declaring that it is perfectly acceptable today (the same thing occurred with splitting helping verbs as I just did with “can now find”). If English became a dead language, I could see some future grammarian discerning new words like “boldlygo” (from “to boldly go”) because everyone knows it was not proper to split an infinitive, so it must have been a compound word! :-)

This “position” morphing into “attachment” actually explains a lot of what I am seeing, such as Moule’s examples where the leading preposition still functions as the preposition to a prepositional phrase, even though it was moved before the verb. It also explains a bunch of other anomalies in the NT, where they still seem to be treated as separate adverbs. But this still leaves the task of determining the cases of when the preposition should be treated as a separate adverb, and when it finally became attached to the word in such a way to alter its meaning.
Post Reply

Return to “Syntax and Grammar”