Splitting Compound Verbs?

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

Re: Integrate a discussion of accents / word stress into you

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Alan Bunning wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:I agree that you need a theoretical basis for your approach. The observations do not lead to a self-evident conclusion. It needs to be lead somewhere.
...
No, I really don't want to develop any kind of theory, because I don't want to do any such thing. What I would like is for people to state why the apparent support for splitting those words is invalid, so I can go on my merry way. I have 2 pretty good reasons to not split them, and would like the reasons for splitting them to be refuted or at least marginalized.
You've come out with all guns, without a declaration of war, so to speak.

It is not enough to take a few views of people on a public forum and synthesise them into a viewpoint of your own. Your actions might be right and your decisions good, but they need to be defensible academically.

I understand that you want to be as right as possible in what you are publishing, but practically speaking, as right as possible = to the limits of current (mediaeval) scholarship. If you want to use different scholarship, you'll need to prove it (or at least lay it out theoretically) then use it.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
MAubrey
Posts: 1095
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by MAubrey »

Alan Bunning wrote:
MAubrey wrote:
Alan Bunning wrote:1. The syntax of verb conjugation clearly shows that they were treated as separate words because augmentation/reduplication occurs on the root verb after the preposition, not on the preposition. For example, when “απολυω” is augment it is “απελυσα” not “ηπολυσα”. Notice that the principal parts are also the same for the root verb as they are for the alleged compound verbs, indicating that the preposition was merely moved in front of the verb, not attached to form a new compound verb.
While it is a general typological norm for inflectional affixes to occur outside derivational affixes, the fact that inflection attaches to the root here is not evidence that the 'prepositions' are separate entities. There are other languages where some kind of derivation appears on the outside and inflection occurs closer to the verb root. As such, your #1 argument forms no basis for arguing one way or the other.
Thanks for that. Can you give some examples of those other languages?
Russian is one. I don't have any particular data on hand while I'm out for coffee. But in isolated cases, the language allows derivation to appear inside inflection. If I took the time to dig to morphology textbooks, I could give you a few dozen other languages. It isn't a rare phenomenon at all.

Russian and other Slavic languages, incidentally, have similar pre-verb/preposition patterns structure as Greek while also not having a bias from Latin grammar. And guess what: they treat these as compound verbs, not two separate words.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3355
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Alan Bunning wrote:The statement, “words should be divided into the smallest units possible that can stand alone as individual words without sacrificing any loss of meaning” is basically my summary of the standard linguistic convention of a word. Wikipedia defines a word in this way: “the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning).” With Greek, it can be claimed that this clearly was not followed in many cases, since the prepositions in many compound verbs could be separated without any loss of meaning! Several examples of this have already been cited. The question is not what “affixes” or “clitics” are, for I believe those concepts have already been covered and they certainly may provide possible explanations, but do they apply to these compound verbs and what is the evidence to support that for the Greek language in the first century. That is why I am focusing on the evidence, and why it may or may not be valid.
Wikipedia in this case is not a particularly good definition of "the standard rules of linguistics" that you claim to follow, but let's go with that.

What's the evidence that these verbal prefixes are "uttered in isolation"?

Is there a pause between them and the (rest of the) verb? No evidence of that. In fact, all our informants are dead.

Do they have separate accents? After all, prepositions are accented separately from the nouns they govern, but not verbal prefixes, at least according to the accenting convention. In fact, sometimes the lexical accent on a verb even falls on the prefix.

Can other words come between them? After all, articles, adjectives, and postpositive connectors can come between a preposition and the noun it governs, but there is no evidence in the Koine of the NT that these or other word come between a verbal prefix and the (rest of the) verb.

With no evidence of being "uttered in isolation" you don't have evidence of separate wordhood. (Understanding the distinction between clitics and affixes is critical if you want to be more linguistically sophisticated about what being uttered in isolation can mean, but I guess we're not at that point yet.).
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
MAubrey
Posts: 1095
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Wikipedia in this case is not a particularly good definition of "the standard rules of linguistics" that you claim to follow, but let's go with that.

What's the evidence that these verbal prefixes are "uttered in isolation"?

Is there a pause between them and the (rest of the) verb? No evidence of that. In fact, all our informants are dead.

Do they have separate accents? After all, prepositions are accented separately from the nouns they govern, but not verbal prefixes, at least according to the accenting convention. In fact, sometimes the lexical accent on a verb even falls on the prefix.

Can other words come between them? After all, articles, adjectives, and postpositive connectors can come between a preposition and the noun it governs, but there is no evidence in the Koine of the NT that these or other word come between a verbal prefix and the (rest of the) verb.

With no evidence of being "uttered in isolation" you don't have evidence of separate wordhood. (Understanding the distinction between clitics and affixes is critical if you want to be more linguistically sophisticated about what being uttered in isolation can mean, but I guess we're not at that point yet.).
Alan, listen to Stephen here. He's taking you in the right direction.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

The garden path - introducing ambiguity

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Maubrey is referring to Στέφανος ο πρωτόκλινος. But, now this Stephen is here to lead you up the "garden path", or not.

By giving the examples where the prepositions are used or not used (you referred to Matthew), you are implying that there could be some degree of syntactic ambiguity. I don't see that ambiguity in the Greek compound verbs. Detaching (not attaching) the prefixed prepositions is in effect limiting the right to left processing of the verbs, in favour of a left to right processing from a detached preposition to the object of the verb. In other cases the preposition and the nominal unit they govern are always collocated.

Traditionally, of course, the object is the object of the compound verb. That requires a right to left processing of the verb, followed by a left to right processing from verb to object.

I say all this, because (Modern) Greek children use the uncompounded verbal forms in all situations where an adult would use a verbal form with the suffix. That is to say that the base verb has an extensive range of meaning not a basic meaning. Later (in life) as linguistic competency develops, prepositions are added to limit or define the meaning of the verbs. Speakers, then, work from the basic form of the verb back to the left to determine meaning.

Your left to right processing model - παρα "beside" then θέναι "place", implies that the base form of the verb is limited and the preposition adds some meaning. That doesn't seem to be what is happening in the Greek, and making the preposition into a separated word creates ambiguity, by allowing for left to right processing from preposition to object. Medieval convention elliminates that ambiguity. Do you have a few examples where it is useful to our understanding of the Greek to have that ambiguity?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by RandallButh »

Carlson's points are valid.

Bottom line:
Greek has compound verbs and the Greek themselves recognized it when they added spaces to their writing system.

συνάρμοσαι αὐτῷ !

Yes, Greek has a prolific vocabulary.
And καταλαβεῖν is not just κατά + λαβεῖν. You wouldn't want to perpetrate the 'etymological fallacy.'
Usage and developed idiom trumps etymology.
And Greek, like German, loves to create nuanced vocab with adverbial prefixes.
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Alan Bunning »

MAubrey wrote:
Alan Bunning wrote:
MAubrey wrote:While it is a general typological norm for inflectional affixes to occur outside derivational affixes, the fact that inflection attaches to the root here is not evidence that the 'prepositions' are separate entities. There are other languages where some kind of derivation appears on the outside and inflection occurs closer to the verb root. As such, your #1 argument forms no basis for arguing one way or the other.
Thanks for that. Can you give some examples of those other languages?
Russian is one. I don't have any particular data on hand while I'm out for coffee. But in isolated cases, the language allows derivation to appear inside inflection. If I took the time to dig to morphology textbooks, I could give you a few dozen other languages. It isn't a rare phenomenon at all.

Russian and other Slavic languages, incidentally, have similar pre-verb/preposition patterns structure as Greek while also not having a bias from Latin grammar. And guess what: they treat these as compound verbs, not two separate words.
Thanks. That should be sufficient to address pro-splitting argument #1.
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Alan Bunning »

Stephen Carlson wrote:What's the evidence that these verbal prefixes are "uttered in isolation"?
...
Do they have separate accents? After all, prepositions are accented separately from the nouns they govern, but not verbal prefixes, at least according to the accenting convention.
...
With no evidence of being "uttered in isolation" you don't have evidence of separate wordhood. (Understanding the distinction between clitics and affixes is critical if you want to be more linguistically sophisticated about what being uttered in isolation can mean, but I guess we're not at that point yet.).
That is a good point, and I will consider that anti-splitting argument #3. (That is, unless someone wants to argue that they are proclitics.)
Stephen Carlson wrote:Can other words come between them? After all, articles, adjectives, and postpositive connectors can come between a preposition and the noun it governs, but there is no evidence in the Koine of the NT that these or other word come between a verbal prefix and the (rest of the) verb.
That essentially was anti-splitting argument #1, originally offered by Randall Buth.
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by RandallButh »

I have a problem with most of the pro-splitting points and the 'answers' to the anti-splitting points.

For example:
Alan egrapsen:
2. The fact that the prepositions can be separated from the verbs in the majority of cases with no loss in meaning establishes a secondary semantical basis for dividing the words in the same place confirmed by the syntax. For example, the meaning of the separate words “κατα” and “λαμβανω” covers the same range of meanings that have been ascribed to “καταλαμβανω”. This even applies to more diverse meanings of other compound verbs, since the prepositions themselves carry a wide range of meanings not limited to direction.
"The fact that the prepositions can be separated from the verbs in the majority of cases with no loss in meaning"
There is no such 'fact'. There is certainly loss of meaning. τοῦτο κατέλαβον.

συνάρμοσαι αὐτῷ.
Alan Bunning
Posts: 303
Joined: June 5th, 2011, 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: Splitting Compound Verbs?

Post by Alan Bunning »

RandallButh wrote:I have a problem with most of the pro-splitting points and the 'answers' to the anti-splitting points.
Please elaborate on as many as you can.
RandallButh wrote:For example:
Alan egrapsen:
2. The fact that the prepositions can be separated from the verbs in the majority of cases with no loss in meaning establishes a secondary semantical basis for dividing the words in the same place confirmed by the syntax. For example, the meaning of the separate words “κατα” and “λαμβανω” covers the same range of meanings that have been ascribed to “καταλαμβανω”. This even applies to more diverse meanings of other compound verbs, since the prepositions themselves carry a wide range of meanings not limited to direction.
"The fact that the prepositions can be separated from the verbs in the majority of cases with no loss in meaning"
There is no such 'fact'.
I don’t have an exact number, but from observing the works of the “concordant method”, it appears to me to be a fact. Only a handful of exceptions have been offered here, but there seems to be many more (i.e. a majority), particularly involving direction of motion, where they can be separated with no loss of meaning.
RandallButh wrote:There is certainly loss of meaning. τοῦτο κατέλαβον.
What meaning is lost that is not covered by the various meanings of “κατα” or when used idiomatically?
Post Reply

Return to “Syntax and Grammar”