[B-Greek] Agent in JOHN 6:19b
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 4 13:52:05 EST 2007
On Mar 4, 2007, at 12:28 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
>
>
>> Iver Larsen wrote
>>
>> "GINOMAI does not allow an Agent, and the subject is never the Agent,
>> but if there is an Agent involved, it can usually be derived from
>> the context."
>>
>> JOHN 6:19 ELHLAKOTES OUN hWS STADIOUS EIKOSI PENTE H TRIAKONTA
>> QEWROUSIN TON IHSOUN PERIPATOUNTA EPI THS QALASSHS KAI EGGUS TOU
>> PLOIOU GINOMENON, KAI EFOBHQHSAN.
>>
>> Would it be fair to say that IHSOUN is the agent of PERIPATOUNTA EPI
>> THS QALASSHS? I would be tempted to say that IHSOUN is also the agent
>> of EGGUS TOU PLOIOU GINOMENON, i.e., that IHSOUN is an explict agent
>> for both participles. The disciples were watching Jesus (an agent)
>> walking on the sea and Jesus (an agent) drawing near to the boat.
>
> Hi, Elizabeth,
>
> You are right in implicitly pointing out that my first statement
> was too brief and categorical, and
> therefore somewhat misleading. I hope that this was clarified in my
> follow-up message.
>
> I agree that it is fair to say that Jesus is the semantic Agent for
> PERIPATEW (walk around). This
> verb is an intransitive, morphologically active verb, semantically
> monovalent with one role: Agent.
> It is in the same semantic class as "run" (TRECW).
>
> For GINOMAI, the primary role is Patient, with the potential for an
> additional role of Agent, both
> roles referring to the syntactic subject. It is a descriptive verb
> that does not focus on Jesus
> walking on the water, but his position being at or changing toward
> the vicinity of the boat, so
> "getting near the boat" would catch the meaning nicely.
>
> By the way, predicate adjectives function very much the same way as
> descriptive verbs like "be" or
> "become". In some languages you don't say "She is beautiful", you
> say "she beautifuls". The semantic
> frame is the same: one Patient role. When you describe something,
> the thing you describe has the
> role of Patient. In an African language that I am familiar with,
> you can put both person and tense
> prefixes on adjectives in the same way they are attached to verbs.
>
> Iver
Iver,
I have no problems with your analysis of the surface structure. I
would also agree that there is no syntactic encoding for agent in
this text. But as you have already noticed the statement "GINOMAI
does not allow an Agent" can be understood in a particularly strong
form which causes problems.
R.L.Trask (Dict.Gram.Terms Linguistics) Agent: "... conscious
instigator of an action ..."
JOHN 6:19 ELHLAKOTES OUN hWS STADIOUS EIKOSI PENTE H TRIAKONTA
QEWROUSIN TON IHSOUN PERIPATOUNTA EPI THS QALASSHS KAI EGGUS TOU
PLOIOU GINOMENON, KAI EFOBHQHSAN.
Lets compare the semantics of two english sentences of similar
syntactic structure:
A: The astronomer observed the comet flying through the universe and
approaching the earth.
B: The rancher observed the wolf running across the field and
approaching the calf.
In sentence A we have the comet undergoing a change of state or in a
process (Wallace L. Chafe, Meaning and Structure of Language Pgs
100-104).
In sentence B we have a wolf involved in an activity (W.L. Chafe). In
sentence B there is an implied conscious instigator of an action, a
volitional act, an act with purpose and for that reason the wolf
serves as a semantic agent with both participles.
I would argue that Jn 6:19b is similar to sentence B. The surface
structure does not include syntactic encoding for agent but the
semantic structure involves Jesus as an agent just like the wolf in
sentence B.
Elizabeth Kline
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list