modus.irrealis wrote:Personally I think "predicate position" is just bad terminology that's been generalized from things like σοφὸς ὁ ἀνήρ where σοφός is predicative. It's probably due to the fact that in traditional grammar, demonstratives are treated as a kind of adjective, but they really belong to a different class, namely determiners. I suspect a more modern approach would treat these things differently and simple see the demonstrative as part of the noun phrase. But Ancient Greek does have some weird things like ἄκρον τὸ ὄρος -- I don't if any other languages have something similar with adjectives of this meaning and I don't know how these would be handled.
But I would say οὗτος can be the predicate in something like οὗτός εἰμὶ ἐγώ.
Swth\r wrote:So it is with any adjective and most of the genitive constructions and the adverbial/prepositional markers: αἱ νῆες τῶν Ἀθηναίων - αἱ τῶν Ἀθηναίων νῆες: "The ships of the Athenians (and not their infantry, or anything else)" - "the Athenian ships (and not the Spartan nor the barbarian or anyone's else ships)". αἱ καιναὶ νῆες - αἱ νῆες καιναί: "the new ships (and not the old ones)" - "the ships (that are) new (and not old or anything else) in this moment".
I would appreciate it if you could tell me what exactly you mean when saying "determiners".
So my question(s) may be reasked as: Why are these pronouns always in this postition? Is it a short of peculiarity or the meaning has something that we are perhaps missing?
modus.irrealis wrote:Swth\r wrote:So it is with any adjective and most of the genitive constructions and the adverbial/prepositional markers: αἱ νῆες τῶν Ἀθηναίων - αἱ τῶν Ἀθηναίων νῆες: "The ships of the Athenians (and not their infantry, or anything else)" - "the Athenian ships (and not the Spartan nor the barbarian or anyone's else ships)". αἱ καιναὶ νῆες - αἱ νῆες καιναί: "the new ships (and not the old ones)" - "the ships (that are) new (and not old or anything else) in this moment".
Does this really work with any adjective? I would have thought αἱ νῆες καιναί could only mean "the ships are new", and the distinction you're making would be between αἱ καιναὶ νῆες and αἱ νῆες αἱ καιναί. But I didn't mean that they were an exception within Greek -- only that I don't think I've ever come across adjectives like ἄκρος or μέσος being used this way in other languages.
modus.irrealis wrote:I'm not sure what you want me to say. "Determiners" are a class of words that basically limit what a noun phrase can refer to and usually includes things like article, demonstratives, interrogative adjectives (but it can depend on the language).
swth\r wrote:modus.irrealis wrote:So my question(s) may be reasked as: Why are these pronouns always in this postition? Is it a short of peculiarity or the meaning has something that we are perhaps missing?
I would say you've already answered that, in that demonstratives pick out one thing out of many and don't assign a quality and that the position of ὁ ______ ἀνήρ is more or less limited to phrases that function as attributes, and demonstratives, being determiners, can't have this function. There's also the related question of why Greek uses the article together with the demonstrative (in most cases as you mentioned), since that seems to be rare across languages. I don't know what the answer is, but Greek (at least since Classical times and more so as you approach the present) is one of the languages that makes heaviest uses of the definite article.
Swth\r wrote:It is not the same.
(αἱ) νῆες αἱ καιναί : the idea expessed by the substantive is contrasted with that of anothe saubstantive (implied or usually present in the phrase).
αἱ καιναὶ νῆες:the emphasis is on the attributive.
αἱ νῆες καιναί: the attributive is not contrasted with another object, but with itself.
See Raphael Kuehner for more details, paragraph 245 (i think it is the oldest edition, the one translated from german to english by Edwards-Taylor, in 1844). I think that also Rutherford's "First Greek Grammar: Syntax, 1912", says something like this but I cannot find the passage by the moment...
modus.irrealis wrote:I never did respond to this, did I?
modus.irrealis wrote:What I mean is that in this case the adjective seems to be connected through the verb to the noun. Could αἱ νῆες καιναί for example be used as the answer to a question?
It seems very different than the case with οὗτος, where αὗται αἱ νῆες could easily be an answer as far as I can tell.
Swth\r wrote:Correct observation! Indeed this construction needs a verb, or any verbal form, because the attribute lasts as long as the verbal notion lasts. The attribute given to the noun is not permanent, like (τὰς) καινὰς ναῡς. However I cannot understand your point made with the use of a question to show how this works.
E.g. in "καταλαμβάνουσι διηρπασμένας τὰς ἁμάξας μεστάς αλεύρων" (It is from "Anabasis", but I don't remember the exact cite), how would you expect the question to be like?
Swth\r wrote:We should aso consider that other demostratives are not treatedthe same way: τοιούτους τοὺς λόγους is only used when the pronoun is pure predicate and not "determiner", the same with τοσούτους τοὺς λόγους. It normally goes like τοιούτους/τοιούσδε λόγους, τοσούτους/τοσούσδε λόγους, τους τοιούτους/τοιούσδε λόγους (but τους τοσούτους/τοσούσδε λόγους ?), τηλικούτους λόγους etc. I suppose this happens because those pronoununs have within themselfs some quality-quantity meaning.
There's also the related question of why Greek uses the article together with the demonstrative (in most cases as you mentioned), since that seems to be rare across languages. I don't know what the answer is, but Greek (at least since Classical times and more so as you approach the present) is one of the languages that makes heaviest uses of the definite article.
Swth\r wrote:I suppose we could say -as Smyth describes in 1169- that the construction adjective-article-noun/article-noun-adjective "may be the equivalent of a complex clause" (he cites in 1168-1169 "τὰς τριήρεις ἀφείλκυσαν κενάς", "παρ' ἑκόντων τῶν ξυμμάχων τὴν ἡγεμονίαν ἔλαβον", "πόσον τι ἄγοι τὸ στράτευμα;" and more). The same in the sentence "Καταλαμβάνουσι τὰς ἁμάξας μεστὰς ἀλεύρων διηρπασμένας"; we may add/implie, e.g. the participle "οὔσας" between τὰς ἁμάξας and μεστάς. So "τὰς ἁμάξας (οὔσας) μεστὰς ἀλεύρων" = the carriages (by then) being full of flavour. But I think this is only a trick to explain the case, not an explanation of this construction...
EDIT: Dear "mode.irrealis" having given a second thought on the matter, I have to ask you...If the adfective doesn't go with the noun in such phrases, with what word of the sentence then does it go?
NateD26 wrote:hey, modus.irrealis. have you found an answer to this question? it keeps bugging me.
modus.irrealis wrote:swth\r wrote:Dear "mode.irrealis" having given a second thought on the matter, I have to ask you...If the adfective doesn't go with the noun in such phrases, with what word of the sentence then does it go?
I guess it really depends on what you mean by "go with". In one sense it obviously goes with the noun because it agrees with it in number and gender, but I don't think it goes with it in the sense of forming a separate constituent within the sentence.