From: Carl William Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 13 1998 - 14:42:24 EST
On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Jim West wrote:
> clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
> >
> > I received a private post today from a scholar who says that the Nominativus
> > absolutus does in fact exist. He gave a good bibliography as well as a
> > citation from Homer (Il 3:211).
Presumably you are referring to the post of Daniel Riano which was sent to
the whole list. He cited the Homeric passage, very interesting, beginnng
with AMFW hEZOMENW in the dual number, a form that is presumably
nominative, although it could also be accusative. It's explained otherwise
than as a nominative absolute my most Homeric commentators, but they may
be wrong. This really does look like a very arguable case. Later he cites:
> More than 50 pages are devoted to this construction in:
> Wannowski, A. de. 1835. Syntaxeos anomalae Graecorum. Leipzig.
An interesting title, inasmuch as it says its subject is "anomalies of
Greek grammar."
> This is absolutely correct. The 17th edition of Blass- Debrunner
> discusses it fully in paragraph 466, sections 2-4
This is the only one of these works I have ready to hand, but it is not
about what I'd call an authentic absolute construction. There's been in
the discussion of such constructions as this a facile equation of
NOMINATIVUS PENDENS and NOMINATIVUS ABSOLUTUS: I would distinguish sharply
between the first, a construction wherein a nominative noun or pronoun
does not fit syntactically into the remainder of the clause (or into
anything else in the context), while I would only call "absolute" a
construction involving at least two words, one a subject and the other a
predicate word, normally a participle, the two elements together
constituting the equivalent of an adverbial clause that relates not
syntactically but logically to the main clause. So far as I can see, BDF
466 is talking about instances of NOMINATIVUS
PENDENS--anacoluthons--rather than authentic absolute constructions. In
fact, the whole section BDF ##466-470 is concerned with anacolutha and is
so titled.
> Further, the
> excellent Nigel Turner discusses it as well (in English) in his Grammar
> (vol 3), p. 314, 316. Finally, the huge volume by Robertson also
> discusses the nom. abs., on p. 459f.
This I do want to look up, as well as those of the other items Daniel
Riano mentioned in his post.
> > Most of the works in this bibliography are in languages I do not read so I am
> > wondering if anyone on the list would be willing to just give a little thumb
> > nail sketch of the Nominativus absolutus intended for simple folks.
> >
>
> The first sentence of Robertson's description of the phenomenon says
> "the nominative is sometimes used absolutely, nominatus pendens, just as
> the genitive and accusative are".
I assume this is another misspelled Latin for 'nominativus pendens'--I do
want to check out what Robertson has to say but I have his smaller grammar
and what is says about "nominative absolute" is really talking about
'nominativus pendens'--not the full combination of a subject and predicate
in the same case but syntactically independent of the rest of the clause.
> > This would probably benefit several people on the list.
Well, I'm glad to have this further information--I'm the one who declared
that the nominative absolute is a bogus construction, and I'm still
wondering whether it isn't the case that what's being called nominative
aabsolute here isn't really just an old-fashioned anacoluthon. At the end
of the bibliography that Daniel offered, he said:
"It is true, however, that most of the cases quoted as AN are only
anacolutha."
That being the case (English nominative absolute, note!), I think it is
important to be careful about the terminology employed on this matter.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:55 EDT