THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1

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1 1 Before you begin to try to understand another language, it is imperative that you have firmly in mind the characteristics of your own. English is a member of the Indo European family of languages, to which Greek also belongs; and there are many affinities between English and Greek, especially in the matter of vocabulary. But there are some deep differences. The most immediately apparent is the fact that Greek is more highly inflected than English. This means that in Greek the relationships between words are shown more extensively by changes in the forms of words themselves than by their relative positions in sentences, as is largely the case in English. There are some survivals of a time when English had more inflectional forms: (1) the personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) change their forms to show relationships (subject, he; possession, his; object, him); (2) the possessive of nouns ("naming words") is most often shown by a wordending, viz., s (boy, boy s); (3) plurals may be formed by the addition of an s (boy, boys) or in certain words by vowel changes or other endings (man, men; ox, oxen); (4) verbs ("action words") undergo certain changes with change of personal subject (I sing, she sings) and with change of indicated time (present, I walk; past, I walked) or with change of kind of action (simple, I walk; continuing, I am walking); (5) some verbs indicate change of time, etc., by internal changes (sing, sang, sung; stand, stood). The verb "to be" is perhaps most "irregular" of all (I am; you are; he is; he was). Survivals of sixteenthcentury English preserve even more of such forms (I am, thou art, ye are; I 1 This is pp xiiixix of James Walther, New Testament Greek Workbook, 2 nd ed.. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.). Use of this resource is restricted. Please do not redistribute.

2 walk, thou walkest, he walketh, thou walkedst)compare Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible. Greek regularly employs such changes; so you must be prepared to pay closest attention to every detail of every word. Remember that this is no more strange than features of English; and it is not at all unfamiliar to you if you have studied Latin, German, or Russian. The two principal types of inflected words which you will meet in Greek are "substantive" forms (words which name or describe things) and verbs (words which express actions or situations). SUBSTANTIVES which name are nouns (man, stone, life); or if they stand in place of nouns, they are pronouns (I, you, they, etc.). Substantives which describe things named are most commonly adjectives (large, red, wooden). The simplest forms of descriptive words are the articles: the indefinite article is "a" (or "an"); the definite article is "the." Descriptive words that are formed from verbs are called participles (the redeemed people). Substantives may show three kinds of variation: these are called "case," "number," and "gender." In English these are often to be inferred and are not indicated by changes in the forms of the words. Genders are "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter." In Greek, gender is not always "natural" as in English (e.g., "stone" is naturally neuter in English, but it is masculine in Greek). Numbers are "singular" for one of whatever is named, "plural" for more than one. Cases indicate various relationships to other words in the sentence. English commonly employs three cases: (a) Subjective case indicates the person, place, thing, or other word about which a sentence says something (The dog bit the man). In language study this case is referred to as nominative. (b) Possessive case indicates possession or some allied relationship (The boy's dog was sick). Note that this may be shown by using "of" (The dog of the boy was sick), and it may be helpful to remember this as the "of" case. The grammatical name for this case is genitive. 2

3 (c) Objective case indicates the object of some action or thought (The dog bit the man). The grammatical name for this case is accusative. Other substantive relationships in English are shown by the use of prepositions. (More highly inflected languages also use prepositions but more characteristically indicate such relationships by case forms.) There are five of these additional relationships which you will need to remember. (1) "From": this indicates separation of various sorts (I went from the city). Note that "out of" or other approximations may appear. The grammatical name: ablative. (2) "To" or "for": this indicates personal interest or the "indirect object" (Give the book to me; or, Give me the book). Grammatical name: dative. (3) "In" or "at": this indicates place where or time when (We met in Pittsburgh at two o'clock). Other prepositions are sometimes used. Grammatical name: locative. (4) "By" or "with": this indicates the means employed to accomplish something (He did it by hand / with a machine). Again, there are other prepositions. Grammatical name: instrumental. (5) Another distinctive use of substantives is direct address (John, here is your book). Occasionally the address is prefaced with "O" (particularly in formal prayer: "O Lord, hear me!"). Grammatical name: vocative. VERBS are called "transitive" when they take an object (The dog bit the man), "intransitive" when they do not (I stand). The verb together with the words which (grammatically) follow it are referred to as the predicate. Some verbs form an incomplete predicate without the addition of a "complement" (They seem to know "They seem" is incomplete without the complement "to know"). The most common verb of this type is "to be": except when it means "to exist," this verb requires a "predicate complement" (just as " = " requires a number before and after it). Another common verb like this is "to become" (He was / became a leader). 3

4 Verbs may show six kinds of modification. In English some of these are shown by "helping words"; sometimes, as we have seen, the verb itself is changed ("inflected"). These modifications are complex in English, and they must be understood before you attempt to analyze another language. (1) Person. The verb indicates that the viewpoint expressed is that of the reporter (I, we), or the one reported to (you), or the one reported about (he, she, it, they). (2) Number. The person(s) expressed may be singular (I, "thou," he, she, it) or plural (we, you, they). (3) Voice. The verb indicates that the subject is either acting or is being acted upon: "active" voice (I lift) or "passive" voice (I am lifted). Since Greek has two complications of this, you must know this basic distinction well. (4) Tense. The time of an action or situation expressed by a verb is past, present, or future. In English, past time is shown regularly by the addition of ed and irregularly by inner wordchanges (walk, walked; sing, sang; am, was). The future is shown by helping words (shall, will, (am) going to). 2 (5) Aspect, State, or Kind of Action. Each of the three tenses may show that an action or state is (a) simple, without set limit, punctiliar; (b) continuing, linear; (c) completed, perfected. These relationships may be represented graphically (a) punctiliar = (b) linear = (c) pefercted = 2 Since books about Greek frequently use "tense" to indicate more than simply "time," we shall use "time" where that is the distinctive element signified. 4

5 The distinction between (a) and (b), which is vitally important in understanding Greek verbs, may conveniently be remembered as the difference between a "snapshot" and a "motion picture." Perhaps (c) may be remembered as a "threedimensional" picture. The interrelationship of tense and aspect may be demonstrated thus: Punctiliar Linear Perfected Past I sang I was singing I had sung Present I sing I am singing I have sung Future I shall sing I shall be singing I shall have sung (6) Mood. Perhaps the simplest way to explain mood is to say that it expresses the degree of factuality in a sentence. the mood of factual statements or questions is called indicative (The dog bit the man). A verb which gives a command is called imperative (Come to the door). When generalities are expressed or other ideas which are a step removed from fact, the mood is subjunctive. (Modern English uses this mood sparingly: If I were you, I should go. O that he might come! The infinitive is a verbform which often functions like a noun. In English it is characterized by a prefix "to" (To win is not easyhere the infinitive functions as the subject of the sentence). Since it is, however, a verbform, it can have its own subject and object. Its subject is regularly in the objective ("accusative") case (I know him to have a bookhere the object of knowing is not simply "him" but "him to have"; so "him" although accusative case is the subject of "to have"). The participle is a verb form which often functions like an adjective. The regular English verb forms its participles with ing and ed (a growing plant; a finished task); irregular verbs have varying forms which must be learned (being, been; going, gone; etc.). Because they occur often in the Greek New Testament, two usages less common in English are to be noted: 5

6 (a) (b) The participle may be equivalent to a relative clause 3 (a speaking man = a man who speaks). The participle is part of the nominative absolute, in which a substantive plus a participle express an idea subordinate to the main clause of the sentence but "absolutely" unrelated from the grammatical standpoint (The task having been finished, the laborer went home). Note that the participle (and the adjective as well) may appear in two positons: (a) (b) The attributive position is where an adjective or participle "attributes" a descriptive detail most directly to a substantive (the finished task); The predicate position places the descriptive detail in the predicate (The task was finished). 4 SENTENCE STRUCTURE. A group of related words without a subject and a verb is called a phrase. A group of words with subject and verb (i.e., a group of words that expresses a complete idea) is called a clause. The relationship among words in a clause and among clauses is called syntax. The analysis of the form of words is called parsing, and the analysis of the use of words within phrases or clauses is called syntax. (Sometimes construction is used to designate both analyses.) Clauses are joined together by conjunctions. These may "coordinate" clauses (and, but), or they may "subordinate" them (if, when, because, although, etc.). Verbs may be modified by adverbs (He translates slowly). Adverbial clauses (occasionally phrases) may modify other clauses. These may express any of the usual modifications indicated by adverbscondition, time, cause, concession, etc. (When the bell rings, the class is dismissed). The introductory word in such a clause may be referred to as an "adverbial conjunction" (Arndt & Gingrich call some such words 3 Essentially, a "relative clause" is a relative pronoun (who, which, etc.) plus a verb and incidental modifiers. Clauses are discussed in following paragraphs. 4 For convenience, infinitives and participles are often classified as "moods." This classification is used in this book to the extent that these two forms are actually modifications of the verb. 6

7 "particles"). The following list of kinds of adverbial clauses and conjunctions may be useful: conditional if, since temporal when, after, before, until, while causal because, since, whereas concessive although though local where, whence, whither comparative as purpose (or final) in order that, that result (or consecutive) so that Some of these clauses may be generalized, usually by inclusion of the word "ever" (Whenever he comes, he always speaks to us). Clauses may also serve substantive uses (chiefly as "nounsubstitutes" or "adjectivesubstitutes"). A noun clause is commonly used in indirect statement, usually introduced by "that" and serving as the object of a verb of "saying," "thinking," "knowing," or the like (He said that it was finished. As a direct statement: He said, "It is finished"). Note that in past time, in English sentences, the time of a subordinate clause in indirect statement is thrown one timestep back from the time of the corresponding direct statement (above, "was finished""is finished"). 5 Indirect questions are introduced by many interrogative words; otherwise they are generally similar to indirect statements (We asked how he had finished the task). An adjective clause in common use is the relative clause, regularly introduced by some form of a relative pronoun (who, which, etc.). Where the relative pronoun is inflected, 5 1In grammatical terminology a sentence whose principal verb is in present or future time is said to be in primary sequence; if the verb is past, it is secondary sequence. 7

8 it takes its case from its use in the relative clause; but its gender and number (where distinguishable) will agree with its "antecedent," i.e., the word to which it refers in the principal clause. Note these examples: The man who spoke is my brother. The man whose brother I am spoke. The man whom I call brother spoke. The relative can also be generalized, usually by the addition of "ever" (Whoever speaks thus is my brother). 6 6 For a more detailed summary of English grammar and syntax consult H. P. V. Nunn, A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek, pp. x24. 8