Prepositional Usage in the Old Syriac Gospels

Prepositional Usage in the Old Syriac GospelsSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/V4P8E59S/tei

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Ronald CharlesOwensPrepositional Usage in the Old Syriac Gospelshttp://syriaca.org/cbss/V4P8E59Shttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/V4P8E59Shttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/V4P8E59S1984This is a synchronic analysis of Syriac prepositions in the Sinai manuscripts of the Gospels, which seeks to explain attested usages and develop theoretical understandings of how they function. The analysis posits that each use of a preposition can be related back to a single Gesamtbedeutung. To ascertain Gesamtbedeutungen, I accord primacy to verbless uses of prepositions (as sole clause predicators, especially locatives). I then analyze (sometimes with aid from a theory of grammatical localism) verb clause usage. The most basic prepositions are: l- COINCIDE ('at'); b- COINCIDE INTERIOR('in'); 'l COINCIDE SURFACE ('in'); lwt PROXIMITY ('by'); 'm ASSOCIATION ('with'). Diachronically complex mn is PARTITIVE, LOCATIVE ('of'), and SEPARATIVE ('from'). Most of the prepositions are basically locative, but combined with verbs of motion, they result syntagmically in l- TO COINCIDE ('to'), etc. Usage in the corpus is largely unproblematic. Overlapping usages do occur and occasional free interchanges of prepositions can be cited, but to no greater degree than one might expect to find in any language. Overlap is generally of two kinds. One is related to the specifying functions of prepositions. For example, l-, b-, 'l, lwt, and syd each occur with the existential particle 'yt to form possessive expressions. But while l-, in its vagueness, may replace any of the other prepositions in such expressions, locative specificity is sacrificed. Moreover, in these constructions b-, 'l and lwt are not mutually interchangeable. Their selection is restriced by the entities predicated. The second kind of overlap occurs when certain derived functions of different prepositions merge. For example, l-, b-, and mn each mark agent functions, but not interchangeably. L- agents are restricted to a single type of syntagm; b- agents are normally mediate (or instrumental); mn agents are immediate, usually occurring only with passive verbs. This investigation was prompted by allegations that Semitic prepositions are often ambiguous and freely interchangeable. My conclusion is that in Syriac the claim is unsupported by the evidence. Most ambiguity is more properly termed vagueness, and most presumed interchangeability proves to be mere appearance. Owens, Ronald Charles. “Prepositional Usage in the Old Syriac Gospels.” Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1984. Ronald Charles Owens, Prepositional Usage in the Old Syriac Gospels (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1984).Classical SyriacNew TestamentOld Syriac GospelsSyriac languagegrammarsyntax