Pronomen Abundans and Pronomen Coniunctum. A ... - DWC

16 PRONOMEN ABUNDANS AND PRONOMEN CONIUNCTUM
we do not know anything. And we surely are not informed ab out suoh
details of syntax as the use of the resumpt. pronoun. Yet it is important
to know whether this idiom is one of those nioeties of literary Greek
(so refined that we have found only ten examples!) or something that was
quite usual in oolloquial speeoh and aooidently penetrated in some of the
literary documents. The main reason why this questiQn is foroed upon
us is that both Blass-Debrunner and Tabaohovitz, by using terms as
"Naohlässigkeit" and "grammatische Unregelmässigkeit" (this last expression
only in the study of Tabachovitz: see 1.1), may be suggesting that
the so-called pronomen abundans is something that belongs to colloquial
and vulgar speeoh. It is certainly not a case of negligence in this sense
that the authors, af ter conneoting two principal sentenoes, forgot or rather
neglected to omit the pers. or demonstr. pronoun which they had in mind
of placing somewhere in the second sentence. It is possible that we may
have to reckon with that in Post-Classioal Greek, but in the examples
we have discussed this idiom has a justified function. It is true, of oourse,
that (making an exoeption for the very ancient example in Homer) all
the instanoes ocour in works of authors who may have drawn on the
riohness of oolloquial speeoh rather of ten : two historians, Herodotus 16
and Xenophon, one orator 17, a dialogue of Plato, and finally four examples
taken from plays. It is not, however, a strong argument : it is better to
wait until we are better informed about the further development of the
so-called pronomen abundans 18.
2. THE PRONOMEN ABUNDANS IN THE KOINE
Two remarks should precede: 1. the word "so-called" has been omitted
in the title - and will be omitted from now on -, because in this period
we shall have to accept the fact that the pronomen abundans was actually
superfluous, until the opposite has been proved; 2. in this ohapter examples
will be discussed originating from texts of the 3d century B.C. until the
3d century A.D. This choice has been caused by the nature of the examples
which we have at our disposal.
2.1. Oharacter of the Koine
It is not easy, if not impo88ible, to characterize the Koine in a few
words. Apart from the fact that Koine Greek, as any language, was
developing and thus changing in the course of the oenturies, the texts
la See, for instance, Kühner-Gerth I, p. 661, where they speak of "(das) Wesen
des Vortrages Herodots, der durchweg die mündliche Erzählungsweise wiedergibt".
17 See, for instance, U . Pohle, Die Sprache des Redner8 Hyperides in ihren Beziehungen
zur Koine (Leipzig 1928), p. 89: "Hyperides liebt es . .. sogar ein ganz
nahe vorhergehendes Wort oder einen ganzen Gedanken mit oVroç wieder aufzunehmen
und dadurch na.chdrücklich hervorzuheben ... eine schwerfällige Umständlichkeit
die gerade der Sprache des täglichen Lebens entspricht".
18 See 2.6.1 and III 7.2.2 etc.