Nothing is new

[bc_]

Which justifies me re-telling some dated news.

dreiviertel says she's found a text evidencing that the syntacticians' favorite model sentence, John beat (up) Pete, was first used no later than in 9th century. Indeed, in its Latin form: Fortis Iohannus multum percussit debilem Petrum or simply Iohannus percussit Petrum.

Ѣ

Comments

[ywns]

Hello, I strolled in from Chrysippvs's journal.

The Arabic grammatical tradition uses 'Zayd struck Amr' (daraba Zaydun Amran) as the model sentence, starting with the Kitab of Sibawayhi in the 8th century. A contemporary linguist who I may be able to look up for you if you're interested says this follows Greek grammatical tradition, in which case this model (transitive) sentence may date to Hellenistic times.

[bc_]

Thank you!

Yes, that would be interesting. Please let me know if you find older examples!

[ywns]

Months later & I've got a source. I don't think this is where I saw this before but it's the data I remember.

Versteegh, C.H.M. Arabic Grammar and Qur'anic Exegesis in Early Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993.

p26 (in a section on possible Greek influences on Arabic grammar) "...there was one more argument on which we based our theory, namely the resemblance in the use of paradigms for the noun and the verb between the Arabic and the Greek tradition: in Sibawayhi's Kitab the primary examples for the noun are rajul "man" and faras "horse", which correspond with the well-known examples of the Stoic school tradition anthropos and hippos. In both traditions the verb "to hit" (túpto/daraba) is the most popular example for the category of the verbs."