Luhtala (5.5.4.9) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “The Pronoun”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Paragraph enumerations are also my own, but they follow the paragraph breaks in the text. Please forgive my distracting typos, as proofreading is incomplete.]

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Anneli Luhtala

 

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

 

Ch.5 The Stoics

 

5.5 Stoic Logic

 

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

 

5.5.4.9

The Pronoun

 

 

 

 

Brief summary:

When the verb (or predicate) is first or second person, the pronoun for the subject can be omitted, because the subject is already clearly indicated in that verb or predicate formation. This does not work for the third person formation, because it is ambiguous as to its reference [it could be he, she, it, or one, and the referent of these pronouns may be not be specified.] This issue interested the Stoics because they had central metaphysical and logical concerns regarding degrees of referentiality and the predicate.

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

5.5.4.9.1

[For the Stoics, there are two types of pronouns, definite and indefinite. The main example for the definite is οὗτος (‘that man’)]

 

Luhtala writes that “The Stoics distinguished between two kinds of pronouns, definite and indefinite, the prototype of the definite being οὗτος (‘that man’)” (114). Other cases include the first-person singular pronoun (144).

 

 

5.5.4.9.2

[Personal pronouns can be omitted when they are indicated in the predicate.]

 

[This paragraph involves grammatical concepts that I am unfamiliar with, so you will need to read the quotation to follow. Some ideas that we might get from this are the following. One notion here is the “omissibility of the pronoun”. I am guessing this means that whatever the pronoun is serving to indicate is also indicated in the verb or predicate construction, and thus the pronoun could be omitted without loss of information. Then there is the notion of the third person pronoun not being omissible on account “of its indefinite reference”. I do not know the idea here, but I would guess it is either that the verb or predicate formation indicates the subject as being he, she, or it, and thus we need the pronoun to specify which of these three. Or perhaps it indicates something like “one” in English (as in “one should never do that”), which is also indefinite conceptually at least. Let me quote:]

The involvement of personal pronouns in propositional analysis could easily have drawn the Stoics’ attention to the grammatical feature of the ‘person of the verb’. Moreover, in the analysis of the first and second person pronouns as subjects of propositions the omissibility of the subject pronoun is likely to have become evident. The omissibility of the pronoun is based on the grammatical feature of the ‘person of the verb’, which is necessarily congruent with the personal pronoun. As the personal pronoun renders the reference definite and can be omitted because of the congruence of the person in the verb, it is probable that such predicates as ‘I walk’ (περιπατῶ), and ‘you walk’ (περιπατεῖς) came to be regarded as definite propositions by the Stoics. But we have evidence to the effect that the third person περιπατεῖ (‘walks’) was not regarded as a proposition by the Stoics because of its indefinite reference.

(115)

 

 

5.5.4.9.3

[The omissibility of the first and second person pronoun but not the third is discussed in dialectical texts, with a Stoic influence, by Augustine and Martianus Capella.]

 

We see this idea of the omissibility of the first and second person pronoun but not in the third in other texts with Stoic influence. Augustine for example notes that verbs in first and second person formations indicate both the verb meaning as well as the subject, but third person only indicates the verb meaning (115). [Another example comes from Martianus Capella. See pp.115-116.]

 

 

5.5.4.9.4

[We see this idea also in Apollonius Dyscolus.]

 

[We said that Augustine’s commentary on the omissibility of the pronouns is influenced by the Stoics.] The Stoic influence on Augustine’s commentary probably comes through Varro. Apollonius Dyscolus also makes a similar commentary, but his influence is probably Greek sources:

The nominative is implicitly present in verbs, as Apollonius maintains; it is definite in the first and second persons, but indefinite in the third because of the unlimited number of possible referents

(116)

 

 

5.5.4.9.5

[(For metaphysical and logical reasons, the Stoics were interested in referentiality and the predicate. The first and second person pronouns are omissible because the predicate makes a clear reference to the subject. Thus) the later attention to the omissibility of the first and second person pronoun but not to the third is probably of Stoic origin.]

 

Luhtala argues that this doctrine probably comes from Stoic logic. [The idea might be the following. Two of the matters that Stoics were concerned a lot about were referentiality and the predicate. They were concerned with referentiality perhaps because what is important for them is how the proposition refers to some real state of affairs happening now in the world. And they were perhaps concerned with predicates because in them the states of affairs are indicated. Now, the first and second person verbs or predicates both indicate the state of affairs and it makes a definite reference to the subject involved in it. But the third person lacks this definite referentiality. So given how this grammatical distinction has such great importance with regard to Stoic metaphysics and theory of truth, probably these Stoic values continued to underlie the doctrine as it was later articulated.]

It is likely that this piece of doctrine, which is commonplace in both dialectical and grammatical works, originates in Stoic logic. I conclude that propositions such as ‘I walk’, ‘you walk’ and ‘that man walks’ (περιπατῶ, περιπατεῖς, οὗτος περιπατεῖ ) probably figure highest in the Stoic hierarchy of referentiality. The fact that the predicate contains an element of reference in such forms as ‘I walk’, ‘you walk’ (περιπατῶ, περι- | πατεῖς) contributes to the predicate-centredness of the Stoic approach. Moreover, the fact that the ‘subject’ can be a covert element renders the Stoic notion of case (πτῶσις) even more complex.

(116-117)

 

 

 

 

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

 

 

 

 

 

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Luhtala (5.5.4.6) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “The Status of Case (Πτῶσις) as Sayable (Λεκτόν)”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Stoicism, entry directory]

[Anneli Luhtala, entry directory]

[Luhtala, Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. All boldface and bracketed commentary are my own. Paragraph enumerations are also my own, but they follow the paragraph breaks in the text. Please forgive my distracting typos, as proofreading is incomplete.]

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Anneli Luhtala

 

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

 

Ch.5 The Stoics

 

5.5 Stoic Logic

 

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

 

5.5.4.6

The Status of Case (Πτῶσις) as Sayable (Λεκτόν)

 

 

 

 

Brief summary:

For the Stoics, case (πτῶσις) is an item of meaning (σημαινόμενα). That is to say, it is a matter of incorporeal meaning rather than of corporeal expression. This means that case constitutes a “sayable” (λεκτόν). But we do not have enough textual evidence to be certain whether it is a complete or a deficient sayable. It seems that most likely it is a deficient sayable, with one possible exception being the vocative case.

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

5.5.4.6.1

[Case (Πτῶσις) for the Stoics should be understood as an item of meaning (σημαινόμενα).]

 

[Recall from section 5.5.2 the distinction between components of expression (σημαίνοντα, that which is doing the signifying) and components of meaning (σημαινόμενα, that which is signified). I do not grasp what is at issue here, but apparently there is somehow a debate over whether case is to be understood as a nominal case-form or as an item of meaning. I am confused because we said in the prior section that for the Stoics, the nominative is just a case among others. So I am not sure why here we seem to limit it to the nominative. I also do not understand if these are to be distinguished somehow (nominative case and meaning), and if so, how. At any rate, Luhtala says that many classic commentators discuss case in the context of meaning.]

The nature of the Stoic case (πτῶσις) as a nominal case-form versus an item of meaning has puzzled scholars. The two aspects, both of which find support in our sources, have appeared incompatible to scholars. I will first discuss the evidence to the effect that case is an item of meaning, which I find convincing enough. Diogenes Laertius lists four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative) immediately after his exposition of the various kinds of predicates which pertains to the component of meaning (σημαινόμενα VII,64-65). He mentions Chrysippus’s book on the five cases in the section of ‘states of affairs’ (πράγματα VII, 192). That case is incorporeal is confirmed by Clemens (πτῶσις is an ἀσώματον Strom. VIII,9,96,23-97,7); it is discussed among items of meaning (σημαινόμενα) by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. math. XI,28-29). A scholiast of Dionysius Thrax stresses that cases belong to the sphere of meaning σημαινόμενα) rather than to vocal expression (φωναί).

(108, footnotes omitted)

 

 

 

5.5.4.6.2

[For the Stoics, case is a matter of incorporeal meaning rather than corporeal expression.]

 

[I again do not grasp the conceptual distinctions at work here. But some of the ideas might be the following. This is a guess. Matters such as case can be considered as falling under incorporeal meanings and thus as being involved with syntactical and semantical issues. Or, they can be considered as falling under corporeal expressions, in which case they are instead involved with grammatical determinations that may not have any bearing on the meaning of the sentence or at least on the way the sentence parts interrelate to form a sentence with a propositional sense. But I do not follow the inference that since case is involved in meaning rather than expression, that case is a matter of “the semantico-syntactic behavior of nominals in state-making”. Could not the oblique cases be involved in propositional meaning? Maybe the idea is that in a proposition, there are two main parts, subject and predicate, and the relation between them is the main syntactical relation. So case has syntactical significance, and it must be the nominative, as the other cases in the predicate are subsumed under that predicate. I will quote, as I do not grasp this paragraph.]

This evidence suggests that the Stoics discussed case within the component of incorporeal meaning (σημαινόμενα) rather than within the component of corporeal expression (σημαίνοντα, or φωναί). This means, as far as I can see, that this feature pertains to the semantico-syntactic behaviour of nominals in statement-making. I have already stressed that the component of meaning (σημαινόμενα) is at once syntactic and semantic, the two aspects of construction being inseparable for the Stoics.

(108)

 

 

 

5.5.4.6.3

[Although we do not have conclusive evidence to determine whether the Stoic case is a complete or deficient sayable, most scholars conclude that it is deficient.]

 

[So given that case is a matter of incorporeal meaning, that means it is sayable.] Luhtala now asks whether case is a complete or deficient sayable. [To remind us of what she means in this distinction, first recall what she said in section 5.5.2.5:

The component of meaning (σημαινόμενα) is where true and false statements are made. The constituents of statements, cases and predicates, are deficient sayables. As far as I can see, in the Stoic system one cannot combine the noun and the verb, i.e. items of the component of expression (φωvαί), to effect statement-making because the parts of speech as such do not have syntactic force. Units of meaning (σημαινόμενα) are combined, that is cases and predicates. (72)

And in section 5.5.4.1.1 she wrote:

Α sayable (λεκτόν) can represent a complete or an incomplete thought – a notion which is not very clearly defined in our sources. Predicates are incomplete sayables, and they figure as the only subdivision of this component. Moreover, predicates are the only items that can be regarded with any certainty as incomplete sayables. According to Diogenes Laertius, an incomplete sayable leaves a question in the mind of the hearer. He points to the incompleteness of a simple predicate, contrasting it with complete sayables, which are various kinds of propositions. For instance, an incomplete sayable consisting of the predicate only such as ‘writes’ leaves a question in the mind unless it is joined to a nominative case, e.g. ‘Socrates’. The complete sayable ‘Socrates writes’ satisfies the mind of the hearer. The notion of self-sufficiency (αὐτοτέλεια) seems to have been applied primarily to predicates and propositions while the status of the nominal part of the complete sayable remains unspecified in this respect.

(87)

It seems that generally speaking, case would be a complete sayable if it did not leave a question in the mind with regard to the event or situation it corresponds to. (The sayable is shared both by the physical situation and the proposition expressing that situation. So perhaps case would be a complete sayable if it expresses the complete sayable of the referenced situation, in other words, the actors and their actions or passions.) And it would seem to be deficient otherwise.] Luhtala notes that there is not strong evidence to make a definitive assessment. But most scholars think it is a deficient sayable. Augustine says that the Stoic case is a deficient sayable, but his judgment should not be trusted, because he is not using strictly Stoic sources. Diogenes Laertius is a trustable source, but he “never mentions case as an incomplete sayable” (109). Other instances also do not provide conclusive evidence (109).

 

 

5.5.4.6.4

[It is possible that the Stoics made an exception and held that the vocative case expresses a complete sayable, but our sources are too lacking to know for sure.]

 

[This next paragraph is a bit technical, and I will probably make some errors in summarizing it. So please consult the quotation to follow. Luhtala will conclude that it is possible case can be a complete sayable even without a predicate, but the matter is too obscure to know for sure. I do not grasp the idea so well, but she might be saying the following. If a syntactical element on its own is capable of asserting a truth or falsehood, then it is therefore capable of expressing a proposition. And if it is capable of expressing a proposition, that means it potentially (or necessarily) constitutes a complete sayable. The Stoics say that there is one case, the vocative, which can (potentially) express a truth or falsehood (thus a proposition and furthermore a complete sayable). She cites Diogenes Laertius’ example of the vocative phrase ‘most honored son of Atreus, lord of the warriors, Agamemnon’. (If I had to guess, perhaps the vocative’s capacity to express a truth or falsehood comes in the qualifications. It is perhaps an implied indexical structure of: ‘This man here is son of Atreus, lord of (etc.)’ or perhaps an implied propositional structure of ‘Agamemnon is the son of Atreus, lord of (etc.)’. Such constructions can be said to be true or false, but I am not sure if that is the idea here.) Unfortunately, we are missing texts that discuss the vocative case, so we cannot be sure if the Stoics saw it as a complete sayable.]

There is no convincing evidence of the position of case as an incomplete or a complete sayable. But the absence of evidence may simply reflect the generally weaker status of the nominal part of the proposition in the Stoic theory. The theory of sayables is dominated by the description of the predicate and the proposition, whose existence is solely in the sphere of human thought and speech. But cases are, as far as I can see , constituents of propositions , which are not capable of asserting truth and falsehood on their own, which suggests that they are deficient sayables. But there is one exception: the vocative case. It is probable that the Stoics recognized the vocative as their fifth case. Chrysippus wrote a book on the five cases (Περὶ τῶν πέντε πτώσεων Diog. Laert. VII,192), but Diogenes Laertius lists only three oblique cases: genitive, dative and accusative (VII,65).¹⁸³ His example of a speech act of addressing somebody (προσαγορευτικὸν πρᾶγμα) is a vocative phrase (VII,67), ‘Most honoured son of Atreus, lord of the warriors, Agamemnon’ (Ἀτρείδη κύδιστε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγάμεμνον). It is thus possible that a case can even be a complete sayable without a predicate. The issue remains obscure.

(109)

183. Cf. Dionysius Thrax: Πτῴσεις ὀνομάτων εἰσὶ πέντε, ὀρθή, γενική , δοτική, αἰτιατική, κλητική (“the nouns have five cases, upright, generic, dative, causal, vocative” GG I.1: 34,4, tr. Kemp 1987:178). See Pohlenz (1939: 169).

(109)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

 

Other texts cited by Luhtala:

 

Clemens Alexandrinus: Stromata. Ed. by Otto Stählin. Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte II-III. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1960-70.

 

Diogenes Laertius: Lives of eminent philosophers. Translated by Robert D. Hicks. 2 vols. London: William Heinemann / Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1950.

The Perseus Greek page for the Diogenes’ passages:

[1-160]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1

[179-202]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+7.7&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257

The Perseus English page for the Diogenes’ passages:

[1-160]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1

[179-202]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+7.7&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258

 

[GG] GG: Grammatici Graeci. Ed. by Heinrich Schneider and Gustav Uhlig. Leipzig: Teubner (repr 1965 Hildesheim: Olms).

 

[For the reference, tr. Kemp 1987, I have not found it yet in the Bibliography, but it might be:

Kemp, Alan (translating and commenting on Dionysius Thrax). 1987. “The Tekhné Grammatiké of Dionysius Thrax. Translated into English,” in The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period (ed. Daniel J. Taylor. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]

 

Pohlenz, Max. 1939. Die Begründung der abendländischen Sprachlehre durch die Stoa. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. Neue Folge. 1.3, Heft 6.).

 

Sextus Empiricus: Adversus Mathematicos I-XI. Ed. with an English translation by Robert G. Bury. 4 vols. The Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press 1949.

Another version available online:

https://archive.org/details/sextiempiriciope12sext

Online text transcription at:

http://socratics.daphnet.org

[specifically here]

 

 

 

 

 

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Luhtala (5.5.4.5) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “Stoic versus Peripatetic Notion of Subject”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Stoicism, entry directory]

[Anneli Luhtala, entry directory]

[Luhtala, Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. All boldface and bracketed commentary are my own. Paragraph enumerations are also my own, but they follow the paragraph breaks in the text. Please forgive my distracting typos, as proofreading is incomplete.]

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Anneli Luhtala

 

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

 

Ch.5 The Stoics

 

5.5 Stoic Logic

 

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

 

5.5.4.5

Stoic versus Peripatetic Notion of Subject

 

 

 

 

Brief summary:

The Stoics and Peripatetics held different notions of the grammatical subject and of case. Specifically, the Peripatetics saw the nominative as a primitive or neutral sort of form of the substantive, with all other syntactically meaningful formations of that noun being case inflections of it. Grammarians used the metaphor of the other forms “falling from” the nominative form. The Stoics, however, saw all formations of the substantive as cases, including the nominative, with the metaphor now being that all these cases fall from a neutral form of the noun as it manifests abstractly in the mind (that is to say, in the mind we can conceive of the noun by itself, but as soon as we conceive its meaningful relations to other things, properties, actions, etc., it enters into syntactical relations and thereby takes on a case formation that indicates its syntactical role.) The causative case could be understood as indicating a body being acted upon by the state of affairs.

 

 

Summary

 

5.5.4.5.1

[The Stoic notion of the subject differs from the Peripatetic notion. In Stoic grammar, the subject function is related more to the direct case than to the oblique case in transitive clauses.]

 

The Stoic notion of subject is radically different from the Peripatetic notion. There is a canonical passage in Plutarch on the Stoic notion of subject, but this is not the source that bears out the radical distinction (103). The problem with this passage is that it “obscures the Stoic position by treating the Stoic, Peripatetic and Platonic propositions in comparable terms” (103). Luhtala then says that there are certain ways that the three traditions coincide, as in “the case when the object of description is the same, namely the ‘intransitive’ clause” (103). [I do not follow these grammatical concepts very well, so I will quote. Maybe the point is the following. For intransitive clauses, the Stoics and Peripatetics say something similar. And maybe that similarity is that they both think that the nominative case in intransitive clauses is joined to a predicate in some sense, with the Stoics saying it joins to a simple predicate and the Peripatetics to a finite verb in the predicate position. That cannot be right, so let me quote. Maybe Luhtala is not even saying this is a similarity.]

This passage rather obscures the Stoic position by treating the Stoic, Peripatetic and Platonic propositions in comparable terms. In some cases the description does indeed coincide in the various traditions. This is the case when the object of description is the same, namely the ‘intransitive’ clause. The Peripatetics would say that an ὄνομα (which is a noun in the nominative) is joined to ῥῆμα (which is a finite verb in predicate position) | while the Stoics would say that the nominative case is joined to a simple predicate.

(103-104)

[Luhtala’s next point might be that for transitive clauses the Stoics say something very different from the Peripatetics, but I am not sure. We begin with a notion of a ‘transitive’ state of affairs. To make a description of it, we would join the predicate to cases. I am still not sure I understand this notion of cases yet, because I would think that a case is a modification of a noun or similar sort of thing rather than that term itself. Maybe ‘case’ refers to such a term under a case modification, but I am not certain. At any rate, the Stoics distinguish two cases involved in transitive clauses: direct and oblique. From what I understand, the oblique cases would designate participants in the action, but doing so in the predicate. Luhtala says that the direct case comes closest to designating the subject function.]

But this is only one aspect of Stoic propositional analysis. As to the description of a ‘transitive’ state of affairs, the Stoics probably said that a predicate was joined to cases (πτώσεις). The Stoics distinguished between the two cases involved in the ‘transitive’ clause in terms of the distinction between direct (ὀρθή) and oblique cases (πλάγιαι πτώσεις), of which the direct case (ὀρθὴ πτῶσις) comes closest to what we understand as the subject function. In the following discussion I will explore to what extent the distinction between direct and oblique cases is related to the ‘syntax’ of the propositions.

(104)

 

5.5.4.5.2

[The Stoics revised the notion of case to include the nominative.]

 

Πτῶσις (‘case’) was a linguistic term current at the time of the Stoics, and they adopted it for their own use. But they restricted its sense “to nominal inflection whereby even the nominative was regarded as a case (Schmidt 1979: 80)” (104). Luhtala views “the revision of this notion as a reflection of the development of Stoic propositional analysis” (104). Aristotle’s sense of case was different. [I do not follow these points so well, and I will not be able to summarize them. Before I offer a guess, let me quote from a prior section:

Aristotle’s effort to single out the subject function results in a distinction between ὄνομα (‘noun’ / ‘subject’) and πτῶσισ ὀνόματος (‘nominal case’), | a distinction we know as being that between the nominative case and the oblique cases. But for Aristotle ὄνομα is not a case at all. The ὄνομα is described as the only kind of noun that can appear in a proposition, which is in the form ‘man is’ or ‘man walks’, thus the nominative case. Given that the introductory chapters of the Peri hermeneias are influenced by Plato’s Sophist, in which the proposition is in the form ‘Theaetetus sits’, Aristotle probably has this kind of a proposition in mind when he defines the subject (ὄνομα). For such a proposition, this description sufficiently distinguishes it from the predicate (ῥῆμα). But this is not the case in propositions of the form ‘Socrates is white’ or ‘Man is an animal’, which are much more central to Aristotle's theory, because both parts of the proposition contain a noun in the nominative case.

(47)

Now let me next quote the current passages we are summarizing:]

In Aristotle’s propositional analysis the notion of πτῶσις (‘case’) was used in opposition to ὄνομα and ῥῆμα, the subject and the predicate, probably in the sense of a deviation from the norm, which was the minimal clause. For Aristotle, the notion of case covered all the inflectional forms of the noun and the verb, which were not relevant for the simple proposition. The nominative, i.e. the subject function, was not a case at all for Aristotle. In its Stoic usage this term was applied to nominal inflection including the nominative, obviously because all cases are relevant for the Stoic proposition. Grammatical commentators were keen to explicate the Stoic distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘oblique’ cases by means of a metaphor of a pencil falling in an upright as opposed to an oblique position. I take such justifications to be invented later to explain something that had been introduced for the purposes of propositional analysis. Observations of the facts of the Greek language are likely to lie behind the revised notion of case.

(104)

[My guess is that the idea here is the following. For Aristotle, the subject function is expressed only in the nominative case, because by means of that case the subject in question can then be predicated in the proposition. However, he perhaps did not term this situation as a ‘case’, because he defined ‘case’ as a matter of an inflected form derived from that predicatable substantive form. And maybe the Stoics thought instead that the subject function can be taken by other cases. In transitive clauses, the substantives can be of a “direct” or “oblique” case. Maybe the “direct” case is one where substantive is thought of as agent and oblique as patient, but I do not know right now.]

 

 

5.5.4.5.3

[The Stoics include all forms of substantives as inflected cases because they think the unmodified form is in the mind and any linguistic expression of it would be one or another modification of that conception.]

 

There Peripatetics challenged the Stoics reconception of case to include the nominative. [The idea as I understand was that the nominative form is not to be thought of as a case, because it is not to be understood as inflected from some other more basic form. But I am not sure. Then maybe also the Stoics considered the nominative form as the direct case, and the others as the oblique cases, where the Peripatetics saw all cases as oblique, because they fall from the non-inflected nominative form, like pencils landing obliquely. Then it seems the Stoic defense is to use this metaphor of falling obliquely, but now, rather than falling from a more basic form, to instead fall from some conception of the substantive that in its conceptual form is not yet modified in the sorts of ways that inflections do.]

The Stoics had to justify their novel use of case (πτῶσις), which was criticized by the Peripatetics, who explained the origin of this term so that all the oblique cases ‘fell’ from the basic form, the nominative. They thus raised the question as to the origin of the Stoic interpretation of case; which includes even the nominative. The Stoics answered that all cases, including the nominative, fall from the mind (ἀπὸ τοῦ νοήματος τοῦ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἀπὸ τῇς ἐννοίας).^{170 “}When we have in our mind the thought of | Socrates,” as Ammonius explains, “we utter ‘Socrates’”. The Peripatetics are said to have then argued that even the other parts of speech should be called cases because they also fall from the mind; we are not informed of the Stoics’ answer to this argument (In de int. GAG IV.5: 42,30-43,20). As to the justification of the ‘direct’ case, the nominative is called ‘direct’ by the Stoics because, according to Ammonius, it is the archetype of linguistic expression (διὰ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον τῆς κατα τῆν ἐκφώνησιν προφορᾶς εἶναι).

(104-105)

170 Ammonius (In de int. GAG IV. 5: 42,30-43,24 = Hülser 1987 3: 918, fr. 776); | Stephanus (In de int. 10,20-11,5 = Hülser 1987 3: 920, fr. 777); Leo Magentinus (In de int. 104a n.2 = Hülser 1987 3: 924, fr. 779).

(104-105)

 

 

5.5.4.5.4

[Stoics would probably regard complete transitive or direct propositions as prototypical cases of linguistic expressions.]

 

Luhtala wonders whether “Ammonius is correct in thinking that the Stoics regarded ‘Socrates’ as an archetype of linguistic expression” (105). [See the text, as I am not sure I follow all the details of the next point. One idea seems to be that the Stoics would have placed the substantive into a proposition, and the prototypical sorts of propositions or predicates would be “direct” or transitive sorts. Again, please consult the text.]

 

 

5.5.4.5.5

[There is a passage from Apollonius and Herodian that indicates the syntactical basis for how the Stoics use the notion of case.]

 

[Luhtala will first quote a passage that probably comes from Apollonius and Herodian. It indicates how the Stoics understood the notion of case, including the nominative, as falling away from something broader. In this description, the case forms fall away from the generic form of the noun. I am not sure, but I assume the generic form is an uninflected form somehow. Her comments come in the next paragraph, so we will discuss it more then.]

The syntactical basis of the Stoic usage of the notion of case (πτῶσις) would seem to be revealed most clearly in a passage attributed by a scholiast to Apollonius and Herodian:

The generic noun comprises everything covered by the expression of noun, just as the genus man does; the nominative case falls from the | generic onto me, onto you, and onto every state of affairs (πρᾶγμα).  It is a case because it falls from the generic noun (γενικὸν ὄνομα) and it is called direct because it shows directly the substance of states of affairs (ὀυσία)¹⁷³ and is construed with direct verbs (ὀυσία τοῦ πράγματος), that is active (ἐνεργητικοῖς).¹⁷⁴

(105-106)

173 [See p.106 for Greek text in the original, citing (GG I.3: 548, 27-30).]

174 [See p.106 for Greek text in the original, citing (GG I.3: 546, 5-14).]

(106)

 

5.5.4.5.6

[For the Stoics, the direct case is a modification of a more abstract sort of noun without case. The direct case falls from this neutral noun, and the direct case shows the substance (substantives as agents or patients) involved in the state of affairs, and it takes a direct verb, as for example an active verb.]

 

Luhtala then discusses this passage (above). She first says that the abstract noun is an abstract entity that does not bear any case to it. [I am not entirely sure how to conceptualize it clearly. Perhaps the idea here is like the following. Something can be a noun, which is a grammatical sort of determination, and that thing can be conceived its pure nounness, that is, simply by itself. But whenever that thing is conceptually or linguistically placed into a meaningful relation with other things (or properties or events), then it takes on a syntactical sort of status and would thus need to have a case formation indicating that syntactical relation.] This means that “The noun (ὄνομα) is thus a non-syntactic unit of speech” (106). [Next we turn to the notion of the direct case. It is not here characterized as the nominative. I found this definition for the direct case, in Barry Blake’s Case:

direct case. In a number of Indo-Aryan languages the unmarked case covers S, A and P and is often referred to as the direct case. (Blake 199)

S. 1. The single argument of a one-place predicate. 2. In the context of word order it refers to subject as in the abbreviation SOV referring to subject–object–verb order. (Blake 204)

A. The agent argument of a transitive verb plus any other role that is treated in the same way grammatically. (Blake 195)

P. The patient argument of a transitive verb plus any other role that is treated in the same way grammatically. (Blake 203)

It seems more or less that the direct case refers either to the agent or patient of the indicated activity, and maybe it also refers to the subject that is predicated by some property, like snow is white; but I am not sure.] So from the generic noun “falls” the direct case [which could include the nominative form of the noun] “onto a state of affairs” (106). Luhtala explains that the state of affairs “in its Stoic use, is a syntactic notion” (106). [[I do not clearly understand how the state of affairs is a syntactical notion. I am also not sure how to conceive it as a physical notion, but it seemed from before to be that about the physical situation that corresponds to the predicate. So perhaps for ‘snow is white’, the state of affairs in the world is being white (or the snow’s being white, if we include the subject) and for Dion walks, the state of affairs is walking (or Dion’s walking). But  I am not sure how it is a syntactical notion. The state of affairs is syntactical perhaps because it enters into a relation with the nominative form of the noun. However, I am not sure if that means the state of affairs is always a linguistic entity or if instead a linguistic entity can represent it. I wonder if we can offer the following conception: the basic physical situation is an affair or affairs. The state of affairs is something sayable with regard to those affairs, namely, the element of the activity which could be expressed as a predicate. Consider the example of snow is white. There is the affairs of the snow physically bearing certain features that make it appear white. Suppose it were to melt. It would then become clear and not white. So its being white might somehow be understood as a persisting activity, or maybe that there are influences acting on the water particles, as cold for example, sustaining that affairs of it being white. The state of affairs is thus “being white” or “staying white” or “whiting” or something like that. Now consider Dion walks. Here the affairs are all the physical components involved in Dion’s walking, like his body’s parts and the other physical factors like gravity and so on. The state of affairs is the fact that all these factors together constitute the walking of Dion’s parts. It is the “walking” or “is walking” of the physical body/bodies. I am still not sure if the state of affairs includes the subject, but Luhtala’s account often seems to exclude it. See for example section section 5.5.4.0 where we learn that for the Stoics, the predicate is defined as {1} a state of affairs construed around one or more subjects, or {2} a defective sayable which has to be joined to a nominative case in order to yield a judgement. And in section 5.5.4.4 we learn that a predicate is a state of affairs that is said of something, with that something taking a nominative case (this comes directly from a quote by Diogenes Laertius; see specifically section 5.5.4.4.3.) So what do we call the situation in the world including both the bodies (perhaps as subjects or maybe more) and their states of affairs? It is no more than the complete sayable or the complete state of affairs (see section 5.5.4.2)? I wonder if it can also be called a fact.]] [The next idea is that this falling from the generic noun involves falling to the individual involved in the action. Her last point seems to be that Apollonius claims to reject the Stoic distinction between noun and case, but here we see that it may in fact lie at the basis of his system. Let me quote so you can interpret.]

If the direct case falls from the generic noun, the generic noun is supposed to be an abstract entity of some sort, which does not bear the feature ‘case’ at all. The noun (ὄνομα) is thus a non-syntactic unit of speech. The direct case, according to Apollonius, falls from the generic noun, onto a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα), which, in its Stoic use , is a syntactic notion. This is obviously the case here, too. When involved in a state of affairs, the direct case shows directly the substance of the state of affairs (probably the definite person involved in action) and is construed with direct verbs, that is with active verbs. Active verbs are transitive verbs for Apollonius. When receiving case (πτῶσις), the noun (ὄνομα) falls from the generic to the individual. I interpret this difficult passage as if it reflected the Stoic division between noun (ὄνομα) and case (πτῶσις), even if this distinction has been abolished in Apollonius’ framework as a whole. In justifying such a fundamental point of doctrine as the notion of case, Apollonius might have resorted to genuinely Stoic viewpoints on which his own framework ultimately depended.¹⁷⁵ According to Priscian, too, case falls from the generic noun to the special.¹⁷⁶

(106)

175 [Luhtala notes other scholars holding similar views. See p.106.]

176 [Luhtala here offers quotation for support. See pp.106-107.]

(106)

 

 

5.5.4.5.7

[The Peripatetics did not think the nominative has case. The Stoics think that any substantive playing a syntactical role has case. The nominative indicates the person involved directly in the verb. Thus the nominative for the Stoics has case.]

 

The Peripatetics claimed that the nominative is not really a case [it is something like a form from which the other cases are derived]. Rather, for them it is at best a case metaphorically speaking (107. Here Luhtala writes in footnote: Cf. Charisius: (κατηχρηστικῶς) casus nominativus (GL I: 154,10).] Appollonius and Priscian, however, “defend the genuinely Stoic position according to which the notion of case covers even the nominative, and not only metaphorically” (107). [I am not sure I follow the next point. Recall our discussion in section 5.5.2.5 (where we referenced a prior page, p.26). Here we gathered that syntax is the meaningful combination of parts of speech (but that could be inaccurate). Here her point seems to be that case for Stoics is always syntactically-based. The idea might be that so long as a substantive is related syntactically to other parts of the sentence, it has case. And since the nominative bears such syntactically relations, it must have case. Specifically, the nominative plays the syntactical role of indicating the person referred to by the verb. Let me quote so you can see:]

The Stoic usage is not simply an irrelevant question of terminology, but one which seems to reflect the basics of syntactical doctrine. I have claimed that the feature of case is syntactically-based with the Stoics, who seem to have regarded all nominal inflection as syntactically relevant. The nominative case is understood as indicating the definite reference of the verb, the ‘person’. It is labeled the direct case, being associated with direct predicates.

(107)

 

 

5.5.4.5.8

[The nominative is thus not a matter of naming for the Stoics. Their causative case could be understood as indicating a body being acted upon by the state of affairs.]

 

[The term ‘nominative’ suggests nominating or naming. But as we can see from the Stoic view, a substantive is nominative when it indicates the person directly referred to by a verb in a direct predicate. So it is not simply a matter of naming this or that object (which could be involved in any way in any sort of predicate). Luhtala then goes on it seems to explain how grammarians came to use the term ‘nominative’ for the direct case, but I might be misreading. Dionysius Thrax considered the nominative case as both the direct and the nominative case. Priscian adopts the Latin pedagogical tradition that uses the term ‘casus nominativus’ (even though Priscian could have used direct. I did not grasp the idea, but it might be that Priscian would normally call it direct but chose to substitute nominative, thereby contributing to this terminological shift.) The philological tradition also changed ‘direct’ to ‘nominative’.  Luhtala then discusses αἰτιατκὴ πτῶσις. But I do not follow these ideas, as I am unfamiliar with these grammatical notions. It seems that it means “causative case” and  it indicates “the body acted upon in a ‘transitive’ or ‘causative’ state of affairs. But it is not the accusative case for some reason. Let me quote this section:]

The nominative case has thus nothing to do with naming in the Stoic analysis. The fact that this case was also known as the ‘nominative’ (ὀνομαστικὴ πτῶσις) by the grammarians seems to reflect a different tradition, probably that of the Alexandrian grammarians. Dionysius Thrax calls the nominative case both ὀρθή (‘direct’) and ὀνομαστικὴ πτῶσις (‘nominative case’). The Latin pedagogical tradition uses the term casus nominativus which was adopted by Priscian, who also knew the term ‘direct case’ (casus rectus).¹⁷⁸ The philological tradition, even if it adopted many Stoic features of the notion of case, obviously preferred to change the obscure term ‘direct’ into ‘nominative’. As to the αἰτιατικὴ πτῶσις, whose misrepresentation as the accusative case in the Latin tradition is well-known, Ι relate it to the notion of cause, as is done by Dionysius Thrax (§12 GG I.1: 31, 5).¹⁷⁹ It seems natural to associate it with the Stoic causal analysis, which involves two bodies, and which seems to have been based on the model of the proposition. The causative case would thus represent the body acted upon in a ‘transitive’ or ‘causative’ state of affairs.

(107)

178 When Priscian occasionally uses the term ‘direct’, it concerns a point of doctrine whose Stoic origin is obvious: “nec eget recto casu quem verbum habet in se” (“this construction does not lack the direct case which the verb contains in itself” GL III: 8,5,10 ff.

(107, end parenthesis missing from my copy)

179 ἡ αἰτιατικὴ κατ’ αἰτίαν (“the causal case relates to a cause” tr. Kemp 1987:178). Its origin has been sought in the Aristotelian term at1:ta1:6v ('effect ' ) by, for instance, Pohlenz (1939 : 171-172), who nevertheless associates it with the Stoic notion of cause and effect: “Die Verbindung dieses Kasus mit dem Verbum drückt also nach der Auffassung der Stoa aus, dass ein Verhältnis von Ursache und Wirkung vorliegt. Gerade dieses ist aber für die Stoa so wichtig, dass sie es in weitestem Umfange annimmt”. See also Pinborg (1975: 86).

(107)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

 

 

Other texts, cited by Luhtala:

 

Ammonius: In Aristotelis De Interpretatione commentarius. CAG IV.5. Ed. by Adolf Busse. Berlin: Reimer 1897.

 

GAG: Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Berlin: Reimer 1881-1907.

 

[GG] GG: Grammatici Graeci. Ed. by Heinrich Schneider and Gustav Uhlig. Leipzig: Teubner (repr 1965 Hildesheim: Olms).

 

[GL] GL: Grammatici Latini. Ed by Heinrich Keil. Leipzig: Teubner 1855-80.

 

Hülser, Karlheinz. 1987. Die Pragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker. Neue Sammlung der Texte mit deutscher Übersetzung und Kommentaren. 3 vols. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.

 

[For the reference, tr. Kemp 1987, I have not found it yet in the Bibliography, but it might be:

Kemp, Alan [translating and commenting Dionysius Thrax]. 1987. “The Tekhné Grammatiké of Dionysius Thrax. Translated into English,” in The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period (ed. Daniel J. Taylor. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]

 

Pinborg, Jan. 1975. “Classical Antiquity: Greece”. Sebeok (1975: 69-126).

 

Pohlenz, Max. 1939. Die Begründung der abendländischen Sprachlehre durch die Stoa. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. Neue Folge. 1.3, Heft 6.).

 

Schmidt, Rudolf T. 1979. Stoicorum grammatica. Halle 1839. (Reprinted Amsterdam: Hakkert 1967 = Die Grammatik der Stoiker. Einführung, Übersetzung und Bearbeitung von Karlheinz Hülser, Urs Egli, Braunschweig, Wiesbaden 1979.].

 

 

 

 

Texts I cite:

 

Blake, Barry. 2004. Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

 

 

 

.

Luhtala (5.5.4.4) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “Πτῶσις (‘Case’)”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Stoicism, entry directory]

[Anneli Luhtala, entry directory]

[Luhtala, Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. All boldface and bracketed commentary are my own. Paragraph enumerations are also my own, but they follow the paragraph breaks in the text. Please forgive my distracting typos, as proofreading is incomplete.]

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Anneli Luhtala

 

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

 

Ch.5 The Stoics

 

5.5 Stoic Logic

 

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

 

5.5.4.4

Πτῶσις (‘Case’)

 

 

 

 

Brief summary:

While the Stoic notion of case is not clear from our sources, we can see that it has something to do with the notion of subject, understood both linguistically and physically. As we can infer from Diogenes Laertius’ account of the Stoic predicate, we see that the subject is understood both linguistically as case πτῶσις [a noun that is joined to the predicate] and as the individual, physical subject in the world involved in the action [as either agent or patient] and in the state of affairs that we conceive it to be bound up with. This unity of the conception of subject indicates a unity in Stoic philosophy between their linguistic theory and their ontology.

 

 

 

Summary

 

5.5.4.4.1

[How the Stoics understood case (πτῶσις) is uncertain. Luhtala will “defend the origin of the notion of case as a subject notion in the linguistic theory” (102).]

 

Scholars have had difficulties coming to a clear understanding of the Stoic notion of case (πτῶσις). In fact, “The obscurity of the notion of case has even led scholars to deny the existence of the linguistic subject notion in Stoic logic” (101) [I am not sure what is meant by ‘linguistic subject notion’. Perhaps it is the nominative, or maybe it is other cases that indicate the agent of the action. Please consult the text to see.] Luhtala notes a number of views taken by other scholars, and writes, “I will defend the origin of the notion of case as a subject notion in the linguistic theory, viewing it specifically against the background of the Peripatetic use of the term πτῶσις (‘case’)” (102).

 

 

5.5.4.4.2

[Plutarch’s account of Stoic case, where the proposition is divided into case (πτῶσις) and predicate (κατηγόρημα), is not entirely true to the Stoic’s notion.]

 

Most scholars depend on “a passage in Plutarch according to which the Stoic proposition consists of case (πτῶσις) and predicate (κατηγόρημα) (Quaest. Plat. 1009C)” (102). But Plutarch’s approach, where he analyzes “the Stoic proposition into two members of equal weight in a manner reminiscent of Platonic and Aristotelian traditions” is not the most authentically Stoic way (102).

 

 

5.5.4.4.3

[Diogenes Laertius does not define the Stoic subject, but he discusses the predicate, from which we can infer things about the non-predicate (the subject). A predicate is a state of affairs that is said of something, with that something taking a nominative case.]

 

Luhtala will first examine the notion of subject in Stoic grammar or logic, as described by Diogenes Laertius. In fact he does not define the subject, but we will examine what he says about the predicate to infer things about the subject. Diogenes Laertius writes:

The predicate [κατηγόρημα] is what is said of something; the predicate is a defective sayable [λεκτὸν ἐλλιπὲς] which has to be joined to a nominative case [ὀρθῇ πτώσει] in order to yield a judgement [ἀξιώματος]; the predicate is a state affairs [πρᾶγμα] which is a construction about one or more subjects. (Diog. Laert. VII,64 see n.143)

(102. Note, I inserted Greek words on the basis of the Greek text and what Luhtala writes, but I may have done so incorrectly.)

[The original passage might be:

Ἔστι δὲ τὸ κατηγόρημα τὸ κατά τινος ἀγορευόμενον ἢ πρᾶγμα συντακτὸν περί τινος ἢ τινῶν, ὡς οἱ περὶ Ἀπολλόδωρόν φασιν, ἢ λεκτὸν ἐλλιπὲς συντακτὸν ὀρθῇ πτώσει πρὸς ἀξιώματος γένεσιν.

[Perseus]

And another translation:

A predicate is, according to the followers of Apollodorus, what is said of something; in other words, a thing associated with one or more subjects; or, again, it may be defined as a defective expression which has to be joined on to a nominative case in order to yield a judgement. [Perseus]

And another:

A predicate is what is asserted of something, or a state of affairs attachable to something or some things, as Apollodorus says, or an incomplete sayable attachable to a nominative case for generating a proposition.

(Long & Sedley 1987: 197)

]

 

 

5.5.4.4.4

[In Diogenes Laertius’ account of the Stoic predicate, we see that he regards the predicate as taking a nominative case, and also that the predicate says something about something in the world, like an individual subject.]

 

In the second definition (above) for the predicate [“the predicate is a defective sayable (λεκτὸν ἐλλιπὲς) which has to be joined to a nominative case in order to yield a judgement (ἀξιώματος)”] sees the predicate as joinable to a linguistic item, the nominative case (ὀρθῇ πτώσει). So we see that we need a nominative case for a predicate to form a complete judgment, and that suggests the view, held by Plutarch, that the Stoic subject is case (103). But the other definitions do not employ strictly linguistic concepts. In the first definition [“The predicate (κατηγόρημα) is what is said of something”], the ‘something’ “is likely to refer to an entity in the physical world, i.e. to a body about which something is said” (103). The “subjects” or “somethings” in the third definition probably refer individuals like Cato, Socrates, etc. “They are viewed as agents and patients involved in action and undergoing of action, of which we construe a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) in our mind” (103).

 

 

5.5.4.4.5

[The Stoic subject has two senses: {1} it is the linguistic case that is joined to the linguistic predicate, and {2} it is the physical thing in the world involved in the action and conceived state of affairs.]

 

On the basis of this definition, Luhtala argues that the subject for the Stoics is both {a} the linguistic case that joins with the predicate and as well {b} the physical body that enacts or undergoes an action and that is the thing we conceive as involving some state of affairs. [I do not follow her next point; see below.]

On the basis of Diogenes’ report I conclude that the Stoic notion of ‘subject’ has a twofold nature. On the one hand, it is a linguistic item, a case (πτῶσις), which is joined to another linguistic item, the predicate, to form a proposition. Both constituents are items of the component of meaning. On the other hand, the subject is a physical body involved in action (and undergoing of action) of which we construe a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) in our mind. The subject notion in the propositions, which contain one of the impersonal predicates, seems to have been handled purely linguistically, in terms of the opposition between direct and oblique cases rather than in terms of participants in states of affairs.

(103)

 

 

5.5.4.4.6

[The Stoic notion of the subject as both what joins to the linguistic predicate and as the thing in the world involved in action and a state of affairs shows a unity in Stoic philosophy, here between their linguistic theory and ontology.]

 

We thus see the unity of ontology and linguistics in Stoic philosophy, because the subject has both a grammatical and ontological sense.

The twofold nature of the subject notion appears to be another indication of the unity of Stoic philosophy: its description resorts to both ontological and linguistic theories.

(103)

 

 

 

 

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

 

 

Other texts, cited by Luhtala:

 

Diogenes Laertius: Lives of eminent philosophers. Translated by Robert D. Hicks. 2 vols. London: William Heinemann / Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1950.

The Perseus Greek page for the Diogenes’ passages:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1

The Perseus English page for the Diogenes’ passages:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1

 

[Note, for Quaest. Plat. I did not see something for it in the Bibliography, but perhaps it is Plutarch’s Quaestiones Platonicae.]

 

 

Texts I cite:

 

Long, (A.) & Sedley (D.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

 

 

 

.

Luhtala (5.5.4.3) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “Stoic Predicate Types”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index tabs are found at the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Stoicism, entry directory]

[Anneli Luhtala, entry directory]

[Luhtala, Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, entry directory]

 

[The following is summary. All boldface and bracketed commentary are my own. Paragraph enumerations are also my own, but they follow the paragraph breaks in the text. Please forgive my distracting typos, as proofreading is incomplete.]

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Anneli Luhtala

 

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

 

Ch.5 The Stoics

 

5.5 Stoic Logic

 

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

 

5.5.4.3

Stoic Predicate Types

 

 

 

 

Brief summary:

The Stoics recognized a variety of predicate types, including {1} congruities and {2} direct, {3} reversed, {4} neuter, and {5} reflexive clauses. The Stoics may not have had a fully unified way to categorize predicates, as they took various overlapping views: {a} on congruity and incongruity, {b} on activity and passivity, and {c} on completeness and incompleteness. Of the commentators on the Stoic theory of predicates, Apollonius Dyscolus gives the most authentic account, while Porphyry, Priscian, and other commentators on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias commit errors in their interpretations.

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

5.5.4.3.1

[The Stoic recognized propositional clause structures of the following types: transitive, intransitive, and two sorts with impersonal verbs.]

 

The classic example for Stoic propositions is ‘Dion walks’ (Δίων περιπατεῖ). This is an intransitive clause. But Luhtala argues that transitive sorts of clauses, as for example ‘Plato loves Dion’ (Πλάτων φιλεῖ Δίωνα) are equally important in Stoic logic (94). However, Stoic propositional analysis goes beyond these two sorts of clause structures. Note that the Stoics did not discuss propositions with copula (94). The other two types of propositions the Stoics studied were ones with “impersonal verbs” (94).

 

 

5.5.4.3.2

[The Stoics recognized a variety of predicate types, including congruities, direct, reversed, neuter, and reflexive.]

 

While “Diogenes Laertius’ account of the Stoic predicate types is unfortunately damaged,” we can still see that these types “form a unity” (94). Here are the classifications for the predicates: {1} congruities (συμβάματα), “after which there is a lacuna”; {2} direct (ὀρθά), {3} reversed (ὕπτια) and {4} neuter (οὐδέτερα). Luhtala then explains that direct predicates have an oblique case [that is, one that allows for a patient to the action to be designated, as by direct object for example, and that is transitive], such as ones with the Greek words for ‘hears’, ‘sees’, and ‘converses’. Reversed predicates take a passive formation, as in the Greek formulations meaning ‘I am being heard’, ‘I am being seen’. Neuter predicates have neither the features of directness [they are active] nor of reversal [they are not passive], as for example the Greek words for ‘to think’ and ‘to walk’. She also says there are {5} reflexive predicates that are passives and that “resemble actions” as for example the Greek formulation meaning ‘he shaves’ (94-95. See these pages for details, as I did not comprehend and present it very well.)

 

 

5.5.4.3.3

[The Stoics did not categorize all the predicates in a unified way. Rather, they had two distinct classifications, base on {1} congruity and incongruity or {2} activity and passivity. ]

 

The Stoics had two distinct ways to classify predicates: on the basis of {1} congruity and incongruity, and on the basis of {2} activity and passivity. The texts describing congruity are corrupt. [The idea seems to be that there is congruity established somehow by conjoining a nominative case with a simple predicate as in ‘I walk’. See p.95, because there is more to it, but I did not follow.] In the second classification, which is about activity and passivity, the transitive formation is considered the prototype, while the intransitive structure is considered ‘neuter’ (95).

 

 

5.5.4.3.4

[The Stoics disunified classification stems from the different viewpoints they took on predicates.]

 

Rather than having a “unified set of predicate types”, “the Stoics discussed predicates from different points of view” (95). Luhtala then mentions the different ways predicates were understood. One point of view has to do with congruity, and another with activity and passivity (95). Another view was concerned with “completeness of thought, which gave rise to yet another classification, that into complete and deficient predicates (κατηγόρηματα αὐτοτελές versus ἐλλιπές)” (95). One same predicate can be found in various different categories, “a fact which vividly suggests that one uniform classification was not at issue | here” (96). [See 96a for examples.]

 

 

5.5.4.3.5

[One context that Apollonius Dyscolus discusses Stoic predicate types is with regard to cases with transitive verbs.]

 

Luhtala will now examine the textual evidence of grammarians on the topic of Stoic predicate types. Apollonius Dyscolus discusses the types in two contexts. One context is about oblique cases with transitive verbs. [These matters involve grammatical technicalities. For details, see p.96.]

 

 

5.5.4.3.6

[In another context, Apollonius Dyscolus notes that transitive verbs without an oblique case (to indicate the patient of the action) make incomplete predicates and express incomplete thoughts.]

 

[The other context seems to regard incomplete predicates that happen when transitive verbs lack oblique cases. So to say “Tryphon harms” is an incomplete predicate, because it needs a noun with an oblique case to indicate who is receiving the harm. Intransitive verbs when simply joined to a nominative are already complete predicates.] “It is the incompleteness of thought expressed by a transitive verb without the oblique case that has, according to Apollonius, given rise to the term ‘less than a predicate’” (96).

 

 

5.5.4.3.7

[While Apollonius’ accounts of Stoic predicate types is not as full as those given by Priscian and the commentators of the Peri hermeneias, it nonetheless is more authentic.]

 

Apollonius’ discussion of Stoic predicate types is not as full as accounts given by Priscian and the commentators of the Peri hermeneias, but Apollonius’ is more authentic to the Stoic’s system. Luhtala will now examine Priscian’s account, “which is fuller but clearly distorted” (93).

 

 

5.5.4.3.8

[Priscian’s account of Stoic predicate types makes a number of mistakes and misattributions of concepts to the Stoics.]

 

Priscian’s account of Stoic predicate types probably depends “on a later synthesis made of the Stoic predicate types, probably by Porphyry” (97). Luhtala then shows certain mistakes and misattributions Priscian makes in his accounts [see 97-98 for details.]

 

 

5.5.4.3.9

[We see a corruption of the Stoic predicate types in elaborations of Porphyry’s commentaries on the Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias]

 

Porphyry’s commentaries on the Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias have been lost. But others have elaborated on Porphyry’s commentary, and here we also see a corruption of the Stoic predicate types. [For details see p.98-99.]

 

 

5.5.4.3.10

[Porphyry confused certain aspects of the Stoic theory of predicates and neglected others.]

 

Porphyry combined two distinct aspects of the Stoic theory of predicates, namely, congruity and completeness (or deficiency) of predicates (99). Porphyry also neglected the central aspect of activity. Priscian “is likely to depend on a tradition which ultimately goes back to Porphyry” (99).

 

 

5.5.4.3.11

[Porphyry’s discussion of congruity is the only philosophical source that relates congruity to the grammatical notion of congruence.]

 

Incongruity in a predicate means that there is a lack of congruence [or “agreement”, as it might also be called] of person and number [perhaps between the verb and nominative, but I am not sure.] Porphyry’s discussion of this is the only philosophical source that relates congruity to the grammatical notion of congruence [but I am not sure what the difference is between congruity and congruence. I would guess that congruity could be a logical notion regarding the fittingness of the predicate with its subject while congruence is the grammatical agreement in person and number, but I am not at all sure.] Later grammarians gave the name ‘accidents’ for the “grammatical features that congruence is based on”, but many scholars were puzzled as to why this term was used (100).

 

 

5.5.4.3.12

[Congruity in predicates was understood as ‘accidents’ by philosophical commentators.]

 

[A substance has its accidents. The accidents could perhaps be understood as properties or other determinations of the substance. We might also think of the substance-accident metaphysical structure grammatically as the nominative-predicate syntactical structure. In this case, accidents would be the predication.] “Other philosophical commentators associate ‘congruity’ (σύμβάμα) with ‘accidents’ (συμβεβηκότα) in a purely philosophical sense, in terms of the predicate belonging to the subject. [See p.100 for textual examples.]

 

 

5.5.4.3.13

[While the Stoics, as far as we know, did not conceive of congruity in terms of grammatical congruence, were they to have done so, it would have been natural for them to employ the notion of accidents (συμβεβηκότα).]

 

We do not have any textual evidence to support the claim “that the Stoics should have distinguished between σύμβάμα (‘congruity’) and παρσύμβαμα (‘incongruity’) in terms of grammatical congruence” (100). Yet, were they to have done so, “it would have been quite natural for them to apply the philosophical notion of συμβεβηκότα (‘accidents’) to the grammatical accidents on which such congruence is based” (100).

 

 

 

 

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

 

 

 

 

 

.

Luhtala (5.5.4.2) On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic, “Compound Predicates and the Notion of Action”, summary

by Corry Shores

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Summary of

Anneli Luhtala

On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic

Ch.5 The Stoics

5.5 Stoic Logic

5.5.4

The Component of Meaning (Σημαινόμενα)

5.5.4.2

Compound Predicates and the Notion of Action

Brief summary:

The Stoics noted compound predicates, which are ones whose syntactical structures (namely, oblique cases) allow for the designation of a patient to the action. It is thus something like a transitive formation. But verbs by themselves are not thought of as signifying actions. Rather, actions are corporeal and pertain just to bodies and thus to nouns. Hence the actions are somehow a part of the agents and patients and are thus built into the nouns signifying these bodies (on the basis of the oblique cases of the nouns, which indicate the agent/patient relations). Verbs (and their predicates) designate the relations holding between these bodies and not the actions involving them.  Many nouns signify actions, as for example the noun “action” itself. So while normally we might find it odd that for the Stoics verbs do not represent actions, in fact this distinction allows nouns and verbs to maintain distinct sorts of senses.

 

Summary

5.5.4.2.1

[The domain of sentences of Stoic syntactical studies are ones yielding a perfect sense. Such sentences have either a simple or compound predicate (that is, one that requires the addition of an oblique case to express a perfect sense).]

[Previously we examined the Stoic notion of self-sufficiency (αὐτοτέλεια). It had something to do with whether or not a sayable’s predicate was completed by a subject. But the terminology in this prior section was a bit vague and ambiguous.] Although the Stoic notion of self-sufficiency was defined somewhat vaguely, “it established itself as the standard way of defining the sentence in later grammatical tradition” (88). Syntactical studies take as their domain sentences that yield “a perfect sense” (88). Sentences that can yield a perfect sense may have either a simple predicate, like “Socrates writes”, or a compound predicate, namely, “one which requires the joining of an oblique case to express a perfect sense” (88). [I do not yet know what an “oblique case” is. Here is one definition: “2. In the traditional grammatical descriptions of Latin and Greek, denoting any case form of a noun other than the nominative or vocative” (Trask 194). Originally by “compound predicate”, I thought that it meant two predicates joined by “and” like “snow is white and is cold”. But I wonder if it means something more like adding phrases of other sorts of cases to the predicate, as for example, “he hit me” becoming “he hit me with a stone” or something like that. (From what is said later, it seems the oblique case involves designating a patient to an action, like “he cooks” becoming “he cooks the fish”).]

5.5.4.2.2

[There is some textual evidence to support the simple/compound predicate distinction.]

Luhtala then discusses the textual evidence for the simple/compound predicate distinction. We do not see compound predicate in Diogenes Laertius. However, he does define ῥῆμα (verb) as a simple predicate (ἀσύνον κατηγόρημα), which implies there must also be a compound predicate. Luhtala also notes that the Stoics referred to compound predicates as “less than a predicate” (88). We will examine this below.

5.5.4.2.3

[The simple/compound predicate distinction can be understood in terms of transitivity, which involves agent and patient and thus an active-passive opposition (as well as the Stoic notion of causation).]

We can make the simple/compound predicate distinction also in terms of transitivity, which “has to do with the expression of action which involves two persons, the agent and the patient, and it is transitive verbs that partake of the active-passive opposition” (89). Luhtala will explain how transitivity is related to Stoic syables and also how it is related to the Stoic theory of causation. Luhtalla is the first to give detailed analysis on these topics, although others have realized “the importance of the notion of action to the Stoic proposition” (89).

5.5.4.2.4

[The contents of verbs and predicates were not understood in terms of action, because many activities were thought to be corporeals rather than the actions of bodies.]

Action is clearly an important notion for Stoic conception of a proposition. However, determining this importance on the basis of textual evidence is not entirely straightforward, Luhtala explains (89). She continues, “Given that the Stoics were concerned with action as the contents of the verb/predicate, one might expect them to have defined the verb as signifying action and undergoing of action. This is how the grammarians defined the verb later on”  (89). However, “neither the verb nor the predicate was defined in terms of action by the Stoics” (89). Later Luhtala will argue that Stoics intentionally did not define the verb and predicate in terms of action, because many activities were understood as bodies themselves rather than as the activities of bodies. The verb, however, must signify something incorporeal, for the Stoics.

According to my view, the Stoics did not describe the semantic content of the verb by means of such nouns as action (ἐνέργεια) because various activities (such as walking and dancing) were regarded as corporeal things in the Stoic theory. It is crucial for the Stoic theory that the verb signifies something incorporeal.

(89-90, boldface and underlining mine)

5.5.4.2.5

[Even though for the Stoics predicates and verbs express incorporeals and thus not actions, which are corporeals, the Stoics still saw there being transitive verbs and thus predicates that are active or passive (thus seemingly involving corporeal activity).]

[Predicates should express something incorporeal and thus not an action (which is corporeal), yet] nonetheless, the Stoics did deal with active and passive predicates [which suggests they saw the predicates as dealing with agents acting on patients and thus as dealing with actions.] Diogenes Laertius gave examples of active and passive predicates. One sort are verbs of perception, like, ἀκούει (hears) and ἀκούομαι (I am heard). These are transitive verbs involving two people or things and allowing “for active/passive opposition” (90). There are also neuter predicates that are intransitive verbs, like περιπατεῖν (to walk) (90).

5.5.4.2.6

[Many scholars think that the neuter, intransitive predicates are the standard sort in Stoic logic, but Luhtala argues that active predicates were important too.]

Luhtala writes that “it is representatives of neuter predicates that predominate in the examples of the Stoic proposition, and we are told that the ‘intransitive’ proposition is the Normfall in Stoic logic (Prantl [1855] 192: 443; Pohlenz 1939: 170; Müller 1943: 50)” (90). Luhtala disagrees and instead argues that “the ‘transitive’ state of affairs probably held equal prominence in the Stoic analysis” (90). The Stoics had a notion of the active predicate as a ‘direct predicate’ (ὀρθὸν κατηγόρημα) which “can easily be understood as the most unmarked predicate” (90). Because active predicates are called “direct”, that means they must have a central importance for the Stoics (90).

5.5.4.2.7

[There are many cases of Stoic transitive predicates.]

Luhtala then notes that Diogenes Laertius’ definitions can be “applied to ‘transitive’ constructions” as for example ones “designed to describe states of affairs involving more than one participant ... (πρᾶγμα συντακτὸν περί τινος ἤ τινῶν)” (91). There are other cases as well where Stoic predicates were understood as active or passive [see p.91]; for example: “Α scholiast on Dionysius Thrax points out that it is typical of a verb to indicate a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα); and these states of affairs are accomplished by persons in so far as they act or undergo actions.¹⁵³ [footnote 153:] Toὐ δὲ ῥήματος ἴδιον τὸ σημαίνειν πρᾶγμα. τὰ δὲ: πράγματα διὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων κατορθοῦται ἢ ὡς ἐνεργούντων ἢ ὡς πασχόντων (GG Ι.3: 215, 28-29)” (91).

5.5.4.2.8

[The verb in a sentence indicates a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα), but the state of affairs is not something entirely exterior to the proposition. It is somehow a part of the proposition.]

[Above we noted the idea that a verb indicates a state of affairs, which is accomplished by persons undergoing actions.] Luhtala accepts this interpretation, but she specifies “however that the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) is also a feature of the proposition”. [I am not sure I grasp the next points, so I will guess them to  be the following. We might normally think of the state of affairs as being completely distinct from the uttered sentences expressing them. But somehow we might not see this metaphysical distinction. I am not sure how yet, but we should try to build a conception. Let us look first at what Luhtala writes.]

Ι accept this interpretation specifying however that the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) is also a feature of the proposition.¹⁵⁴ The proposition was defined as a complete state of affairs (πρᾶγμα αὐτοτελές) by the Stoics (Diog. Laert. VII,65); it was defined as exhibiting a complete sayable (λεκτόν αὐτοτελές) by Aulus Gellius.¹⁵⁵ The component of meaning (σημαινόμενα) was known even as the component of states of affairs (πράγματα, Diog. Laert. VII, 63). States of affairs (πράγματα) and sayables (λεκτά) would actually appear to be parallel notions within this component so that they reflect two different aspects of the same units of sayables, namely of the predicate and proposition.¹⁵⁶ The notion of sayable (λεκτόν) points to the kind of existence or rather non-existence associated with our thought | and speech, while the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) stands for the contents of these units of thought and speech in terms of their signifying states of affairs or action.

(91-92)

154 As far as Ι can see, the Stoic philosophers did not say that the verb signifies action and undergoing action (see p. 142).
155 λεκτόν αὐτοτελὲς ἀποφαντὸν ὅσον ἐ φ’ ἑαυτῷ) (Noct. Att. XVI, 8,1.
156 All these works belong to the department of πράγματα(‘states of affairs’), which | deals with propositions and other kinds of sentences as well as their components, predicates, cases etc. (Diog. Laert. VII, 190).

(91-92)

[We will go step by step now, but I am a little confused by all the terminology. “The proposition was defined as a complete state of affairs (πρᾶγμα αὐτοτελές) by the Stoics (Diog. Laert. VII,65)”.  Let us look at the Diogenes text:

A judgement is that which is either true or false, or a thing complete in itself, capable of being denied in and by itself, as Chrysippus says in his Dialectical Definitions: “A judgement is that which in and by itself can be denied or affirmed, e.g. ‘It is day,’ ‘Dion is walking.’” The Greek word for judgement (ἀξίωμα) is derived from the verb ἀξιοῦν, as signifying acceptance or rejection; for when you say “It is day,” you seem to accept the fact that it is day. Now, if it really is day, the judgement before us is true, but if not, it is false.

(Perseus)

A proposition is that which is true or false, or a complete state of affairs which, so far as itself is concerned, can be asserted, as Chrysippus says in his Dialectical definitions.

(Long and Sedley 202d)

Ἀξίωμα δέ ἐστιν ὅ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς ἢ ψεῦδος: ἢ πρᾶγμα αὐτοτελὲς ἀποφαντὸν ὅσον ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ, ὡς ὁ Χρύσιππός φησιν ἐν τοῖς Διαλεκτικοῖς ὅροις "ἀξίωμά ἐστι τὸ ἀποφαντὸν ἢ καταφαντὸν ὅσον ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ, οἷον Ἡμέρα ἐστί, Δίων περιπατεῖ." ὠνόμασται δὲ τὸ ἀξίωμα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀξιοῦσθαι ἢ ἀθετεῖσθαι: ὁ γὰρ λέγων Ἡμέρα ἐστίν, ἀξιοῦν δοκεῖ τὸ ἡμέραν εἶναι. οὔσης μὲν οὖν ἡμέρας, ἀληθὲς γίνεται τὸ προκείμενον ἀξίωμα: μὴ οὔσης δέ, ψεῦδος.

(Perseus)

So somehow a judgment or proposition (written here as ἀξίωμα) can be a complete state of affairs. It is not yet entirely clear to me how they can be equivalent. The best way I have so far to understand this is to think of situations in the world as having a “sense” to them, which is their λεκτόν or sayable. So perhaps a complete state of affairs is one with a λεκτόν and thus with a propositional sense built into it somehow. (See section 5.5.1 and section 5.5.2) The next sentence was: a proposition “was defined as exhibiting a complete sayable (λεκτόν αὐτοτελές) by Aulus Gellius”. So perhaps we can say that both the proposition and the state of affairs corresponding to it share the same sayable / λεκτόν.  Next: “The component of meaning (σημαινόμενα) was known even as the component of states of affairs (πράγματα, Diog. Laert. VII, 63)”. Before we look at the text, recall from section 5.5.2 that σημαινόμενα is more or less the same as the sayable / λεκτόν, only under this terminology (σημαινόμενα) it is understood as  a component of meaning, corresponding to its linguistic expression (σημαίνοντα). Let us again look at the text (I will insert Greek terms based on prior cases, but perhaps inaccurately):

To the department dealing with things as such (πραγμάτων) and things signified (σημαινομένω) is assigned the doctrine of expressions, including those which are complete in themselves, as well as judgements and syllogisms and that of defective expressions comprising predicates (κατηγορημάτων) both direct and reversed.

By verbal expression they mean that of which the content corresponds to some rational presentation.

(Perseus)

The topic which deals with states of affairs and significations includes that of sayables, both those that are complete and propositions and syllogisms, and those which are incomplete, and active and passive predicates. (2) They say that a sayable is what subsists in accordance with a rational impression.

(Long and Sedley 196d)

Ἐν δὲ τῷ περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῶν σημαινομένων τόπῳ τέτακται ὁ περὶ λεκτῶν καὶ αὐτοτελῶν καὶ ἀξιωμάτων καὶ συλλογισμῶν λόγος καὶ ὁ περὶ ἐλλιπῶν τε καὶ κατηγορημάτων καὶ ὀρθῶν καὶ ὑπτίων.

Φασὶ δὲ [τὸ] λεκτὸν εἶναι τὸ κατὰ φαντασίαν λογικὴν ὑφιστάμενον.

(Perseus)

The idea seems to be that the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) in the world has a rational sense to it, the λεκτόν, which by means of our senses makes in our mind a rational impression (λογικὴν). When we form a sentence expressing that rational impression, its meaning or sense (σημαινόμενα) is equivalent to the λεκτόν, which composes the rational sense of the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα). Perhaps on this basis we may say that the state of affairs and the sense of the sentence expressing its λεκτόν are equivalent or identical, but I am not sure I have uncovered the exact line of reasoning to do so yet. Next: “States of affairs (πράγματα) and sayables (λεκτά) would actually appear to be parallel notions within this component so that they reflect two different aspects of the same units of sayables, namely of the predicate and proposition.” I cannot decipher this well, but maybe it is the following. The sayable (λεκτόν) is the sense of a state of affairs (πρᾶγμα). But the state of affairs, maybe Luhtala is saying, is just what corresponds to the predicate. So “Dion is walking” would express the λεκτόν and “is walking” expresses the πρᾶγμα. But I am not sure at all yet. Next: “The notion of sayable (λεκτόν) points to the kind of existence or rather non-existence associated with our thought | and speech, while the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) stands for the contents of these units of thought and speech in terms of their signifying states of affairs or action.” I am not sure how to understand this. Maybe the first idea here is that the sayable (λεκτόν) is incorporeal and thus it is a matter of the incorporeal non-existence of the thoughts and speech expressing that λεκτόν. And maybe the second point is that the contents of thought and speech are the states of affairs expressed by them, and thus “contents” means something like referents. Let me consider another way to think about this before moving on. Let us think of a state of affairs as a factuality somehow. There is a fact in the world, Dion is walking, or maybe just Dion’s walking, if we must stick only with actions or predicates. The statement “Dion is walking” also has a certain factuality about it, namely, its truth. The factuality of Dion’s walking is the same in both the states of affairs in the world and the state of affairs in the sentence. Let me offer yet another interpretation. Let us think of the λεκτόν as  primary or fundamental. It on the one hand is expressed in the physical world as the state of affairs there and on the other hand it is expressed in the sentence corresponding to those states of affairs.]

5.5.4.2.10

[The meaning of a sentence (σημαινόμενον), the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα), and the sayable (λεκτόν) are all either one and the same or somehow very near the same.]

Luhtala now examines textual evidence to show how states of affairs (πράγματα) are to be understood as bound up with saybles (λεκτά). Sextus Empiricus equates the meaning of a sentence (σημαινόμενον) with the state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) (92).

The signification (σημαινόμενον) is the actual state of affairs (πρᾶγμα) revealed by an utterance, and | which we apprehend as it subsists in accordance with  our  thought (διανοίᾳ).

(Long and Sedley 196-197, insertions mine) [Note, I did not follow Luhtala’s insertions exactly, because I wanted both σημαινόμενον and πρᾶγμα, where she just has πρᾶγμα of the two, and also she adds ὑπάρχειν for “subsists”, but I was unable to find it in the Greek text. See below.]

σημαινόμενον δὲ αὐτὸ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ ὑπ' αὐτῆς δηλούμενον καὶ οὗ ἡμεῖς μὲν ἀντιλαμβανόμεθα τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ παρυφισταμένου διανοίᾳ

(Sextus Empiricus VIII,11-12).

And

Diogenes Laertius equates sayables (λεκτά) with states of affairs (πράγματα):

Saying (λέγειν) is different from voicing (προφέρεσθαι). For utterances (φωναι) are voiced but it is states of affairs (πράγματα) which are said – they, after all, are actually sayables. (Diog. Lart. VII,57)

(92)

[It is still not entirely clear to me if the states of affairs are somehow to be thought as inherent to the proposition, or simply corresponding to it. From the following wording, it would seem to correspond.] She writes:

According to both authors ‘states of affairs’ subsist in accordance with our thought and are sayable (by means of λεκτά). The parallelism of these notions is reflected in the Stoic terminology, according to which incompleteness and completeness pertain to both sayables (λεκτά) and states of affairs (πράγματα). A proposition can be a complete sayable (λεκτόν αὐτοτελές) and a complete state of affairs (πρᾶγμα αὐτοτελές). A predicate is an incomplete sayable (λεκτόν ἐλλιπές) and, obviously, an incomplete state of affairs, that is, something that can be associated with one or more subjects to form a complete state of affairs.¹⁵⁷

(92)

157 The intimate relationship betweeη λεκτά (‘sayables’) and πράγματα (‘states of affairs’) in Stoic thought was recognized early οn but this aspect of the proposition is rarely discussed in any detail (see e.g. Mates 1962: 11, 12, n.8 citing Steinthal 1890, 1: 288; Hadot 1978: 314; Rist 1971: 56, n. 11; Long 1971: 77).

(92)

5.5.4.2.11

[For the Stoics, action has a transitive nature in the sense that the action is directed toward a patient.]

[We noted above in section 5.5.4.2.5 that for the Stoics, predicates and verbs express incorporeals and thus not actions, which are corporeals. Nonetheless, we also noted, the Stoics still thought that there were transitive verbs and thus predicates that are active or passive (thus seemingly involving corporeal activity). Here Luhtala will explain that for the Stoics, the idea of action also has a transitive nature, and she gives evidence for it on the basis of the notion of actions being “direct” (ὀρθόν).] “Simplicius provides evidence of the ‘transitive’ nature of the Stoic idea of action” (92). Stoic action involves an action directed toward a patient, while Aristotlian action is more general, exemplified by such [intransitive] verbs as ‘to walk’ and ‘to sit’ (92-93). [So “direct” seems like a metaphysical or physical determination meaning that there is an action directed toward the patient. But also, since predicates can also be called direct, that means this conception has a linguistic parallel.] “Furthermore, the fact that such action was labeled direct  (ὀρθόν) suggests that action in a physical context was handled in terms parallel to linguistic terms; the active predicate was known as direct predicate (κατηγόρημα ὀρθόν).” The scholiasts of Dionysius Thrax, referring in all likelihood to the Stoics, also noted the association between action and directness (93).

5.5.4.2.12

[For the Stoics, action is a matter of active and patient bodies, with the predicate designating the relation between them. The verb does not however signify action or the undergoing of action.]

[I am not sure I follow the next ideas. They might be the following.] In Stoic physics, “action and undergoing of action were regarded as crucial features of bodies” (93). [This means perhaps that acting and undergoing action were less important for actions themselves. Thus] “the fact that the verb was not defined in the same semantic terms begins to become more understandable” (93). “the Stoics reserved the notion of action to pertain solely to bodies” (93). Now, “Bodies are represented by the nominal parts of speech in the linguistic theory” (93). [Actions are bodily, but verbs do not represent bodily and thus perhaps not some activity but rather somehow an incorporeal sayable.] “and in a striking contrast, the verb is said to signify something incorporeal, a predicate, a sayable which exists only in our thought and speech” (93). [Luthala’s next point seems to be that the predicate, which unites the active and patient bodies, is what gives articulation to the relation between these two bodies.] “The Stoic predicate is a unity of our thought, a relational notion which unites the two bodies involved in action and undergoing of action. As far as I can see, it was impossible for the Stoics, from the ontological point of view, to say that the verb signifies action and undergoing of action” (93).

5.5.4.2.13

[Later grammarians rejected the Stoic ontology which called for nouns to signify actions (which pertain to the bodies signified by the nouns) and verbs (which signify the relations holding between such bodies). Grammarians coming much later criticize this move to define verbs as actions, because many  nouns signify actions.]

Later on, grammarians, against Stoic ontology, defined the verb in terms of action and undergoing action (93). But this proved problematic, and Medieval grammarians criticized this move. For, many nouns also signify actions, so it became hard to make the distinction between nouns and verbs.

To say that the verb signifies action and undergoing of action means that it is impossible to differentiate sufficiently between the signification of the noun and the verb , which was always at issue in these definitions. This is because even nouns signify action (e.g. actus), which cannot be a peculiar characteristic of the verb; it thus became impossible to describe the difference between the verb agit (‘acts’) and the noun | actus (‘action’) in terms of signification. The Stoics posited, as far as as Ι can see, a distinction between the different ways in which nouns and verbs signify; the noun signifies a body, while the verb signifies something pertaining to that body.

(93-94)

From:

Luhtala, Anneli. 2000. On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic. Münster: Nodus.

Other texts, cited by Luhtala:

Hadot, Pierre. 1980. “Sur divers sens du mot pragma dans la tradition philosophique grecque”. Aubenc (1980: 309-319).

Diogenes Laertius: Lives of eminent philosophers. Translated by Robert D. Hicks. 2 vols. London: William Heinemann / Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1950.
The Perseus Greek page for the Diogenes’ passages:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0257%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1
The Perseus English page for the Diogenes’ passages:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D1

Long, Anthony A. 1971. “Language and Thought in Stoicism”. Long (1971a: 75-113).

Long, Anthony A. 1971a. (ed.) Problems in Stoicism. London: The Athlone Press.

Rist, John M. 1971. “Categories and their Uses”. Long (1971a: 38-57).

Mates, Benson. 1961. Stoic Logic. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. [Second edition. Originally published in 1953 as Volume 26 of the University of California Publications in Philosophy.].

Müller, H.-E. 1943. Prinzipien der stoischen Grammatik. Diss. Rostock.

Aulus Gellius: Noctes Atticae. Ed. by Peter K . Marshall. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1990.

Pohlenz, Max. 1939. Die Begründung der abendländischen Sprachlehre durch die Stoa. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. (Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. Neue Folge. 1.3, Heft 6.).

Prantl, Carl. 1855-70. Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande. Vol 1.  Leipzig: Hirzel. [Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1955.].

[GG] Scholia in Dionysii Thracis Artem Grammaticam. GG I.3. Ed. by Alfred Hilgard. Leipzig: Teubner 1878-1910.

Texts I cite:

Trask, R.L. 1993. A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London and New York: Routledge.

Long, (A.) and Sedley (D.). 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Sextus Empiricus. 1914. Sexti Empirici Opera. Vol. 2, Adversus Dogmaticos, libros quinque (Adv. Mathem. VII-XI) continens, edited by Hermannus Mutschmann. Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Teubneri [Teubner]. Available online:
https://archive.org/details/sextiempiriciope12sext
Online text transcription at:
http://socratics.daphnet.org

This entry redoes the one here, made a while ago:
http://piratesandrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/2009/04/stoic-logic-and-semantics-parts-of.html


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