Question sent in by e-mail by Mr. Jim K. (March 15, 2011):Jose,
Thank you for your article on antecedents in English,
“To do perfect sentences, we need to identify antecedents properly.” I have searched and searched English grammar textbooks and the Internet concerning the "agreement in CASE" without much success. I have studied Bible Chronology for about 20 years now. My concern with grammar involves a long passage in the Book of Daniel Chapter 9:25-27, which I have broken down as follows:
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off,
but not for himself;
and the people of the prince that shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;
and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant
with many, for one week:
and in the midst of the week
he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,
and for the overspreading of abominations
he shall make it desolate,
even unto the consummation,
and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
(Jim then classifies and charts in great detail the various grammar elements of the above passage) It seems to be a matter of grammar by which we can determine who the "he" of verse 27 is: Verse 26 speaks of (1) the Messiah (singular) and (2) the people (plural) of the prince. The "he" of verse 27 is not plural so cannot be speaking of the "people of the prince." "Of the prince" is a prepositional phrase of which the "prince" is the object. The antecedant of the pronoun "he" in verse 27 cannot not be the "prince," for it is
the object of the prepositional phrase which acts as an adjective describing the "people."
Verse 26 has only two personal nouns to which the "he" of verse 27 can reference: The "Messiah," and the "people." They are both subjects within that lengthy sentence. The "prince" is the object of the prepositional phrase which describes the "people." The phrase acts as an adjective. Nouns within the phrase cannot be the subject of a sentence. The pronoun "he" in verse 27 can either be the "Messiah" or the "people." Since it is singular, it must be the "Messiah."
(Jim then presents in great detail another view of the passage from a subject-verb standpoint) Here are a few questions concerning the rule involving "agreement in case":
1. Some consider the one who confirms the covenant to be "the prince that shall come" since the prince is the nearest NOUN and agrees with Person and Number.
IS THERE ACTUALLY A RULE IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR THAT SAYS YOU MUST GO BACK TO THE FIRST NOUN TO FIND THE ANTECEDENT?
2. Where else can I find documentation (as a textbook) on the subject that shows "agreement in case"?
I would really appreciate any help you can give me in this matter. Edward Pusey has written a book on "Daniel, The Prophet" in which he says "[the prince had not been the subject of any former sentence]" (p.227).
Jim K.
My reply to Jim K.:Dear Jim,
I’m afraid that I don’t have the competence to say with certainty who the doers of the action are in that apocalyptic passage from the Book of Daniel. This is actually the problem with nebulously written English text or English badly translated from the original foreign-language text; often, you really can’t figure out who does which to whom because the translator or writer of the original text had not bothered to make himself or herself clear enough.
By logic, all I can confidently ascertain is that the antecedent for the pronoun “he” in the line “And he shall confirm the covenant” is the noun “Messiah.” This, of course, is assuming that “the prince” is distinct from “Messiah”; you’d be the better judge of that. The noun “people,” which is in the plural forum, obviously can’t be the antecedent of the singular pronoun “he” in that passage, and this is regardless of whether “people” is the subject or just an object of a phrase (there's absolutely no rule in English grammar that specifies that an antecedent can only be a subject and never object of a preceding phrase). You are the Bible expert in this particular case, though, so I’m sure you can use these basic grammar observations to put two and two together in that passage.
Now, regarding this question of yours, “Is there actually a rule in English grammar that says you must go back to the first noun to find the antecedent?”, the answer is a categorical no. The proper basis for determining the antecedent is the sense and logic of the sentence or train of sentences in an exposition. No matter how many nouns may come between a pronoun and its antecedent, it is the evident meaning or the sense intended by the writer that prevails. In a badly constructed sentence or passage, of course, there are bound to be grammatical or structural mistakes, so it’s the responsibility of the editor of the publication to rectify them to make everything clear for the reader. The problem is when some scriptural text with defective grammar is reverentially considered grammar-perfect despite evidence to the contrary; people then spend an inordinate amount of time trying to guess the writer’s intent instead of making the simple grammar fix that could clarify things very quickly for everyone.
Sincerely,
Joe Carillo
