MARTUROUNTES, 1 Jo. 5:7

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Dec 20 09:53:28 EST 1999


At 9:20 AM -0800 12/20/99, Numberup at worldnet.att.net wrote:
>At 1 John 5:7, the verb MARTUROUNTES is masculine plural, but refers, in
>the critical text, to three neuter nouns, TO PNEUMA, TO hUDWR, TO
>hAIMA.  Is this standard procedure?

Actually hOI MARTUROUNTES is the subject of the main verb, and I'd say it's
a generic masculine plural: "There are three that attest ..."; then TO
PNEUMA, TO hUDWR and TO hAIMA stand in apposition to MARTUROUNTES. I think
that if you had a reversal of word order, something like TAUTA TA TRIA, TO
PNEUMA, TO hUDWR, TO hAIMA, TA MARTUROUNTA ESTIN, you might have agreement
of that participle with the string of neuter plurals. But I don't really
think there's anything more to be seen in the gender of hOI MARTUROUNTES
than a generic masculine for a plural conglomerate, the members of which
are named only as appositives.

-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu 



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