Plenary Genitive
Jason Lee
jllee at mailcity.com
Mon May 24 04:36:30 EDT 1999
Really.
I suspect this is one of the wonders of the Indo-European (IE) language
family. From Sanskrit to English, the so-called genitive case, in due
course, has picked up so many nuances in relational abstractions. At the
Koine Greek era, already various 'functionalities' had collapsed into the
same genitive construct; the same is true with English. Some IE languages
show this kind of structural assimilation' more than others (e.g. Latin
retains the ablative forms, even if they often look like datives, whereas
Greek in the same era does not). Nonetheless, it is somewhat interesting to
see such a highly inflected language as Greek would absorb multiple
functions in singular forms, particularly the genitive, although language
morphology tends to simplify through time. Indeed, the resolution of
ambiguities resides primarily in the context, whether immediate or remote.
Often the big picture will arbitrate (e.g. I John 2:15 AGAPH TOU QEOU is
ambiguous in the immediate context as to whether it is the love from the
Father - subjective genitive - or the love for the Father - objective
genitive, but perhaps it is not so ambiguous to those who are acquainted
with the biblical gospel message as a whole). Herein requires not only the
knowledge of a grammarian, but much more the expertise of an exegete, which
no doubt came from learning of the letters and of the Spirit.
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