[B-Greek] Nominative to verb
Mark Wilson
emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Fri May 9 21:33:19 EDT 2003
Mitch:
You wrote:
-------
hH MARTURIA TOU IWANNOU
My question is why can you convert a nominative noun into a verb (John
testifies) which converts the genitive into its subject. I see that this is
a verbal noun, but I don't see why the writer wouldn't use the verb form if
he wanted it to function verbally.
------------
I think Dr. Wallace refers to constructs of this nature as being "packed"
with information. The job of the exegete is to "unpack" the intended
meaning. If that is your question, I think you should think of "unpacking"
the layers in a methodical way.
The first layer is the Lexical layer. This layer is comprised of the
individual words you see.
The second layer is the Syntactical Layer. This is how the individual words
are grouped and RELATE to each other.
The third (or bottom) layer is the Semantical Layer. This is where the
thought of the author resides. This is called the "deep structure" level by
some linguists.
In your above example, the Lexical layer consists of the 4 words (hH
MARTURIA TOU IWANNOU)
The Syntactical layer consists of grouping, within each phrase and how the
phrases relate to each other (how hH relates to MARTURIA
how TOU relates to IWANNOU
how both hH MARTURIA relate to both TOU IWANNOU)
To determine how the Genitive phrase modifies the Nominative phrase, run
down your list of how Genitives can function. Is it a Genitve of
Relationship, of Possession, Subjective Genitive, Verbal Genitive, Genitive
of Reason, Genitive of Purpose, etc.? Most semantical functions will be
eliminated rather quickly just based on the first two layers.
Soon you will be left with relatively few real options of how these phrases
relate. If your question is how do you choose the correct option after
reaching this bottom level, I think you now enter into the phase of how well
you are familiar with this author's style, how well this author has
developed the particular context in question, etc. In other words, this
bottom, final phase is where exegetes can disagree. This is why hermeneutics
is often called both a science and art.
My thoughts,
Mark Wilson
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list