[B-Greek] QEOS masc or fem

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Apr 7 11:14:07 EDT 2004


At 9:40 AM -0400 4/7/04, <tmcos at rogers.com> wrote:
>The feminine accusative definite article THN modifies the noun QEON as
>feminine. The definite article is usually the determining factor as to
>gender and case. In John 1:1 PROS TON THEON, QEON appears with the
>masculine accusative definite article and thus in that case is masculine.
>Best regards,
>
>Tony Costa
>
>> From: Eddie Mishoe <edmishoe at yahoo.com>
>> Date: 2004/04/07 Wed AM 08:08:59 EDT
>> To: B Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Subject: [B-Greek] QEOS masc or fem
>>
>> In Acts 19:37 we find THN QEON, where QEON is a
>> masculine form, although used with the feminine
>> article THN QEON. I seem to recall there being
>> feminine forms for QEOS. Didn't Greek have both
>> masculine and feminine forms for QEOS?
>
Yes, QEOS, like ANQRWPOS and a few other nouns, is "common gender." It is a
mistake to associate -OS endings specifically with masculine gender,
despite the fact that many -OS nouns are masculine. The fact is that there
are quite a few feminine nouns in -OS and it is also true that
two-termination adjectives commonly have -OS for the masculine/feminine and
-ON for the neuter. There was no ORIGINAL distinct association of O-stems
with masculine gender.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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