[B-Greek] Masculine expressions for generic reference

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Sun Dec 12 21:17:56 EST 2004





I recently read some articles on 1 Cor 14:26- 40. Those articles claim that 
the masculine expressions in v. 26 - 33, e.g. 


 


(1) 

hEKASTOS, hEIS, hEAUTWi, PROFHTAI, 

ALLWi, 
DIERMHNEUTHS 


 


indicate that this passage talks about only men.


 


(2) hUMAS MONOUS in 14:36 also indicate that the referent of this 


expression is men only, because MONOUS is masculine. 


 


I searched for the bgreek archive to see if there is some discussions


about it. I found one. There  Carlton Winbery said the following:


 


It seems very difficult for English students (especially American) to get 
a 
feel for the Greek use of gender. If any pronoun, adjective, 
participle, etc.
might include a man, they used the masculine. The 
masculine gender by itself
in such words does not rule out women 
unless the context makes it clear that
only men were referred to. I 
see nothing in the context of this passage that
rules out women, 
certainly not vss. 34-35. So, the feminine form of such
words 
generally ruled out men but the masculine does not rule out women.


 


---------------


 Now, what Carlton says is new to me. I always assumed that even when 
they are meant to be generic, masculine expressions (for persons)


primarily refer to men, which then represent  the whole group.


But what Carlton says seems to be  more than that;  


If any pronoun, adjective, participle, etc.
might include a man, they 
used the masculine.


 


It means that masculine expressions are for mixed groups.


Are there any evidences for it?


-----------------------------------------


 


(3) In relation to it, a grammar book I have has the following chart for 
TIS:


            
M                 
F                
N


N      
TIS                 
TIS              
TI


G      
TINOS            
TINOS          TINOS


D      
TINI                
TINI              
TINI


A      
TINA               
TINA            TI


-----------------------------------------


 


The question is: (1) the masculine and feminine forms of TIS happen to 
be the same? Or (2) TIS is a generic pronoun  for both men and 
women?


 


Moon Jung


Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea


 


 


 







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