[B-Greek] Re: Masculine expressions for generic reference (trying again)

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Sun Dec 12 22:46:43 EST 2004





I am sorry. What I typed did not look OK. Some encoding problem!


Let me try again.




     





      
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 says 
that

      
 the masculine and feminine forms of TIS are the same.

      
 It means that TIS is ambiguous. But doesn't it mean that 

      
 TIS is a generic pronoun  for both men and women?


 


Moon Jung


Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea


 


 


 










More information about the B-Greek mailing list