[B-Greek] re: Genitive in 2 Cor 1:5, H GENIKH PTWSIS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Jun 5 07:10:18 EDT 2004


At 3:43 AM -0700 6/5/04, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>--- R Yochanan Bitan Buth <ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il>
>wrote:
>> E. Mishoe EGRAPSE
>> >How can we keep the number of Genitives
>> >to a workable size?
>>
>> By starting with 1.
>>
>> Then by grouping according to structure rather than
>> by interpretation in
>> another language.
>>
>> E.g., similarly to what Carl did, but a little
>> differently:
>>
>> 1  ONOMA META GENIKOU ONOMATOS [KAI/H ANTWNUMIAS
>> KAI/H EPIQETOU],
>>   a noun with a genitive noun [inc.
>> pronouns/adjectives](marks possession or
>> relationship to be determined by context)
>> 2  RHMA META GENIKOU ONOMATOS,
>>   a verb with a genitive noun object (idiomatic to
>> the verb, or less
>> affected than an AITIATIKON ONOMA [accusative])
>> 3  PROQESIS META GENIKOU ONOMATOS,
>>   a preposition with a genitive noun (idiomatic to
>> the preposition)
>> 4  GENIKON META METOXHS
>>   a genitive with a participle (this is most
>> frequently an adverbial use of
>> the genitive mentioned immediately below, and is
>> traditionally called
>> 'genitive absolute' in English)
>> 5  GENIKON "EPIRRHMATWS", META PROTASEWS
>>   a genitive 'adverbially', with a clause
>> (idiomatic, like TAXEWS 'quickly'.
>> The GENIKON META METOXHS above is a common use of
>> this, though usually with
>> more than one word)
>>
>> EPEITA Afterwards (!) someone may profitably
>> subcategorize these by semantic
>> structure,
>
>Doesn't this bring us full circle to the problem
>again? It seems to me that the problem is how does one
>reduce the number of SEMANTIC subcategories, even if
>there were only 1 Structural category. Would not ALL
>of Wallace's SEMANTIC subcategories fit nicely under
>one (or more) of these 5 Structural categories?

This is evidently a matter of opinion; my own opinion, as I've stated
(perhaps ad nauseam) is that Wallace's (et aliorum) subcategories are more
fundamentally translation strategies rather than authentically semantic and
that they induce in students a mind-set to suppose that Greek
speakers/writers actually thought in terms of those subcategories. As I
keep reiterating, I think the hidden temptation--although nobody would ever
express it this bluntly--is to suppose that Greek grammar is really just a
subspecies of English grammar, and that if we analyze all the ways that we
can turn a Greek construction into good English, then we'll understand the
Greek better.

Obviously, however, there are other opinions.
-- 

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/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list