[B-Greek] Constructio ad sensum...
Barry Hofstetter
nebarry at verizon.net
Mon Jun 21 09:49:15 EDT 2004
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
To: "Barry Hofstetter" <nebarry at verizon.net>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Constructio ad sensum...
> At 7:28 AM -0400 6/21/04, Barry Hofstetter wrote:
> >For ancient Greek literature in general, or for any specified time period
> >therein, is anyone aware of any study which examines the relative frequency
of
> >ad sensum constructions with regard to personal neuter nouns, i.e., how often
> >the grammatical neuter is used in reference to such nouns vs. how often the
ad
> >sensum is used? Or does anyone have any comments on this? My impression is
> >that the ad sensum constructions are relatively infrequent...
>
> One might raise the question, "What is a personal neuter pronoun?" I
> suppose you're referring to AUTO in Greek and "it" in English, such as
> might be used to represent TEKNON or KORASION--although I think one might
> readily find a masculine or feminine pronoun used in a particular instance
> with TEKNON, a feminine pronoun with KORASION.
Pretty much: I had in mind just such nouns, and their corresponding modifiers.
> Seems to me that the "ad sensum" construction, almost by definition, is an
> instance-by-instance matter respecting which the author is cognizant of
> some sort of inconcinnity between the gender of a pronoun or adjective in
> relationship to the noun with which it implicitly or explitly construes. I
> wonder whether one can tally such instance-by-instance cases in any
> statistically meaningful way. Such a study, if there ever is or was one,
> might be somewhat interesting, but it strikes me rather as looking for
> four-leaf clover in a meadow: you'll find some, but they're more
> aberrations than instances of some rule.
Precisely what I assume as well, but I was wondering if anyone had done any sort
of systematic study on the subject, beyond the paragraph or two that one finds
in the grammars.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Purpureus Vindex II
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-Calvin
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