[B-Greek] understanding the genitive

Iver Larsen iver at larsen.dk
Fri Dec 16 03:14:40 EST 2005



> Can you help me understand some of the functions, from a grammatical
> standpoint, of the genitive in THN AGAPHN TOU QEOU?  My grammar text is not
> very helpful.
>
> Can "the love of Christ" be understood to mean each of the following senses
> depending on context?:
>
> 1. love is an attribute that Christ possesses
>
> 2. love is an action Christ performs
>
> 3. love is an action performed by someone else toward Christ
>
> 4. love is received "from" Christ.  (Is the genitive "of" ever synonymous
> with "from" in Greek?)
>
> Thank you
> Clare Arnold

Try to think of the genitive as a chain that links two nouns or nominals together. The meaning depends on the semantic 
content of the nominals and the context. In addition to studying grammar, one ought to study semantics, including 
valence theory, and a communication theory like Relevance Theory

Here you have a verbal noun "love". The verb "love" is divalent, so it may take an object. The agent (subject) would be 
animate, and the patient (object) can be animate or inanimate. The noun QEOS refers to an animate entity, so it can fit 
in either the agent/subject slot, giving rise to "subjective genitive" or in the patient/object slot giving rise to 
"objective genitive."
But a genitive can also used as a description, where one nominal describes the other. So "love" as an abstract noun 
could here be described as being "Godly", but "love" can still be either subjective or objective at the same time. So, 
it could be a description of the kind of love God has (i.e. God in the agent slot), or it could be a description of the 
kind of love I am supposed to have (i.e. I am in the agent slot), a kind that is inspired by, comes from and is 
characterized to be like God's love. Only the context can tell which one (or more than one) of these is relevant in that 
given context.

Iver Larsen 




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