[B-Greek] (B-Greek) Two in one bed

CWestf5155 at aol.com CWestf5155 at aol.com
Mon Jul 24 16:00:51 EDT 2006


 
Daniel,
 
I think that we are in basic agreement here.  
 
I'd only have a couple of minor quibbles.  At any rate, we appear to  agree 
that we would want to avoid in translation or interpretation gender  
exclusivity, which the use of the feminine would entail in Greek.  
 
Therefore, I would say that the gender "cannot be feminine" not that the  
referrents cannot be a woman or two women in the case of the use of the default  
or even with gnomic/proverbial uses of ANHR.
 
And by that token, I'm shying away from any implication that this kind  of 
use of the masculine article has the same exclusivity as the use of the  
feminine (with which I know we agree). 
 
I did interact with the question about the feminine default in an earlier  
post, and though I avoided mentioning things like universal oppressive  
dominance, I believe that I agree with you on that too.  The interesting  thing about 
gender in broader studies is how it is not always polarized by  masculine and 
feminine, but rather the choices may include animate and inanimate  or other 
categories that may surprise.
 
Cindy Westfall
Assistant Professor
McMaster Divinity College
In a message dated 7/24/2006 11:27:49 AM Pacific Standard Time,  
dlc at multnomah.edu writes:

In  response specifically to Cindy Westfall and George Somsel,  regarding
default gender grammatical expectations:

Agreed... My  statement was about the ³grammatical identification² of the
persons;  perhaps it would have been more clear for me to term this as a
³referential  limitation.²  The fulfilment of the prediction could involve
dozens,  hundreds, thousands of generically unspecified persons in situations
not  related to beds or grain-grinding; such an application does not deal
with,  and is not limited by or to, the referent of the passage. The reason I
say  two women cannot be the referent of the passage, is that a Greek  speaker
(and or a Hebrew/Aramaic speaker, for that matter) would use the  feminine
forms to indicate such a referent.

For a translation into  the hypothetical ³feminine-default² language, I think
we are in agreement  that we could not automatically use feminine, here. As
you infer, the  question to ask the passage, is whether the masculine is here
used as  default, or as a specific indicator of male referents. If we
understand it  as default, then the target language should also use default
forms; if it  is determined that the masculine is used to indicate male
subjects, then  the target language should also do so. I don¹t think we can
determine which  is the case, here; however, neither of the options seem to
allow for  specified female subjects.

On a side note, are you aware of any  feminine-default languages? I have
looked for one over the years, with no  success; while I don¹t expect to ever
find one, given the universally  oppresive social dominance of the male, it
would be great to see what kind  of circumstances follow with such a  language
structure.


Daniel







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