[B-Greek] Eph 2:2 and syntactic significance of TOU PNEUMATOS

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Tue Feb 13 16:19:17 EST 2007


On Feb 13, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Brian Abasciano wrote:

> my question arose from disagreement with his claim
> that two personal nouns cannot be in epexegetical relationship. He  
> views
> this as emerging from the idea that the epexegetical genitive is a  
> specific
> example of a larger category named by the head noun. I would agree  
> that it
> is a word that brings greater clarity to the head noun by further  
> definition
> etc. But I would not say this cannot be the case with two personal  
> nouns,
> though it does seem unusual (especially if we were dealing with proper
> nouns). If TOU PNEUMATOS followed TON ARCONTA directly, I would be  
> more
> inclined to take it as a genitive of subordination or some such nuance
> indicating the ruler over the spirit (perhaps better, a subjective
> genitive). However, the intervening genitives along with the  
> context suggest
> to me that we have a defining designation in TOU PNEUMATOS. I  
> wanted to get
> others' sense concerning Wallace's claim about this. To be fair to  
> him, he
> does not raise the English translation test in relation to the  
> issue of the
> ability (and in his view, the impossibility) of personal nouns to  
> be in
> epexegetical relationship. He explicitly relates it to its general- 
> specific
> quality. But I don't think the general-specific nature of it is as  
> formal as
> he seems to think of it. What's more, even if  one were to grant  
> much of
> Wallace's assumptions (and it seems we are in agreement that we do  
> not agree
> with them), in the case of Eph 2:2, "ruler" is the type of noun that,
> despite referring to a personal being, still may especially need  
> further
> definition in identifying which ruler is in view.

Are we engaging in exegesis of Wallace or Eph. 2:2? I cannot help you  
with exegesis of Wallace.

First of all lets get our termionolgy in sync. Apposition and  
epexegetical are not synonyms. G.Cooper (Attic Syntax, 1:47:7:6 p182)  
"a genitive ... which simply restates without expansion, restriction  
or other explanation of any kind, probably does not exist in our  
literature." The standard linguistic dictionaries (D.Crystal and  
R.L.Trask) define apposition as the relationship between two terms  
with the same referent and the same syntatical function. Trask  
identifies restrictive appositon as a sub-catagory and I think this  
is closer to how you are using the term.

What do we mean by personal? Do you mean that the referent of both  
terms is not only a person but the same person? Here is an example  
from G.Cooper where there are two genitives with a personal and  
identical referent with the same syntactical function which appears  
to meet the criteria specified by Crystal and Trask with the caveat  
that they are joined by KAI. Cooper doesn't concede that this is an  
example of non-restrictive apposition. He calls this use of the  
genitive a naming locution. The second term KASIGNHTHS clearly  
contributes some new information.

Soph. OC 324

324 hhISMHNH
	324 W DISSA PATROS KAI KASIGNHTHS EMOI
	325 hHDISTA PROSFWNHMAQ, hWS hUMAS MOLIS
	326 hEUROUSA LUPHi DEUTERON MOLIS BLEPW.

Perhaps I have missed the point, but if so it was an intriguing  
diversion.


Elizabeth Kline







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