[B-Greek] "Aporetic genitive" and "Nominativus ad Nauseam"

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sat Feb 17 12:11:00 EST 2007


Thank you Carl, a choice post.

During all the discussion of TOU PNEUMATOS in Eph 2:2, I brought home  
a library copy of Wallace.

 From  Wallace a.k.a. GGBB

> Since there is already a plethora of gen. categories, we had to stop
> somewhere.

  Just to dispel any misconception that Wallace is anything even  
close to exhaustive in his treatment of the genitive case -- I looked  
under the treatment of the partitive genitive to see what might be  
said about the partitive EK + genitive functioning as the subject or  
object of the finite verb. I found no discussion of this. It was  
noted that the partitive genitive (with or without EK or APO) can be  
used without a head noun but there was no discussion of the  
implications this has for the syntax of the clause, i.e. that the  
partitive genitive can fill the subject or object slot. Calling  
attention to the missing head noun or suggesting that there is an  
elided indefinite pronoun does not in and of itself tell us anything  
about the impact this will have on the SYNTAX of the clause.

I find this grammar strangely devoid of SYNTAX as I have come to  
understand that term. Perhaps Wallace has somehow managed escape  
nearly half a century of Chomsky's influence on the notion of SYNTAX  
among language scholars.

Just FYI, I am not endorsing the transformational/generative  
tradition in regards to SYNTAX, just noting that in the world of  
language studies this tradition has left its foot prints almost  
everywhere and I don't these footprints in Wallace.

Elizabeth Kline







More information about the B-Greek mailing list