[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
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