[B-Greek] works of the law

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jun 14 07:51:02 EDT 2007


On Jun 14, 2007, at 7:31 AM, kgraham0938 at comcast.net wrote:

> Over in Galantians 2:16 the expression EX ERGWN NOMOU, what type of  
> genitive would you take NOMOU to be?  I am thinking source right  
> now and want to double check my answer.

I take NOMOU to be an adnominal  or "adjectival" genitive, i.e. a  
noun in the genitive case that modifies a noun. I am, of course, well  
aware that most grammars offer half a dozen or more categories of  
adnominal genitive and that some, like Wallace's GGBB, offer more  
than a dozen (Wallace has 15) subcategories of the adnominal  
genitive. Wallace does NOT consider "source" one of the adnominal  
subcategories; in fact "source" really better describes an ablatival  
genitive and is not an adnominal or "adjectival" genitive at all.

The adnominal genitive is a STRUCTURAL category, not a SEMANTIC one.  
The characterizations of the categories and subcategories of the  
adnominal genitive are, without exception (I think) based upon  
possibilities of representing the supposed relationship of the  
genitive noun to the other noun in a translation. One can avoid doing  
this by conveying (in English, at any rate) an adnominal genitive  
either as a hyphenated prefix to the main noun in the phrase (e.g.  
"from law-works") or by attaching it with a prefixed "of" to the  
equivalent of the genitive noun (e.g. "works of law"). How NOMOS is  
related to ERGA in this expression is something one has to figure out  
from the context. My own Englishing of EX ERGWN NOMOU might be "by  
doing what the Law enjoins." I haven't given much thought to what  
title or subcategory  of adnominal genitive might best be applied to  
that, but that's what I think the phrase means.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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