[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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