[B-Greek] Pronominal Adjective

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon May 28 03:27:49 EDT 2007


On May 27, 2007, at 10:22 PM, Mitch Larramore wrote:

> I have three questions.
>
> 1. Could someone give me a good (and thorough)
> definition of Pronominal Adjective, with maybe a
> simple example.

One must distinguish the personal PRONOUNS (EGW, SU, hHMEIS, hUMEIS  
-- and probably also the third-person forms AUTOS/H and AUTOI/AI)  
from the pronominal ADJECTIVES (EMOS, SOS, hHMETEROS, hUMETEROS).

SOS is found 26x in the GNT, e.g. Mt 7:3 TI DE BLEPEIS TO KARFOS TO  
EN TWi OFQALMWi TOU ADELFOU SOU, THN DE EN TWi SWi OFQALMWi DOKON OU  
KATANOEIS? Here the SOU in TOU ADELFOU SOU should probably be seen as  
the genitive of the pronoun SOU, but SWi in the phrase EN TWi SWi  
OFQALMWi is unquestionably the pronominal adjective.

EMOS is found 76x in the GNT, e.g. Mt 18:20  OU GAR EISIN DUO H TREIS  
SUNHGMENOI EIS TO EMON ONOMAI, EIEI EIMI EN MESWi AUTWN.  Here EMON  
in EIS TO EMON ONOMA is a pronominal adjective).

hHMETEROS/A/ON is found 7x in the GNT, e.g. 2 Tim 4:15 hON KAI SU  
FULASSOU, LIAN GAR ANTESTH TOIS hHMETEROIS LOGOIS.

hUMETEROS/A/ON is found 11x in the GNT, e.g. Lk 6:20 ... hOTI  
hUMETERA ESTIN hH BASILEIA TOU QEOU.

> 2. As an example, a grammar book I am reading
> identifies the question hO PROFHTHS EI SU; by saying
> that JESUS said OU. I have no way of searching the GNT
> to see if this is so, but I think this was answered by
> John, not Jesus. Would that be a typo or is this
> question also asked to Jesus? He continues by saying
> "Again Jesus..." So he seems pretty sure Jesus
> answered this question somewhere.

I don't see any pronominal adjective involved in this. SU is a  
pronoun. You're citing John 1:21 where the question is put to John  
the Baptist and he replies OU, which is clearly elliptical for OUK EIMI.

> 3. Is there a web site where the GNT is transliterated
> so I could do searches like above. (I'd like to put in
> hO PROFHTHS EI SU and see how many hits I get.)

Apart from John 1:21 the only other instance of PROFHTHS EI SU  
(without the article hO) is John 4:19 LEGEI AUTWi hH GUNH, "KURIE,  
QEWRW hOTI PROFHTHS EI SU." But here SU is a personal PRONOUN, not a  
pronominal ADJECTIVE. I think you may have your categories mixed up.


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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