[B-Greek] "On the classifying of Genitives there is no end ... "

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Mar 3 07:51:35 EST 2008


If for no other reason (which I would not claim), the title (aye, the  
very rubric of this message) of Rick Brannan's blog of yesterday makes  
it worth pointing a finger at:

http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog/2008/03/02/OnTheClassifyingOfGenitivesThereIsNoEnd.aspx
= http://tinyurl.com/32s5yx

Some are aware that I have made "ad nauseam" complaints about this  
practice, especially in Dan Wallace's GGBB. I was surprised and  
appalled to learn from George Somsel's message on Titus 2:13  
yesterday, that Wallace actually does have a subclassification of this  
elusive and slippery Proteus of Greek nominal morphology and syntax -- 
a subclassification named "aporetic genitive." Now that is truly a  
wonderful term; we have the so-called "aporetic" Socratic dialogues of  
Plato that end without conclusion in a puzzlement that is preferable  
to the initial state of puzzlement in that one knows where the blind  
alleys of argumentation are; we have the Aristotelian discursive  
procedure that he terms APORHSAI ἀπορῆσαι ("work through the  
difficulties/problems") which he deems a necessary first step toward  
solution of a major question. The English adjective derives ultimately  
from the Greek verb APOREW (ἀπορέω), which is a denominative  
verb from the alpha privative (ἀ-) and POROS (πόρος) "way,"  
"means," "resource. An ἀπορία APORIA is a state of helplessness  
in the face of a problem, a "no go" situation. To reach and confess  
that one has arrived at an APORIA means, to paraphrase the lyric from  
"Oklahoma," we've "gone about as fur as we can go!" (and we still  
ain't got there).

I persist in thinking that the adnominal genitive (as opposed to  
partitive and ablatival usages) is strictly a structural case, not a  
semantic one, and that most of the proposed classifications and  
subclassifications of the adnominal genitive have been created as an  
aid (crutch?) to translation into a target language rather than as a  
key to understanding usage. Ultimately one really has to figure out  
the instances of adnominal genitive -- if one doesn't grasp their  
meaning more or less intuitively at first sight -- by thinking them  
through in their context. I'm not so sure that a grammarian is a great  
resource toward this end.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)




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