[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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