[B-Greek] "On the classifying of Genitives there is no end ... "
Bryant J. Williams III
bjwvmw at com-pair.net
Mon Mar 3 15:16:20 EST 2008
Dear Carl,
Regarding Dan Wallace's use of "aporetic" genitive.
Before one gets too serious about criticizing Dan Wallace for including
"Aporetic" as a "classification" for the genitive, one should read his footnote,
note 21, page 79, "That is, the 'I am at a loss' gen. (from the Greek word,
́απορέω, 'I am at a loss,' a tongue-in-cheek title suggested to me by J. Will
Johnston)."
Regarding the "adnominal" genitive.
BDF, sections 162-168 lists seven specific uses of the adnominal genitive,
included among these is the partitive genitive (sec. 164).
En Xristwi,
Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
To: "B-Greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: "Rick Brannan" <textgeek at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 4:51 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] "On the classifying of Genitives there is no end ... "
> 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)
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
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>
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