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

N.E. Barry Hofstetter nebarry at verizon.net
Mon Mar 3 15:12:09 EST 2008


>From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>Date: 2008/03/03 Mon AM 06:51:35 CST
>To: B-Greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>Cc: Rick Brannan <textgeek at gmail.com>
>Subject: [B-Greek] "On the classifying of Genitives there is no end ... "


>>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)<<

Amen, brother Conrad!  This has been one of my big complaints about on this issue, and especially concerning Wallace.  I usually put it in terms of "Instead of inventing a grammatical category, simply describe the usage in context." 

 


N.E. Barry Hofstetter 
Classics Instructor, The American Academy 
http://www.theamericanacademy.net 
Professor, WRTS
http://www.wittenbergreformed.org
And my site: 
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry




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