[B-Greek] Genitive absolute akin to the Latin ablative absolute?

John Barach, Sr jbarach at motorera.com
Mon May 16 12:31:22 EDT 2011


A good grammar text should explain the genitive absolute, but most are 
not as clear in "plain English." So here are my notes about it.
Cheers,
John Barach
http://www.motorera.com

5B    Genitive Absolute
     1C    A special Greek construction which is used to distinguish the 
subject of the participle which is different from the subject of the 
main verb.
     2C    In English, confusion results from what is called a dangling 
participle
         1D    After eating our lunch, the boat departed.
         2D    The intention of this sentence is that we ate our lunch 
and then the boat departed; but as it is worded, it sounds as though the 
boat ate our lunch.
         3D    The distinction is obvious in that sentence, but how 
about this one:
                 After eating my lunch, Bill departed. Did I eat my 
lunch, or did Bill eat my lunch?
     3C    In Greek, the confusion is removed by putting the subject of 
the participle and the participle itself into the Genitive case, while 
the subject of the main verb stays in the Nominative case.
     4C    Consider this sentence:
         1D    εἰπόντες ταῦτα οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἀπῆλθον
             After they said these things the apostles went away.
         2D    ἀπόστολοι is the subject of the verb ἀπῆλθον and it has a 
direct relation to the participle εἰπόντες.
         3D    So the subject of the verb is the same subject of the 
participle.
     5C    Consider this sentence:
         1D    εἰπόντων ταῦτα τῶν μαθητῶν οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἀπῆλον.
             After the disciples said these things, the apostles went away.
         2D    The subject of the verb is ἀπόστολοι
         3D    The subject of the participle εἰπόντων is μαθητῶν
         4D    To avoid confusion of subjects, the subject of the 
participle is put into the Genitive case (and so is the participle).
         5D    In this construction, don’t translate it: Of saying these 
things of the disciples, the apostles went away.
         6D    When you see the participle and noun in the Genitive 
case, translate it as a statement where the noun is the subject of the 
participle.
     6C    The problem with the boat eating our lunch is solved this way:
         φαξάνων ἡμῶν τὸν δεῖπνον, τὸ πλοῖον ἀπῆλθε
         After we ate our lunch, the boat departed.
             Both ἡμῶν and φαξάνων are in the Genitive case, thus "we" 
is the subject of the participle.
     7C    λέγοντος αὐτοῦ ταῦτα ἀπῆλθον. While he was saying these 
things, I went away.
             Both λέγοντος αὐτοῦ are in the Genitive to distinguish that 
he is doing the saying and I is doing the going.
     8C    εἶδον αὐτὸν λέγοντα ταῦτα. I saw him while he was saying 
these things.
         1D    The subject of the main verb is different from the person 
doing the saying.
         2D    However, the Genitive Absolute is not used because the 
participle has no direct grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence.
         3D    The participle is in the Accusative case to agree with 
the pronoun which it modifies.
     9C    ταῦτα εἰπόντων τῶν μαθητῶν οἱ δοῦλοι ἦλθον εἰς τὸν οἶκον
         After the disciples said these things, the slaves went into the 
house.
     10C    γενομένης ἡμέρας οἱ ποιμένες ἀπῆλθον
         When the day came, the shepherds went away.
     11C    αὐτοῦ λέγοντος ταῦτα οἱ δοῦλοι ἀπῆλθον
         While he was saying these things the slaves went away.



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