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

John Barach, Sr jbarach at motorera.com
Sun May 29 00:35:49 EDT 2011


If you are interested, my notes are now available on line
http://www.motorera.com/greek/lessons/lesson00.html
I've tried to make the information as simple as possible.
Cheers,
John Barach

On 27/05/2011 3:11 AM, Paul D. Nitz wrote:
> Brilliant.  Thank you much!
> My African students now understand the Genitive Absolute.
> PD Nitz
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Barach, Sr" 
> <jbarach at motorera.com>
> To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 6:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Genitive absolute akin to the Latin ablative 
> absolute?
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
>> B-Greek mailing list
>> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>>
>



More information about the B-Greek mailing list