Re: Gal 2:20

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 09 1999 - 12:53:14 EDT


<x-rich>I'm omitting the message of Carlos Navarro to which Carlton is
responding, although I'll append little pieces of it where I want to
respond specifically to something Carlton has said. I think that the
basic grammatical accounts presented in Senhor Navarro's message are
lifted directly from the <color><param>0000,7777,0000</param>Boethetika
Biblia of Euphylax Constantinos </color>which is posted at the web site
in Brazil from which he is writing to us; I'm not sure whether this is
a modern work composed in the KAQAREUOUSA or a Byzantine work, but it
looks to me like its Greek is more akin to Attic than to Koine and also
it appears to me that its grammatical terminology is consistent with
that of grammarians of late antiquity.

At 1:57 PM +0400 4/8/99, Carlton Winbery wrote:

>C. Navarro wrote; [omitted] . . . . .

>

>Carl replied to this by pointing out that the two words PROSDIORISMOI
and

>KATHGOROUMENA mean attributive and predicative respectively. I agree
with

>this. I want to make some further comments on the discussion above.

>

>In reality both of these terms in modern Greek imply a further
explanation

>or definition. They make those additional assertions in different
ways. C.

>Navarro is certainly correct in his emphasis for PROSDIORISMOS where
the

>modifying word or words follow the article as in THi TOU hUIOU. Again
my

>assertion was that the article shows that the modifying element
modifies

>PISTEI because the article agrees (concord) with this word in case,
gender

>and number.

>

>On the other hand KATHGOROUMENA is the middle participial form of the
verb

>KATHGOREW which means to categorize (most time in the sense of accuse)
or

>to assign some meaning to. C. Navarro uses the clause hOTAN hH FRASIS
EXHi

>KATHGOROUMENON EPIQETON. EPIQETON in modern Greek means "added." This

>adjective with the neuter article means "adjective."

I think that in this instance the term KATHGOROUMENON (neuter to agree
with EPIQETON, I believe) is actually passive and that it is used much
as Aristotle uses KATHGOREW, not in a forensic but in the
logical-grammatical-rhetorical sense of "to predicate"--so that
EPIQETON KATHGOROUMENON means "a predicated attribute." And I think
EPIQETON here is being used, as it was in the ancient grammarians, for
any kind of descriptive word or phrase that can be attached to a
substantive by implication or explicitly by putting an article before
it. As Carlos has put it quite succinctly:

>>In the Prosdiorismon construction, the article precedes the EPIQETA

>>(expressions

>>that reduces the extension of the name; EPIQETA can be adjectives,

>>prepositional phrases, genitives, or even a name used to restrict
the

>>meaning). More

>>often than not, the EPIQETA becomes sandwiched between the article
and the

>>name.

and indeed, all of the above "EPIQETA" can function in the same way in
an attributive construction: hO AGAQOS ANHR, hO EN THi POLEI ANHR, hO
TOU XANQIPPOU hUIOS, SIMWN hO ZHLWTHS.

> However, the modifying

>is done in a different manner as C. Navarro shows. It is best to think
of

>this expression as needing a SUNDETIKON verb (connecting verb).

One of the more common terms for the SUNDETIKON hRHMA is "copulative
verb." But of course this means precisely a CONNECTING verb--a verb
that takes a predicate nominative/accusative, depending on whether that
verb is indicative or infinitive or participle.

>Man, we got a lot of discussion out of such a simple construction as
EN

>PISTEI ZW THi TOU hUIOU TOU QEOU. "I live by trusting the Son of God."
 (If

>indeed TOU hUIOU is objective genitive!) Nouns of action are nouns in
Greek

>that express a verbal idea. You can have objective and subjective
genitives

>only with such nouns. Most nouns in Greek which also have a verb form

>(cognate) are nouns of action, i.e., PISTIS and PISTEUW.

I don't think there's any disagreement at all about how this phrase
holds together grammatically, but I have to add one "concluding
unscientific postscript" about subjective and objective genitive: while
context may help to determine whether hH TOU QEOU AGAPH means "God's
love (for us)" or "love of/for God" in some particular instance, there
is absolutely no morphological distinction between this phrase when
interpreted as a "subjective" and/or as an "objective" genitive--and
the syntactical distinction may very well be "in the eye of the
(particular) grammarian." And this is why, although we may be confident
that phrasing such as PISTEUW EIS TON IHSOUN means that
faith/confidence is directed toward Jesus as its object, there is no
way to determine, unless the context makes it crystal-clear, whether hH
TOU IHSOU CRISTOU PISTIS means "faith directed to Jesus Christ" or
"faithfulness of Jesus Christ." Often enough the context makes clear
how the phrase should be interpreted, but there are instances in the
GNT where the issue is NOT clear.

Carl W. Conrad

Department of Classics/Washington University

One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018

Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649

cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

</x-rich>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:23 EDT