[b-greek] Re: Grammatical categories and Luke 6:12b

From: Carl Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 26 2001 - 08:41:31 EDT


I am responding to this message from the web site, since for some reason I
have internet access this morning but can't access my local mail server.

I really don't know why you felt compelled, Ken, to send two copies of
this same message to the list under two distinct subject-headers. I don't
know that it will do any good to respond, as previous attempts to state my
point have evidently not been understood. But I'll try.

> Alan Thomas wrote in part:
> t seems that some are looking for short-cuts.
> Those
> who look for laundry lists are approaching Greek
> the
> wrong way, IMO. We all fall into that mode I
> suspect.
> We would rather read a grammar or ask a scholar
> than
> see it for ourselves. In the end, there really is
> no
> royal road to learning Greek.
>
> The only way to learn which Gen. best fits a
> context
> is to have read hundreds/thousands of other Greek
> contexts.
>
> I want to make two comments on this. First, I
> asked about a specific instance of a noun, in the
> dative (it's not a verbal noun -- it's a noun, period)

PROSEUCH is as much a verbal noun in Greek as "love" is in English.
Period.

> followed by a genitive with only the article, no
> preposition, and nothing in the context which
> necessitates a particular understanding of the
> semantic intent of the phrase. I was basically told
> that grammatical categories are modern myths, which
> would mean, Alan, that there are no such things as
> "which Gen." That is, a genitive is a genitive is a
> genitive. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
> Either categories are meaningful, true representations
> of what is happening in the language (true according
> the philosophical view of truth as correspondence to
> reality), or they are simply the laundry lists of
> grammars. So, eveyrone who seems to not like laundry
> lists, which is it?

I don't know who you think said that grammatical categories are "modern
myths," Ken. I didn't say that, although I grant that you didn't like and
didn't seem to understand what I DID say: that the numerous sub-categories
of genitives that are to be found in many modern grammars of
classical/Koine Greek have been formulated to assist those whose native
language is NOT classical/Koine Greek to understand how the ancient Greek
construction compares with and might be reformulated in phrasing
appropriate to the modern target language or the language of the student
attempting to understand such a phrase as PROSEUCHi TOU QEOU. What I DID
say, and what I think Iver was also trying to say, is that the Greek
speaker/writer almost certainly did NOT speak/write Greek with any concept
in mind of an "objective genitive" or a "subjective genitive."

> Second, the reason I posted the question was really
> because I have read Greek, a fair amount of Greek (not
> as much as, say, Carl, but a fair amount
> nevertheless), and the implication that merely reading
> Greek will help you understand what you are reading
> better syntactically or semantically is, I would
> maintain, inaccurate at best.

It is certainly true that some people can be exposed to a lot of ancient
Greek over a lengthy period of time, others can be exposed to a lot of
modern English over a lengthy period of time, and still find themselves
sorely handicapped when it comes to understanding a not-uncommon ancient
Greek construction or a rather common and everyday bit of British or
American English phraseology. Some people have a "block" when it comes to
language learning, others are simply very slow learners; I wish it were
not so, but in somewhat over forty years of teaching Greek, Latin, French,
and German, I've come across more instances than I would wish of students
who worked pretty hard at learning a language and had a considerable
degree of difficulty ever reaching a mastery of it--or in fact never did
reach any level of comfort with it.

Let me start with an
> analogy and then return to Greek. I teach Java
> programming for a living. If I handed the Solaris
> operating system instructors at my training center who
> do not know anything about programming 1000 pages of
> code, and forced them to read through every last line,
> they might be able to tell me that they see features
> which occur over and over, like class, interface,
> float, String, EntityBean, etc., but I'm willing to
> bet a year's salary that none of them, simply by
> reading code, could explain to me how to compile a
> Java class, what compilation means, or even, past a
> few very obvious things, like the meaning of a + b,
> what any of what they have labored through means. This
> is true, even though, there are absolutely no
> ambiguities in the language. I can tell you exactly
> what any line in that code means syntactically (++ is
> the increment operator) and semantically (the
> increment operator adds one to the variable it is
> connected to, and when that happens depends upon
> whether it is pre-fix or post-fix). Yet, we are
> talking about a computer language, whose structure is
> defined precisely in a lengthy language specification,
> and I can find a definition for the meaning of
> everything in every line of those 1000 pages.
>
> Now, if I arm those individuals with documentation
> which explains all the phenomena they see in that
> code, some may well be able to tell me what that code
> is doing in very specific terms, but only because they
> have precise, detailed guidance from documentation
> that specifies what each construct must mean.
>
> If the mere reading of computer code (and I've read
> a lot in seventeen years in IS) is not sufficient to
> understand the constructs of the language, why would
> nayone think that merely reading Greek without
> guidance as to what the constructs mean syntactically
> and semantically would ever yield an understanding of
> the relation of a noun and a genitive modifier? If
> you wish, I'll abandon the laundry lists. That leaves
> me to follow Iser. The meaning of the phrase in Luke
> 6:12b is completely determined by the reader filling
> in the "gaps" in the sentence with whatever I wish.
> After all, the categories were just made up for modern
> translators, according to Carl, and just laundry lists
> for those who are lazy according to others. So it's
> just a noun and a genitive and, like Humpty Dumpty,
> genitives mean what I want them to mean.
>
> Now, if you don't like that position, then provide
> a meaningful, mediating view that enables someone who
> has read a fair amount of different kinds of Greek to
> determine not the category, which is illusory I'm
> told, but the function of the genitive modifier.
> That's all I'm asking for. Since the syntax isn't
> determinative (and I never, ever urged otherwise), how
> can one determine the semantic significance besides
> trusting one's gut? I am not being facetious. I've
> seen lots of posts about the evilness/uselessness of
> grammatical categories. So I "call" as I gather they
> say in poker (never played it so I don't know).


I wont' respond to the analogies from computer language; I think Iver has
attempted (I gather, without much success) to respond to this sort of
question that you've raised.

Let me come back once more to the original text that is under examination:
Luke 6:12 EGENETO DE EN TAIS hHMERAIS TAUTAIS EXEQEIN AUTON EIS TO OROS
PROSEUXASQAI, KAI HN DIANUKTEREUWN EN THi PROSEUCHi TOU QEOU.

I'll English this as follows: "And it happened during these days that he
went out onto the mountain to pray, and he continued through the night in
entreaty of God."

Here I've converted EN THi PROSEUCHi TOU QEOU as "in entreaty of God." Is
that intelligible English? I understand EN THi PROSEUCHi as an instance of
the not-uncommon use of EN + dative to indicate an activity engaged in. I
understand TOU QEOU as a genitive characterizing the "entreaty": it's a
"God-entreaty": does that mean God was entreating Jesus? Theoretically
that's possible, but in the circumstances it certainly seems more likely
that God is the addressee of the entreaty in question.

Several traditional modern Greek grammars categorize the usage of the
genitive here as an "objective genitive." The grammarians normally explain
this by saying that if we understand the verbal nature of PROSEUCH,
"entreaty" and consider it as a verb, then "God" would be the object of
the verb "entreat." What I (and others also, I think) have argued is that
this is perhaps a helpful explanation of how WHAT THE GREEK MEANS may be
converted into a structure that conveys that meaning in standard
English--BUT the Greek speaker/writer almost surely had no conception in
mind of what the modern grammarian is calling an "objective genitive."

I don't know that I've said anything different from what various
respondents have tried to say in response to this question previously, but
it's one last endeavor on my part.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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