Ontological Meaning vs. Phenomenological Meaning
The author under discussion, on page 2 of his twenty pound
grammar has a heading *Unaffected Vs. Affected Meaning*,
which he immediately redefines as *Ontological Meaning vs.
Phenomenological Meaning.* The central idea is that each
grammatical form has a meaning that is independent of any
contextual considerations. For example, the nominative case
is assumed to have some central properties which transcend
all of the actual nominatives used in Greek texts. Our author
seems to think this distinction is rather important and points
out where a number of other authors have gone astray by not
making this distinction.
First of all lets point out that *Ontological Meaning* is just a
fancy title for what grammarians have been calling *basic
meaning* or *core meaning* down through the years. It is not
a new idea and it is not a good idea. It suffers from all the
same problems that the notion of *basic meaning* has when
used in lexical semantics (Read James Barr). Far from
breaking new ground with this idea, we are just promoting
one of the semantic fallacies left over from bygone days.
I am suggesting that all we have when looking at a
grammatical form is *Phenomenological Meaning* , that is
the meaning that we observe in the text. I think that notion
of *Ontological Meaning* when applied to syntax analysis can
do nothing but obscure the actual structure of the syntax
system under consideration. This notion that each
grammatical form has a *basic meaning *is a central part of
the dominate language model used in NT Greek grammars
down through the years.
Clay Bartholomew
Three Tree Point