The specific question under consideration is controversial. I
will give my own reading of it and won't pretend to represent
any particular school of thought.
Louw and Nida on page xviii in volume 1 of their lexicon talk
about *ground meaning* or *grundbedeutung* in a discussion
of lexical semantics. They show how the notion of *ground
meaning* runs into difficulties because the semantic domain
of a given lexeme can be too broad to be unified under any
single concept. Now I am suggesting that *ground meaning*
or *ontological meaning* or *basic meaning* is a
dysfunctional concept in syntax as well lexical semantics and
for the same reason.
Lets take an example. Look in your Greek grammars at their
attempts to isolate the *basic meaning* of the genitive
case. Do you find their conclusions convincing? Is it
reasonable to read each use of the genitive in actual texts as
some sort of derivation from some basic meaning of the
*ontological genitive?* I don't think so.
This is really a different subject from talking about
distributions of functions and probability. There is nothing
wrong with saying that the nominative is normally
(statistical probability) the subject of a finite verb. This is
quite a different statement than saying that there is an
*ontological meaning* of the nominative to which all other
meanings are some how related. Statements about
probability are statements about empirical observations.
Where as statements about *ontological meaning* are a form
of metaphysics because they are impossible to falsify (c.f.
Carl Popper).
It seems pernicious to burden the intermediate Greek
student with the concept of *ontological meaning.* The
notion of *ontological meaning* promotes confusion in
syntax analysis because the student ends up with a Greek
syntax information model which does not correspond with
the actual structure of the Greek syntax. The student may
picture the *actual functions* of the genitive in the Greek
text as satellite nodes connected to a hub called the *basic
genitive.* This picture is very misleading. The student
burdened with this idea will want to ask the question *what is
the basic meaning of the genitive* along with the question
*how is the genitive used in this context.* The first question
is only going to cause confusion and the second question is
the only one the counts for translation or exegesis.
There are major scholars who have thought about this with
great care and precision. James Barr, Moises Silva, J.P. Louw,
etc.
Clay Bartholomew
Three Tree Point