From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 17:10:04 EST
At 3:36 PM -0600 12/20/99, Steven Craig Miller wrote:
>To: Carl W. Conrad,
>
>SCM: << Brown [1982] gives three grammatical interpretations (which I
>present below with slight modifications) of (PERI TOU LOGOU) THS ZWHS.
>(a) It could be an appositive genitive meaning: "about the word which is
>life."
>(b) It could be a qualifying genitive meaning: "about the life-giving word."
>(c) It could be a objective genitive meaning: "concerning the word about
>life."
>But Brown's translation merely gives: "about the word of life." >>
>
>CWC: << And rightly so! What's useful about the term "connective" or
>"pertinentive" genitive and the recognition that it is only a structural,
>not a semantic case is that one comes (hopefully) to realize that most of
>the sub-categories of the grammars such as the above are strategies for
>conveying the Greek construction into a target language and have nothing to
>do with the "meaning" conveyed by the Greek; these categories show how we
>in English (or others in other languages) make semantic distinctions that
>the Greek, so far as we know, wasn't ever thinking about. >>
>
>Although what you say here is often true, I'm not for sure that it
>completely applies in this instance. As for the three interpretation given
>above, I'm unsure what 'a' is supposed to mean, unless perhaps it is saying
>the same thing as 'b.' But it seems to me that 'b' and 'c' are saying two
>different things. 'B' seems to refer to a "word" which can give life. And
>'c' seems to refer to a "message" about life. Yes?
Perhaps we're talking about different things. I'm saying that those three
interpretations of the genitive are not items of Greek grammar but
strategies for conversion of what in Greek is unspecified into an English
that demands "nicer" or "more transparent" expressions of the possible
meaning. In fact, I think when we say (you say? Brown says?) "it could be a
..."--if we really MEAN that "it COULD be ..." -- we imply that the Greek
text itself doesn't give us any clue about WHICH of these makes the best
sense. I think that English "of" + a noun is often every bit as vague as
the Greek genitive of a noun linked to another noun. Certainly
Greek-speakers chose to use prepositions when they wanted to distinguish
more sharply how they were using genitive-case forms, but when they didn't,
they sent non-Greek-speakers on a wild-goose chase searching for categories
into which to put the genitive uses.
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/
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