ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Andrew Chapman
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Jonathan Robie wrote: For that, you mostly need to know how to look up the terms as they occur in the commentaries. And in Wallace and Mounce, you will find categories that the commentaries do not use.
Thanks, Jonathan, where would you advise me to look them up? Yes, I had thought that the 'genitive of subordination', for example, was probably spurious, since I would have thought that the idea of subordination was coming from the head noun and hardly from the genitive. But apart from one or two additions, the rest seem to be standard. But Justin Cofer has a further criticism:
Justin Cofer wrote: Wallace is a different animal. What makes it different from Robertson, Smyth, etc. is that teaches the student to make a half-conjectural translation, and then to (at least implicitly) reason back from English to the Greek. The student never leaves the grid of thinking in English and translating.
Justin, if you have time, could you explain this a bit further? On the face of it, this type of limitation seems almost inevitable since all these grammars are written in English, and so it must be difficult, to say the least, to get out of English categories of thought. Who would you recommend to learn from?

I had a quick look at the modern post-Chomsky study of adnominal genitives and found a five fold classification of their semantic function into 'possession', 'description', 'inherent relation', 'subject' and 'object'. The term 'process noun' seems to be used in the place of 'verbal noun', which I suppose allows for head nouns to carry the notion of a subject in the genitive noun, without there being an actual cognate verb in view. For example, 'the opera of Verdi' and 'the policy of the king' are classified under 'subject'. Overall, the distinctions that are being made seem to be of the same general type as in the more traditional terminology. (http://www.utexas.edu/courses/slavling/ ... ssives.pdf

Andrew
cwconrad
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by cwconrad »

Andrew Chapman wrote:
cwconrad wrote: Forget about "subjective" and "objective" descriptors here -- they are neither needed nor helpful; in fact they only serve to obfuscate; the "language of love," as you very well know, is the language that lovers speak to each other, while the "love of language" is the passion that philologists, Hellenic or otherwise, share with each other.
Thanks, Carl, that's clear. You had previously said, with regard to 'the love of language' and 'the language of love' that:
cwconrad wrote: We may say that "of language" represents an "objective" function of the prepositional phase "of language" and we may say that "of love" represents a "subjective" function of the prepositional phrase "of love"
Stephen Hughes has rightly remarked that I re-think my thoughts. So in this instance, take my later statement as better indicative of what I really think. So, while the terms "subjective genitive" and "objective genitive" make a little bit of sense when we're clearly dealing with a verbal noun and can relate the other noun to the verbal noun in terms of a subject or an object of the verb, the fact is that what is meant by a "verbal noun" is relatively fuzzy, and ultimately the terms "subjective genitive" and "objective genitive" don't enable you to understand the expression but simply to put a label on it. If the label doesn't contribute to understanding the construction, it's not worth much, if it's worth anything at all. The simple truth is that an adnominal genitive is nothing more than a linkage between two nouns; it conveys no semantic information regarding what specific linkage is to be inferred between the two nouns. What the linkage is has to be guessed from context or intuited, not so very differently from the inference, as Hume put it, from "custom and habit of confident expectation" that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
Andrew Chapman wrote:
cwconrad wrote: Understanding what an expression in Koine Greek means is a matter of intuition, not of analysis in terms formulated by a metalanguage. Rather the metalanguage assists us in discussing with each other how the expression in Kone Greek can bear the meaning that it does.
How would you advise me, sir, to develop such an intuition? I notice that commentators on the Greek text of the New Testament come to very different conclusions on the force of adnominal genitives in key passages. One reason I like to read what the nineteenth century commentators have to say is that I think that a higher proportion of them would have had the opportunity to develop their intuition in Greek by reading the classical literature from a young age. I have used my intuition to understand English 'of' genitives for fifty odd years without recourse to any grammatical system of classification so I can see that that must be the right end result, but I wonder if there needs to be a process of conscious deconstruction of one's natural English intuition in order to avoid imposing it inappropriately upon the Greek text. In the case of a language still spoken today, then no doubt one can gain that intuition by immersion, but how does one do it for an ancient language? For those of us whose primary interest is in reading and understanding the New Testament, how important is it for us to spend time reading a) classical Greek, b) the LXX c) general Koine literature? And could learning modern spoken Greek be helpful too?
Read, read, read. The sort of intuition I'm talking about is not some sort of magical illumination by divine revelation but rather a sensitivity informed by recurrent observation of particular collocations of words in particular contexts. From the memory records of repeated perceptions, as Aristotle puts it, "experience" is born. So my advice is that you should "educate" your sensibility by habituating it to discern the kinds of connections between words used together repeatedly in Greek in a similar context. You are not amiss in your judgment of nineteenth-century commentators; their education in the Greek and Latin classics coupled with their extensive reading of those classics impacted their sensibility, which is precisely what I'm calling "intuition." It is a sensibility or intuitive capacity that you'll scarcely find in commentators of the later 20th or 21st century -- few of them have read widely enough --, if you find it at all. Wallace's subdivision of categories of adnominal genitives won't give it to you. You have to acquire it for yourself through reading of Greek texts, not merely of the Greek Bible or Jewish and Christian texts but of the literature -- Homer and Solon and Aeschylus and Sophocles and Plato and Theocritus -- that molded literary Greek into the instrument that it became -- just as Chaucer and Shakespeare and the King James Bible and Milton and Dickens and many, many others have molded literary English into the instrument that it has become.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Hughes
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Collocations and wild mint (for example)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

cwconrad wrote:The sort of intuition I'm talking about is not some sort of magical illumination by divine revelation but rather a sensitivity informed by recurrent observation of particular collocations of words in particular contexts.
It seems you are talking about something like a worldly-wise (common sense) intuition - ie the sense of community involvement and shared background knowledge that a language has.

I watch language learners everyday - both those who come to learn and those who want to leave or broaden their horizons - looking as forelorn as the fish who striving for freedom and the life beyond the tank jumped out only to encounter the hard floor on which he writhes "gasping" for a few short moments as if the instinctive body movements that had hitherto been useful to swim it out of danger would somehow be effective in this new environment of air and concrete (like fish out of water) as the world passes them by. Humour alludes them completely, they don't know what people are really getting at when they say something. They don't know whether they should be doing something, learning something new or giving a verbal response to what has been said. The whole group consciousness thing is gone from the language.

As an EFL teacher it is a challenge to build that κοινὴ αἲσθησις up. As Carl says our own sensivities are not easily lulled into the confidences of even us to whom they belong, but within the glorious whole that makes up our human nature, hearing about something first - even just a mention - is often enough to take the edge off the abruptness with which new ideas hit us. Sensitivities look to reason for assurance like a 3 year old child looks to a caregiver to read and interpret a situation for them. If language reference works for Greek included thing a deliberate presentation of things like synonyms, antonyms, common collocations or conexts, explanations of nuances and the various uses in given voices or moods, then the time, effor taken and luck needed for a learners sensitivities to become informed and habituated will be less.

Sitting under the shadow of the presently available reference works (I don't know how that could be understood in the digital age) the best option is as Carl (and Barry at other times) advocates to read a lot and widely, but I hope that things could be grouped together for convenience and efficiency. Of course the development of agriculture took different forms in different places at different times according to different needs, and the nomadic life that Carl is advocating still had its place. The lore (wisdom) given by the "experienced" about what to read for the best experience of Greek (where to go for the best food supply) is still an important part of life for those going out of their farms to hunt wild game (from time to time), but the staples in an agriculturally based society are grown close to home. In fact the examples of texts containing what what feature of the language don't need to be put together, but now with search engines and cross-referencing we can look at a particular feature in a number of contexts very conveniently - like that we have many grains, vegetables and types of livestock nearby the farmhouse and available year-round. But, as has happened to the old lore after settlement and agriculture, the advice that the old man is giving you about what to read is valuable.

Yes, you can buy mint from the supermarket, but knowing where to find the wild mint near the river will give you a different feel for mint - you will be able to see that different mints smell and taste different because they are in different soil types or in soils with different moisture levels. You will find that mint from a particular bush has a different taste from that of another. You will be sensitive that the new shoots while soft and inviting don't have the fully developed taste and aroma of mature leaves, and the older leaves while strong need to be infused in water to bring out their essential healthy properties and all exist on the same bush. Of course, you could plant your own in the garden and see some of these things - make up your own list of guided examples (as I am suggesting is a good way to introduce readers). But no matter how "fresh and convenient" there is something to be said for roving alone in the wilds with just you and the world - reading widely to have your own expereince of nature (little "n" nature -"the natural world") in her natural state.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Justin Cofer
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Justin Cofer »

Andrew Chapman wrote:
Justin Cofer wrote: Wallace is a different animal. What makes it different from Robertson, Smyth, etc. is that teaches the student to make a half-conjectural translation, and then to (at least implicitly) reason back from English to the Greek. The student never leaves the grid of thinking in English and translating.
Justin, if you have time, could you explain this a bit further? On the face of it, this type of limitation seems almost inevitable since all these grammars are written in English, and so it must be difficult, to say the least, to get out of English categories of thought. Who would you recommend to learn from?
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Andrew
The advice you are getting from Carl and others to READ, READ AND READ SOME MORE is ... well golden. Also, the adnominal genitive simply links one Greek noun to another Greek noun. The many, many names given to this construction by Wallace tells us far about English than it does Greek. Wallace is great at the purpose of the book --- to guide seminary students on how to translate Greek into English. Or as Carl aptly put it earlier in the thread:
Carl W Conrad wrote:The intent underlying the organization and exposition of GGBB seems to have been providing guidelines for students of Biblical Greek to convert Greek as a coded form of English phraseology into proper English phraseology. I may conceivably be caricaturing that intent, but if it wasn't the intent, it seems to me the consequence of the pedagogy represented by GGBB. It is the bane of the grammar-translation pedagogy that it seems or is focused upon converting an alien mode of thought and expression into the familiar mode of thought and expression of the student's native tongue. Rather than learning to think in the manner of a Koine Greek-speaker one learns to decipher Koine Greek into formulations in one's native language.
Go and check out what Wallace says under the key to identifying a genitive of material. He says, "Replace the word of with the paraphrase made out of or consisting of. If this paraphrase fits, the genitive is probably a genitive of material." Now what is going on here? The student is encouraged to make the student to make a half-conjectural translation, and then to (at least implicitly) reason back from English to the Greek. The student never leaves the grid of thinking in English and translating. Wallace doesn't tell you anything about what the Greek construction "in and of itself" means.
Stephen Hughes
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Justin Cofer wrote: Wallace doesn't tell you anything about what the Greek construction "in and of itself" means.
The "in and of itself" is not such an easy thing to deal with, I find. Let's look at a few in-and-of-itself thoughts for this well known verse:
John 3:16 (RP Byz2005) wrote:Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται, ἀλλ’ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
Οὕτως - κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν πρόπον, ὁμοίως
γάρ - ἐπεί, διὸ
ἠγάπησεν - ἔστερξεν (<στέργω, cf. NTG ἄστοργος), ᾠκτίρησεν, etc.
ὁ θεὸς - ὁ πάτηρ ὁ ἐπουράνιος, ὁ δημιουργός (be a little careful of this word after the 2nd century),
τὸν κόσμον - τὸν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν καθένα (LXX)
ὥστε - τοῦ + infinitive
τὸν υἱὸν - τὸν μονογενής, τὸν ἀγαπητός, τὸ τέκνον, τὸν τεχθέντα
αὐτοῦ - γνήσιος, ἠγαπημένος
τὸν μονογενῆ - τὸν κληρονόμον, τὸν πρωτότοκον, τὸν ἀνευ συναδέλφων
ἔδωκεν - ἔπεμψεν, εἴασεν θανατωθήσεσθαι / σφαγῆναι
ἵνα - infinitive
πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς - πάντες οἱ πιστεύοντες, Χριστιανοί, ὁ καθεῖς ἐξομολογεῖς τὸν Ἰηουν Χριστὸν εἶναι
αὐτὸν - τὸν κηρυχθέντα ὑπὸ τοῦ υἱοῦ πάτερα, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτὸν
μὴ ἀπόληται - μὴ βάληται εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ μέγα
ἀλλ’ - δὲ, οὐκ ὁμοίως
ἔχῃ - μετέχῃ, δοθήσεται
ζωὴν αἰώνιον - τὴν ἐπουρανίαν πολιτείαν, τὴν ἀτελὴν κοινωνίαν μετὰ τῆς Τριάδος.

(Sorry for spelling mistakes - I don't have time to revise that for detailed exactitude)

Of course from an intermediate level we may able to, but I don't think that Andrew is at a stage where he is ready to do that yet. It is no use putting the carrot too far in front of the donkey or he will look for more accessible food.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Justin Cofer
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Justin Cofer »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Justin Cofer wrote: Wallace doesn't tell you anything about what the Greek construction "in and of itself" means.
The "in and of itself" is not such an easy thing to deal with, I find. Let's look at a few in-and-of-itself thoughts for this well known verse:
John 3:16 (RP Byz2005) wrote:Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται, ἀλλ’ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
Οὕτως - κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν πρόπον, ὁμοίως
γάρ - ἐπεί, διὸ
ἠγάπησεν - ἔστερξεν (<στέργω, cf. NTG ἄστοργος), ᾠκτίρησεν, etc.
ὁ θεὸς - ὁ πάτηρ ὁ ἐπουράνιος, ὁ δημιουργός (be a little careful of this word after the 2nd century),
τὸν κόσμον - τὸν ἄνθρωπον, τὸν καθένα (LXX)
ὥστε - τοῦ + infinitive
τὸν υἱὸν - τὸν μονογενής, τὸν ἀγαπητός, τὸ τέκνον, τὸν τεχθέντα
αὐτοῦ - γνήσιος, ἠγαπημένος
τὸν μονογενῆ - τὸν κληρονόμον, τὸν πρωτότοκον, τὸν ἀνευ συναδέλφων
ἔδωκεν - ἔπεμψεν, εἴασεν θανατωθήσεσθαι / σφαγῆναι
ἵνα - infinitive
πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς - πάντες οἱ πιστεύοντες, Χριστιανοί, ὁ καθεῖς ἐξομολογεῖς τὸν Ἰηουν Χριστὸν εἶναι
αὐτὸν - τὸν κηρυχθέντα ὑπὸ τοῦ υἱοῦ πάτερα, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτὸν
μὴ ἀπόληται - μὴ βάληται εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ μέγα
ἀλλ’ - δὲ, οὐκ ὁμοίως
ἔχῃ - μετέχῃ, δοθήσεται
ζωὴν αἰώνιον - τὴν ἐπουρανίαν πολιτείαν, τὴν ἀτελὴν κοινωνίαν μετὰ τῆς Τριάδος.

(Sorry for spelling mistakes - I don't have time to revise that for detailed exactitude)

Of course from an intermediate level we may able to, but I don't think that Andrew is at a stage where he is ready to do that yet. It is no use putting the carrot too far in front of the donkey or he will look for more accessible food.
Good point. So what's your opinion on the best way to help the student to get to this stage and keep him/her from feeding on junk food? :D
Stephen Hughes
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Justin Cofer wrote:So what's your opinion on the best way to help the student to get to this stage and keep him/her from feeding on junk food?
A comprehensive but simple Greek - Greek (with English in brackets) (L2-L2(with L1 in brackets)) learner's dictionary with synonyms antonyms and common useages (collocations). Students who have reached higher than intermediate should have access to Greek - Greek (L2-L2) reference materials (without English (L1) in brackets)

A set of grammatical transformations for every point of grammar together with the traditional "explanations and translations". That is to say that for at least all the major points of grammar, students should learn how to express that point of grammar without using itself in the paraphrase.

BTW All my favourite foods (except Vegemite) are "junk foods" :lol:
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Andrew Chapman
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Thanks very much for all the advice and suggestions, which I much appreciate. I have been reading the New Testament in Greek for a few years, slowly, in very small quantities (often just 2 or 3 verses), but usually daily, and for a year I visited a retired Anglican minister, who had kept up the Greek he had learnt during his training, one hour a week and we read and translated about a dozen verses at at time. If I open my New Testament at random, I can usually understand it, unless there a lot of the less common words. But if I look at a page of Aristotle or one of the church fathers, I am pretty much lost, although if I do stop and look up half the words, I may be able to read it. With a Loeb parallel edition, I can recognise enough of the words to see what is going on, which maybe has some benefit; but it seems like a huge investment of time to really tackle one of these texts. Apart from the vocabulary, the sentence structure seems a lot more advanced than in most of the New Testament. So I suppose I might be looking for something that would begin to bridge the gap, not too hard in style, and fairly limited in vocabulary. How about Josephus for example?

Andrew
Justin Cofer
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Justin Cofer »

Andrew Chapman wrote:I have been reading the New Testament in Greek for a few years, slowly, in very small quantities (often just 2 or 3 verses), ... So I suppose I might be looking for something that would begin to bridge the gap, not too hard in style, and fairly limited in vocabulary. How about Josephus for example?

Andrew
I recommend starting with Rod Decker's graded reader. It starts very easy ... in the gospel of John ... and then progresses to the LXX and the apostolic fathers.

http://www.amazon.com/Koine-Greek-Reade ... ney+decker

It teaches the student to vocalize chunks of Greek text without attempting to translate into English as you read. Decker comments how consistent use of this step will increase your retention of Greek. If you look on the back of the book you'll see that Carl Conrad gives high praise to it -- calling it a "godsend." :)

Greek can't be developed slowly translating a few verses -- you'll need vast chunks of comprehensible input. A UBS Greek reader is perfect for this because it helps bridge the vocabulary gap.

http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Testament-R ... eek+reader
Andrew Chapman
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Re: ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: objective or subjective genitive?

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Thanks, Justin, I had been debating getting hold of a copy of the UBS Reader, so that's pushed me over the edge.

I should perhaps have added that I was writing out what I was reading longhand, and writing down the words I didn't know, which I hope added value to it, while slowing it down.

Andrew
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