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Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: August 9th, 2017, 4:39 am
by Girgis Boshra
ἔστιν παιδάριον ὧδε (ὃς) ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια (Joh 6:9) why hw uses the masculine relative pronoun (ὃς) though it refers to a neuter noun (παιδάριον)?

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: August 9th, 2017, 9:57 am
by Jonathan Robie
Girgis Boshra wrote: August 9th, 2017, 4:39 am ἔστιν παιδάριον ὧδε (ὃς) ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια (Joh 6:9) why hw uses the masculine relative pronoun (ὃς) though it refers to a neuter noun (παιδάριον)?
I think this is the adverb ὧδε, meaning "here". I imagine you are thinking of ὅδε? It's really easy to confuse the two.

Also: note that Ἔστιν is capitalized, this is quoted speech.
Ἔστιν παιδάριον ὧδε ὃς ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια· ἀλλὰ ταῦτα τί ἐστιν εἰς τοσούτους;

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: August 9th, 2017, 11:13 am
by Iver Larsen
Compare also
Gal 3:16 Καὶ τῷ σπέρματί σου, ὅς ἐστιν Χριστός.

A neuter noun may refer to a person in which case the masculine pronoun is used.

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: August 9th, 2017, 9:26 pm
by timothy_p_mcmahon
Galatians 3:16 looks to me like the pronoun is attracted to the gender of the predicate, but if the correct reading in John 6:9 is ος, that looks like concordatio ad sensum.

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: August 10th, 2017, 8:51 am
by Jonathan Robie
Jonathan Robie wrote: August 9th, 2017, 9:57 am
Girgis Boshra wrote: August 9th, 2017, 4:39 am ἔστιν παιδάριον ὧδε (ὃς) ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια (Joh 6:9) why hw uses the masculine relative pronoun (ὃς) though it refers to a neuter noun (παιδάριον)?
I think this is the adverb ὧδε, meaning "here". I imagine you are thinking of ὅδε? It's really easy to confuse the two.
I see now that my answer was nonsense, I misunderstood what Girgis meant by ὧδε (ὃς) and did not realize that ὃς occurs explicitly in some readings of the text.

Fortunately, there are several good responses in this thread. Sorry for the confusion my response added!

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: October 8th, 2017, 4:50 am
by Girgis Boshra
timothy_p_mcmahon wrote: August 9th, 2017, 9:26 pm Galatians 3:16 looks to me like the pronoun is attracted to the gender of the predicate, but if the correct reading in John 6:9 is ος, that looks like concordatio ad sensum.
Many thanks, but I do not know what do you mean by: concordatio ad sensum

Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Posted: October 8th, 2017, 6:30 am
by Jason Hare
Girgis Boshra wrote: October 8th, 2017, 4:50 am Many thanks, but I do not know what do you mean by: concordatio ad sensum
It means that παιδάριον here refers to a masculine child in reality. The word παιδάριον is neuter for grammatical reasons, but the person that it is referring to is not neuter. He is masculine. Therefore, the language naturally switches to reflect his actual (real) gender as opposed to the gender of the term used to refer to him. This is called concordatio ad sensum or constructio ad sensum.

Clear examples might also be when we use the word λαός, meaning "people (group)" (similar to Hebrew עם). Even though the word itself is singular, it represents a group of people. Therefore, we might expect to see "they" and "them" (and other such terms) in the plural, even though the word itself is grammatically singular.

Constructio ad sensum occurs naturally and cannot be expected to occur out of any obligation. It happens when the grammatical gender or number of a term doesn't match the real gender or number of the people that's being discussed.