Stephen Carlson wrote:The inference is asymmetric. When there is constructio ad sensum, you may assume that the author conceives of the noun as somehow personal. When you have ordinary grammatical agreement, you can't assume anything about how the author conceives of the personality of the noun.
Thanks for your thoughts Steven.
It is true that when we have normal grammatical construction we can't assume personality or non-personality from the grammar alone.
It is also true that Greek writers tend to [subconsciously] refer to personalities with personal pronouns even when the grammatical gender of the noun they're representing is neuter. Is John being inconsistent in the prologue ( neuter pronoun referring to τὸ φῶς [a personality?] in verse 5, personal pronoun referring to τὸ φῶς [a personality] in verse 10 ) , or did he not imagine τὸ φῶς to be personal at verse 5 ? While the normal construction at John 1:5 does not prove that τὸ φῶς in verse 5 isn't a personality, it seems to strongly argue against it being personal.
JM,