predicate genitive

Stirling Bartholomew
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predicate genitive

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

This question has been floating unanswered on Textkit for several weeks. I know people
on this forum who can help out and since it is a question that appears in NT grammars
I will post it hear even though the it was not specifically a question about Biblical texts.
A.T. Robertson p497

... predicate genitive while having the copula ... in reality it is to be explained as a genitive with substantives. It is not the copula that affects the case of the genitive at all. It is just the possessive genitive in the predicate instead of being an attribute. Often the substantive or pronoun is repeated in sense before the predicate genitive.

Guy Cooper 1:47.6.1 p172

The genitive in the predicate is never strictly a mere equivalent of an adjective. The genitive is a substantive and its use adds an incidental assertion by virtue of the introduction of the new, distinct entity.

D.B. Wallace Exegetical Syntax p. 201

The genitive substantive makes an assertion about another genitive substantive, much like a predicate nominative does.
A very simple example from Paul

1Cor. 3:4 ὅταν γὰρ λέγῃ τις· ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι Παύλου, ἕτερος δέ· ἐγὼ Ἀπολλῶ, οὐκ ἄνθρωποί ἐστε;

with the copula

μέν εἰμι Παύλου,

without the copula

ἕτερος δέ· ἐγὼ Ἀπολλῶ

now what I can't answer is how this applies to a quote from Thucydides quoted in H.W. Smyth 1320:
Smyth 1320:
The genitive to denote quality occurs chiefly as a predicate.

ἐὼν τρόπου ἡσυχίου being of a peaceful disposition Hdt. 1.107,
οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης ὀλίγοι κατέφυγον
but some few of the same opinion fled T. 3.70....
Thucy. 3.70-71
οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι ἐς
τὴν Ἀττικὴν τριήρη κατέφυγον ἔτι παροῦσα

It looks like Smyth is suggesting that τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης is functioning as a deep structure[1] predicate for τινες ... ὀλίγοι. I am not certain that is what he is suggesting and my track record in trying to read the minds grammarians before 1950 isn't very good. Another alternative is that Smyth is suggesting a predicate relationship within the genitive constituent itself τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης. In other words αὐτῆς is being predicated about γνώμης.

Would appreciate hearing from some of you who are more comfortable with Smyth, ATR, Blass etc.

EDIT: Looking at Wallace, Cooper and ATR I am not at all certain they are talking about the same thing. Wallace seems to be addressing a restricted case where the predicate genitive must be construed with another genitive. Cooper and ATR don't restrict it in that manner, so perhaps I don't have the right quote from Wallace. I don't generally read him and don't have a copy of his Grammar on hand.

[1]Smyth wouldn't have known about deep structure.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
MAubrey
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by MAubrey »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:[1]Smyth wouldn't have known about deep structure.
Which is perfectly fine, since it doesn't exist anyway...

But as for the actual question:

I don't see that particular quote from Wallace on Page 201. That second discusses appositional accusatives. And in Wallace's individual genitive categories, as far as I can ascertain from the table of contents, doesn't include a predicate genitive. He does have, however, a "genitive of apposition" which might be what you're looking for and on page 96ff. he talks about "Embedded Equative Clauses" which parallels what you said about Smyth and "deep structure."
Wallace, 96 wrote:In a genitive of apposition construction, the genitive is semantically equivalent to a subject that designates a particular belonging to a larger group (predicate nominative). Thus, “the sign of circumcision” can be unpacked as “circumcision is a sign” (but not “a sign is circumcision”). In this example, the lexical field of “sign” is much larger than that for “circumcision.”
I don't know if that helps you at all...
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George F Somsel
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by George F Somsel »

What Smyth describes appears to me to be somewhat similar to the Genitive of Relationship. Μαρία τοῦ Κλωπᾶ specifies that she is related to Klopas (the wife) while Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου indicates that James is related to Zebedee in that he is the son. Τρόπου ἡσυχίου indicates a relation to a person such that they possess that quality.

BTW: I'm not sure about your reference to Wallace. It doesn't appear to be from his GGBB (nor do you claim that it is), and his Basics of New Testament Syntax, according to the TOC on Amazon, indicates that p 201 begins a section on the subjunctive mood.
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defend the truth till death.



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Stephen Carlson
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stephen Carlson »

My guess is that when Smyth says "The genitive to denote quality occurs chiefly as a predicate," the word "chiefly" means "not always" and so he's not asserting that all of his examples are predicate genitive, though the assertion is that all are genitives of quality.
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by cwconrad »

Doesn't this thread belong rather to "Syntax and Grammar"?

The better starting point would probably have been Smyth §§1303-4:
1303. Predicate Use.—The genitive may be connected with the noun it limits by means of a verb.
Ἱπποκράτης ἐστὶ οἰκίᾱς μεγάλης Hippocrates is of an influential house P. Pr. 316 b, Βοιωτῶν ἡ πόλις ἔσται the city will belong to the Boeotians L. 12. 58, ἡ Ζέλειά ἐστι τῆς Ἀσίᾱς Zelea is in Asia D. 9. 43, οὐδὲ τῆς αὐτῆς Θρᾴκης ἐγένοντο nor did they belong to the same Thrace T. 2. 29, ἃ διώκει τοῦ ψηφίσματος, ταῦτʼ ἐστίν the clauses in the bill which he attacks, are these D. 18. 56.

1304. The genitive with εἰμί may denote the person whose nature, duty, custom, etc., it is to do that set forth in an infinitive subject of the verb: πενίᾱν φέρειν οὐ παντός, ἀλλʼ ἀνδρὸς σοφοῦ ’tis the sage, not every one, who can bear poverty Men. Sent. 463, δοκεῖ δικαίου τοῦτʼ εἶναι πολῑ́του this seems to be the duty of a just citizen D. 8, 72, τῶν νῑκώντων ἐστὶ καὶ τὰ ἑαυτῶν σῴζειν καὶ τὰ τῶν ἡττωμένων λαμβάνειν it is the custom of conquerors to keep what is their own and to take the possessions of the defeated X. A. 3. 2. 39.


Smyth, H. W. (1920). A Greek Grammar for Colleges (315). New York; Cincinnati; Chicago; Boston; Atlanta: American Book Company.
The whole of AT Robertson's account of the Predicate Genitive (pp. 497-8) is worth attention; there are quite a few examples cited, both from the GNT and from extra-biblical authors.

As for Smyth §1320, Stephen is clearly right; Smyth is not claiming there that all instances of what he calls "genitive of qality" are predicative, but that they are frequently found in the predicate; the example from Thuc. 3.70 was not a predicate genitive.

Wallace on genitive usage casts more shadows than light, I think; it all culminates in his subcategory of "Descriptive Genitive" (p. 79), which he also calls "Aporetic Genitive" (i.e. the "I don't know who's on third base" genitive) further categorizes:
This is the “catch-all” genitive, the “drip pan” genitive, the “black hole” of genitive categories that tries to suck many a genitive into its grasp! In some respects, all adjectival genitives are descriptive, yet no adjectival genitive is descriptive. That is to say, although all adjectival genitives are, by their nature, descriptive, very few, if any, belong only to this specific category of usage. This use truly embodies the root idea of the (adjectival) genitive. It is often the usage of the genitive when it has not been affected by other linguistic considerations—that is, when there are no contextual, lexemic, or other grammatical features that suggest a more specific nuance.22
I think he's right, although I'd never describe this as a 'residual' subcategory of genitive usage but rather as the essential character of the genitive as the case of "belonging" -- or, as a colleague of mine once called it, "pertinentive." The original IE genitive is not really a semantic so much as a structural case linking a noun to another noun.

I first learned the "Predicate Genitive" as a construction in Latin, illustrated most simply in the sentence
Consulis est senatum consulere. ["it's up to the consult to consult the senate."]
Two particularly striking (I haven't forgotten themLatin instances of the Predicate Genitive appear in Cicero's defense of his wayward protégė, Marcus Caelius:
Sed istarum partium culpa est eorum, qui te agere voluerunt; laus pudoris tui, quod ea te invitum dicere videbamus, ingenii, quod ornate politeque dixisti. Pro Caelio 8 ["But the blame for your performance of that role belongs to those who wanted you to play it; the applause accrues to your character, since we realized you didn't want to do it but performed so eloquently"]
and
Sed vestrae sapientiae tamen est, iudices, non, si causa iusta est viris fortibus oppugnandi M. Caelium, ideo vobis quoque vos causam putare esse iustam alieno dolori potius quam vestrae fidei consulendi. Pro Caelio 21 "But it belongs to your sagacity, gentlemen of the jury, not to suppose that, just because powerful men have good reason for opposing Marcus Caelius, ...
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Thank you for the helpful replies.

I did invert the numbers on the Wallace citation which is
found on page 54 of Basics NT Syntax and102 in ExSyn (GGBB?)
under the heading Predicate Genitive. Here is the full
citation from page 54 of BNTS:
Wallace Basics of NT Syntax p54

11. Predicate Genitive ExSyn 102
a. Definition. The genitive substantive makes an assertion about another genitive
substantive, much like a predicate nominative does. The difference, however,
is that with the predicate genitive the equative verb is a participle (in the
genitive case) rather than a finite verb. This category is relatively uncommon.
This kind of genitive is in reality an emphatic kind of simple apposition in the genitive
(emphatic because of the presence of the participial form of the equative
verb). Both adjectival participles and the genitive absolute participle (which is
always circumstantial) can be used in this way.
b. Illustrations

Acts 7:58 νεανίου καλουμένου Σαύλου a young man called Saul

Rom 5:8 ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν
while we were yet sinners Christ died for us
The predicate genitive being a syntax category is unrelated to the semantic categories for the genitive. RIght? It shows up in various grammars under the headings for different semantic categories like genitive of possession and genitive of quality and in BDF #164 under partitive genitive where Acts 23:6 is cited as an example:

Acts 23:6 Γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Παῦλος ὅτι τὸ ἓν μέρος ἐστὶν Σαδδουκαίων τὸ δὲ ἕτερον Φαρισαίων ἔκραζεν ἐν τῷ συνεδρίῳ· ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί, ἐγὼ Φαρισαῖός εἰμι, υἱὸς Φαρισαίων, περὶ ἐλπίδος καὶ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν [ἐγὼ] κρίνομαι.

After reading read Smyth 1303ff I now return to exegesis of H. W. Smyth 1320-1321. Thucydides 3.70 example still bothers me. I wonder why Smyth would make a statement and in the second citation give confusing evidence. The first line of Smyth 1321 introduces exceptions to the statment in the first line 1320. This leads me to conclude that all the citations under 1320 are intended as examples of the predicate genitive. Assuming that is the case I return to Thucy. 3.70:

Thucy. 3.70
οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι ἐς
τὴν Ἀττικὴν τριήρη κατέφυγον ἔτι παροῦσα

What if we read this as a partitive genitive in a verb-less predicate genitive construction, where οἱ δέ τινες ... ὀλίγοι [copula] τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης (some few of the same opinion —Smyth) is the deep structure?

My reading of Cooper and ATR leads me to understand that the verb-less predicate genitive construction exists.
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:The predicate genitive being a syntax category is unrelated to the semantic categories for the genitive. RIght?
Yeah, that's how I understand it. I don't know why Wallace defines the category the way he does as if it is on par with the semantic categories. His examples are all clearly genitive absolutes or attributive participles of genitives already so for an independent syntactic reason.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:After reading read Smyth 1303ff I now return to exegesis of H. W. Smyth 1320-1321. Thucydides 3.70 example still bothers me. I wonder why Smyth would make a statement and in the second citation give confusing evidence. The first line of Smyth 1321 introduces exceptions to the statment in the first line 1320. This leads me to conclude that all the citations under 1320 are intended as examples of the predicate genitive. Assuming that is the case I return to Thucy. 3.70:

Thucy. 3.70
οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι ἐς
τὴν Ἀττικὴν τριήρη κατέφυγον ἔτι παροῦσα

What if we read this as a partitive genitive in a verb-less predicate genitive construction, where οἱ δέ τινες ... ὀλίγοι [copula] τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης (some few of the same opinion —Smyth) is the deep structure?
I don't quite see how one can get a predicate genitive out of οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι, unless one takes the head of this NP to be τινές instead of ὀλίγοι. As I don't have a full-fledged theory of the Greek noun phrase (yet), I'm not all that ready to say which analysis is preferable. I had assumed that ὀλίγοι was the head, and that τινές and τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης were attributive.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:My reading of Cooper and ATR leads me to understand that the verb-less predicate genitive construction exists.
I would assume that predicate genitives can exist wherever predicate nominatives can exist.
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by cwconrad »

I don't think that the citation of Thuc. 3.70 was ever intended by Smyth to illustrate a predicate genitive construction, but rather illustrates another genitive of quality, this one not used as a predicate. I do think that τινες is the head here and that ὀλίγοι is a quasi-adverbial qualifier ("not very many"). The genitive phrase, τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης, describes the ones who fled as sharing the opinion of Peithias.

We are talking, I think, in every instance of genitive phrases used with the copula, some form of εἶναι. We've cited examples that are "possessive" genitives (ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι Παύλου) and some that are "descriptive" genitives (ἐὼν τρόπου ἡσυχίου). There may be other types of genitives that could be used in the predicate. It may well be that the predicate genitive is more emphatic than a predicate nominative; I'm not sure it's not a matter of rhetorical variation. I'll use a Latin illustration again: compare errare humanum est, ignoscere divinum with errare hominis est, ignoscere dei.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote:I don't think that the citation of Thuc. 3.70 was ever intended by Smyth to illustrate a predicate genitive construction, but rather illustrates another genitive of quality, this one not used as a predicate. I do think that τινες is the head here and that ὀλίγοι is a quasi-adverbial qualifier ("not very many"). The genitive phrase, τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης, describes the ones who fled as sharing the opinion of Peithias.

We are talking, I think, in every instance of genitive phrases used with the copula, some form of εἶναι. We've cited examples that are "possessive" genitives (ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι Παύλου) and some that are "descriptive" genitives (ἐὼν τρόπου ἡσυχίου). There may be other types of genitives that could be used in the predicate. It may well be that the predicate genitive is more emphatic than a predicate nominative; I'm not sure it's not a matter of rhetorical variation. I'll use a Latin illustration again: compare errare humanum est, ignoscere divinum with errare hominis est, ignoscere dei.
Carl,

I don't have an ax to grind here, this is a question someone else raised who is reading Thucydides. I'm not reading Thucydides. I looked and found this citation Thuc. 3.70 in Cooper under his discussion of the predicate genitive. I know Cooper isn't popular for various reasons (cost!!). Anyway, I have transcribed only the appropriate subsection since he devotes five full pages to the predicate genitive. I have also include a subset of his citations with some co-text. The Thuc. 3.70 citation is at the end. It is possible that Cooper let at graduate student collect samples and that graduate student just blindly coppied out of Smyth so that we end up with nothing more than an old misunderstanding reproduced. That's just idle speculation on my part, I don't any inside information on how these writing projects proceed but I was under the impression that some of the work is delegated.
G.Cooper [1]

A personal subject and an impersonal predicative genitive, usually an abstract of intellectual or moral significance, is not common. But the construction is of considerable interest because of its suggestion of obsession, ideology, or indelible character trait (A).

A

E. El. 949

... ἀλλ' ἔμοιγ' εἴη πόσις
μὴ παρθενωπὸς ἀλλὰ τἀνδρείου τρόπου.

co-text
ὕβριζες, ὡς δὴ βασιλικοὺς ἔχων δόμους
κάλλει τ' ἀραρώς. ἀλλ' ἔμοιγ' εἴη πόσις
μὴ παρθενωπὸς ἀλλὰ τἀνδρείου τρόπου.
τὰ γὰρ τέκν' αὐτῶν Ἄρεος ἐκκρεμάννυται,
τὰ δ' εὐπρεπῆ δὴ κόσμος ἐν χοροῖς μόνον.

Aeschines Orat. 3.168.9

μὴ ὁποτέρου τοῦ λόγου, ἀλλ' ὁποτέρου
τοῦ βίου ἐστίν.

co-text
Ἐγὼ μὲν μεθ' ὑμῶν λογιοῦμαι ἃ δεῖ
ὑπάρξαι ἐν τῇ φύσει τῷ δημοτικῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ σώφρονι, καὶ
ἀντιθήσω ποῖόν τινα εἰκός ἐστιν εἶναι τὸν ὀλιγαρχικὸν
ἄνθρωπον καὶ φαῦλον· ὑμεῖς δ' ἀντιθέντες ἑκάτερα τούτων
θεωρήσατ' αὐτόν, μὴ ὁποτέρου τοῦ λόγου, ἀλλ' ὁποτέρου
τοῦ βίου ἐστίν.

Pl.Grg 482a
ἄλλοτε ἄλλων ἐστὶ λόγων, ἡ δὲ φιλοσοφία ἀεὶ
τῶν αὐτῶν

cotext
λέγει γάρ, ὦ φίλε ἑταῖρε, ἃ νῦν ἐμοῦ ἀκούεις, καί μοί ἐστιν
τῶν ἑτέρων παιδικῶν πολὺ ἧττον ἔμπληκτος· ὁ μὲν γὰρ Κλει-
νίειος οὗτος ἄλλοτε ἄλλων ἐστὶ λόγων, ἡ δὲ φιλοσοφία ἀεὶ
τῶν αὐτῶν, λέγει δὲ ἃ σὺ νῦν θαυμάζεις, παρῆσθα δὲ καὶ
αὐτὸς λεγομένοις. ἢ οὖν ἐκείνην ἐξέλεγξον, ὅπερ ἄρτι
ἔλεγον, ὡς οὐ τὸ ἀδικεῖν ἐστιν καὶ ἀδικοῦντα δίκην μὴ δι-
δόναι ἁπάντων ἔσχατον κακῶν·

T. 30.70.6 τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης

co-text
T. 30.70.6
οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι ἐς
τὴν Ἀττικὴν τριήρη κατέφυγον ἔτι παροῦσαν.

[1] Guy L. Cooper III, Attic Greek Prose Syntax, vol. 1, p.175, section 47.6.10.
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
I don't quite see how one can get a predicate genitive out of οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ ὀλίγοι, unless one takes the head of this NP to be τινές instead of ὀλίγοι. As I don't have a full-fledged theory of the Greek noun phrase (yet), I'm not all that ready to say which analysis is preferable. I had assumed that ὀλίγοι was the head, and that τινές and τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης were attributive.
Stephen,

Yes I understand the problem. It isn't easy to make this work as a predicate genitive. This is a common experience with Cooper's citations. A lot of them leave me wondering what on earth he is trying to demonstrate with this text. Happens all the time with Cooper.

How do you read the article οἱ, with οἱ ... ὀλίγοι ? and what about τινες placed between the article and the noun?

My speculations about parsing this are just that, speculations.

Thanks for helping out.

CSB
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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