[B-Greek] "gnomic" masculine
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Jun 26 19:24:44 EDT 2008
On Jun 26, 2008, at 6:03 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
> On Jun 26, 2008, at 1:20 PM, Carl Conrad wrote:
>
>> I don't find this at all problematic except for the term "gnomic" --
>> do you perhaps mean "generic"?
>
>
> Carl,
>
> OK, the term is used by Cooper, KLUTAIMHSTRA's statement is gnomic,
> the masculine used in the statement is generic.
> Cooper again, the persons referred to by this masculine are women,
> exclusively, cannot be men.
That I understand and have no problem with. Having done a Google
search for "gnomic masculine" I've found a few references on the net,
although several of those I found referred specifically to the passage
you cite. It's just the terminology that I find questionable; it seems
to me that what's involved here is a generalizing statement such as
hOSTIS AN TOUTO POIHSHi ENOCOS ESTAI QANATOU, where the hOSTIS could
very well refer to a woman. ENOCOS happens to be a common-termination
adjective, but the masculine of a regular 3-termination adjective
would be used in the same situation.
I'm quibbling, of course, as I quibble at such Wallace-isms as
"aporetic genitive."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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