Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

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Girgis Boshra
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Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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)?
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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;
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Iver Larsen
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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.
timothy_p_mcmahon
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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!
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Girgis Boshra
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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
Jason Hare
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Re: Using masculine instead of neuter in John 6:9

Post 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.
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
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