Monday, April 16, 2018

The Attributive Genitive (Wallace)

Daniel B. Wallace (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 78-88) explains that in the case of the attributive genitive, "The genitive substantive specifies an attribute or innate quality of the head substantive. It is similar to a simple adjective in its semantic force, though more emphatic: it 'expresses quality like an adjective indeed, but with more sharpness and distinctness.'"

The last part of that quote is taken from A.T. Robertson's big grammar.

As Wallace points out, the genitive itself (whether possessive or descriptive, etc.) is grammatically substantival, but semantically adjectival; that is, the genitive functions like an adjective, although it is formally a substantive (i.e., a noun).

See Luke 16:9; Romans 6:6 for potential examples.

5 comments:

Philip Fletcher said...

Hi Edgar;
Have You seen the new Brochure, it just came out. Will there ever be a World without war. Saw something of interest in one of the subtitles. Does the Torah have 70 faces. Have not read into it yet. But this is somewhat different from other brochures from the JW.org website. Just thought I'd tell you about it. Never heard of the 70 faces of the Torah before. But in the Brochure section on the website.

Edgar Foster said...

Hi Philip,

Thanks for pointign me to the new brochure. It certainly looks interesting, and the brochure contains many new points and questions the Jewish oral Torah, for example. It is quite different from any other Witness brochure I've read. I have also read many books about Judaism, but don't remember the 70 faces saying. I could have forgotten it, but that saying is good to know for the ministry.

Best,

Edgar

Duncan said...

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Articles/Seventy_Faces/seventy_faces.html

70 faces is more like four levels.

Edgar Foster said...

I'm reading a book by Henri De Lubac about the four senses of scripture in ancient and medieval exegesis. It's similar to the seventy faces idea.

Duncan said...

http://dro.dur.ac.uk/22888/1/22888.pdf