Romans 15:13

Stephen Carlson wrote:
OK, but that does not sound like the “same viewpoint” as expressed above.

Oh? Then sorry I must have interpreted Hefin’s terminology wrongly.

Statistics: Posted by David Lim — January 20th, 2014, 11:17 pm

David Lim wrote:

Hefin J. Jones wrote:Coming back to this after a while – her Wittgenstein quote was probably a classroom anecdote, but in the 1st Ed of “Relevance” she and Sperber say of genitives:

“It is hard to believe that the genitive is ambigious, with as many senses as there are types of relationships it may be used to denote, or that all these relationships fall under a single definition which is the only meaning expressed by the genitive on any given occasion. It seems, rather, that the semantic interpretation of a sentence with a genitive from which ambgiuities and referential indeterminacies have been eliminated is still soemthing less than fully propositional. Contextual information is needed to resolve what should be seen as the semantic incompleteness, rather than the ambiguity, of the genitive.”

I have the same viewpoint, and not just concerning the genitive but every element of any language in general. An English example is how “that” can mean many different things but in each case has a very precise function, and although many of its meanings are related, it is not the case that it just has one generic or vague meaning that applies to all usages, but that it has many specific meanings from which exactly one has to be selected according to the grammatical structure of the sentence and the context (except in special cases with deliberate double meanings).

OK, but that does not sound like the “same viewpoint” as expressed above.

Statistics: Posted by Stephen Carlson — January 20th, 2014, 5:35 am

Hefin J. Jones wrote:
Coming back to this after a while – her Wittgenstein quote was probably a classroom anecdote, but in the 1st Ed of “Relevance” she and Sperber say of genitives:

“It is hard to believe that the genitive is ambigious, with as many senses as there are types of relationships it may be used to denote, or that all these relationships fall under a single definition which is the only meaning expressed by the genitive on any given occasion. It seems, rather, that the semantic interpretation of a sentence with a genitive from which ambgiuities and referential indeterminacies have been eliminated is still soemthing less than fully propositional. Contextual information is needed to resolve what should be seen as the semantic incompleteness, rather than the ambiguity, of the genitive.”

I have the same viewpoint, and not just concerning the genitive but every element of any language in general. An English example is how “that” can mean many different things but in each case has a very precise function, and although many of its meanings are related, it is not the case that it just has one generic or vague meaning that applies to all usages, but that it has many specific meanings from which exactly one has to be selected according to the grammatical structure of the sentence and the context (except in special cases with deliberate double meanings).

Statistics: Posted by David Lim — January 20th, 2014, 5:14 am

In reading the Greek text I came across the expression “ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης” at Romans 15:33. In Wallace’s Exegetical Syntax he explains it as a genitive of product, meaning “the God who gives peace”, and he cites Romans 15:13 and15:33 as clear examples of it.-GGBB by Daniel B. Wallace, pages 106-109.

Romans 15:13 ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος πληρώσαι ὑμᾶς πάσης χαρᾶς καὶ εἰρήνης ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν, εἰς τὸ περισσεύειν ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἐν δυνάμει πνεύματος ἁγίου.

Romans 15:33 ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν· ἀμήν.

Resulting in something like:

Romans 15:13 May the God who gives hope fill you with all joy and peace by your believing, that you may abound in hope with power of holy spirit.

Romans 15:33 May the God who gives peace be with all of you. Amen

I’m having trouble finding anything in some of the older grammars that I have on hand. (i.e. Robertson, BDF, Smyth) Is this a new idea or is it spoken of in the earlier literature? Is this a category that is well established?

I don’t know the answer to your specific question, but I can tell you how to play the same game to make yourself sound/ seem like you can make categories that others couldn’t have imagined before you.

Making categories for these type of genitives is easy:
Starting point: A genitive is a direct relationship between two nouns. Let’s call them A and B.
First step: Think of A as a subject and B as an object, an imagine a logical sounding sort of verb between them.
Second step: Think of B as a subject and A as the object, and imagine a logical sounding sort of verb between them.
[Probably either one or both of those steps will be productive]
Third step: Take the meaningful result(s) from the first or second step, and think of other verbs that could also work with a similar meaning.
Fourth step: Look at the verbs you have come up with and think about a general sort of adjective that could sort of cover all of them, and hey presto, you have a coined another new class of genitive.

What use will it be for others? Debatable… At least it will be better than having it translated as “of”. At worst it means that you will have to think of what sort of verbs sort of have the meaning that the adjective describing the class could be used then use them to make a meaningful translation.

I’m not sure how better to describe it other than referring to vector and raster graphics. These type of point-by-point case-by-case categorisations create a limited set of explanations for an ever expanding set of points. Now, for a few points that is a saving, but seeing as the set is growing and it is growing in a very predictable way, we need to change the model of explanation from static to dynamic (raster to vector). A dynamic explanation – rather than a petrification of each instance when we look at it (cf. Medusa) – will provide an explanation for all of these cases that have arisen and will arise. A new and dynamic will bring freshness into future translation work. The future debate will be about which verbs are appropriate to use to explain the meaning of the text, rather than about what to call a genitive in a given situation.

For the few points that are not in such a relationship, individual explanations will still be neccessary, and they can have big words to describe them, so you feel like you are getting value for money when you buy a syntax. Some of the reasons for that will be older forms – fossils of the genitive when it had a different range of meaning and usage. Another reason will be for the various forms of (unchanged by the verb) referentiality that the genitive gives in sentences.

But of course, the historical development of terminology is always an intresting side interest in any field of study, but at present I have less reference works with me than you do, I can’t help you with that, sorry.

Coming back to this after a while – her Wittgenstein quote was probably a classroom anecdote, but in the 1st Ed of “Relevance” she and Sperber say of genitives:

“It is hard to believe that the genitive is ambigious, with as many senses as there are types of relationships it may be used to denote, or that all these relationships fall under a single definition which is the only meaning expressed by the genitive on any given occasion. It seems, rather, that the semantic interpretation of a sentence with a genitive from which ambgiuities and referential indeterminacies have been eliminated is still soemthing less than fully propositional. Contextual information is needed to resolve what should be seen as the semantic incompleteness, rather than the ambiguity, of the genitive.”

Not quite what I remembered her saying but close. Some NT Grammars share her sentiment if not her theoretical framework.

Statistics: Posted by Hefin J. Jones — January 20th, 2014, 2:13 am