Re: John 16:15: EMA ESTIN -- why accusative?

From: Paul J. Bodin (pjbodin@sirius.com)
Date: Wed Aug 21 1996 - 14:28:32 EDT


At 10:44 AM 8/21/96 -0500, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

>At 8:48 AM -0500 8/21/96, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>> [...]
>> I don't think of the accusative as indicating possession, I thought
>> that's what we pay the genitive to do.
>
>It's NOT accusative, but nom. pl.;PANTA is the subject, EMA is the
>predicate adjective; what's accusative is hOSA in the subordinate clause
>hOSA EXEI hO PATHR. It's important to remember that the nominative and
>accusative of neuters are identical in the singular and again in the
>plural, and also, of course, that neuter plural subjects generally
>(although not altogether consistently in the NT) take a singular verb.

In addition, Carl, I think that Jonathan may have overlooked that this word
is a form of the possessive adjective, EMOS, and thus inherently denotes
possession in all cases. As you will know, many students initially confuse
forms of the first person pronoun with the forms of the first person
possessive adjective.

___________________________________________________________________________
 Paul J. Bodin Internet: pjbodin@sirius.com
 Seminary Pastor smail: 1333 66th Street
 Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary Berkeley, CA 94702-2617



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