From: DWILKINS@ucrac1.ucr.edu
Date: Thu Oct 31 1996 - 16:05:51 EST
I have found mostly the same situation as Carl when teaching genitive abso-
lutes, which for me have become a favorite construction. I suspect there are
(at least) two roadblocks: (1) "genitive absolute" is not intuitive clear as
a term and is a little scary-sounding (a good term for Hallowe'en); (2) we
work very hard to get students to recognize and properly translate the cases,
and yet for the genitive absolute I find myself essentially telling the
students to ignore the meaning of the case. This may sound like bad and not-
to-be-trusted advice. I would be interested in the thoughts of any of our
"junior" Greeks; do you guys have the kind of trouble with this construction
that I'm describing, or what else about it poses an obstacle?
Don Wilkins
UC Riverside
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