Degree of indefiniteness of hOSOI clause in Gal 3.10
Moon-Ryul Jung
moon at saint.soongsil.ac.kr
Sat Feb 5 20:02:35 EST 2000
Dear Warren,
thanks for the information. Please allow me to ask some clarifying
questions.
>
> You might be happy to know that hOSOS/H/O lives on in Modern Greek in its
> historic role as a correlative of quantity.
What is "a correlative of quantity"?
>
> In MG, hOSIOS can still highlight indefiniteness by the using the subjunctive
> with (KAI) AN. Amazing, isn't it, the persistence of this language?
So, the original relative pronoun, hO, is replaced by POU, but hOSIOS
has survived?
>Returning to
> Moon's original question, then, the Gal. 3:10 use of hOSOI plus indicative,
> when viewed through a synchronic lens of language development, would seem to
> point to a low degree of indefiniteness.
I wanted to know the hOSOI clause in Gal 3:10 single out a historical
entity rather than potentially existing entity. By "low degree of
indefiniteness"
do you mean that the hOSOI clause refer to an entity which is potentially
existing, but which may be realized at any moment?
Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
> PS to Carl: Alas, the relative pronoun hO/S, hH/, hO/ has indeed passed away,
> the last vestiges, according to Browning ("Medieval and Modern Greek," 1969),
> having disappeared in the 16th century. Of course, most of these forms are
> thriving today as regular -- unaccented -- articles. They also survive --
> unaccented -- in the katherevousa relative, a paraphrastic formula like our "the
> one who/which:" hO hOPOIOS, hH hOPOIA, TO hOPOIO. The demotic relative is an
> indeclinable POU, which is even easier to handle than the English "who/which" as
> it refers to both people and things. What a blessing POU is for foreign
> speakers. There's not even a "whom" for ornery sticklers to catch you on. Just
> think: All those permutations of agreement you once had to juggle in your head
> when tacking on a relative clause -- all gone, POU-fff!
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list