Mt 26.73 - What is the second KAI doing?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Jan 1 10:00:48 EST 2000


At 6:40 AM -0800 1/1/00, phylax at aracnet.com wrote:
>Hello all, I'm trying to improve my understanding of some of the finer
>points of greek grammar, and was looking more carefully than I'm used to at
>how KAI is used.
>
>When I ran across the following (Mt 26.73), where Peter is accused of being
>one of Jesus' men.
>
>KAI GAR H LALIA SOU DHLON SE POIEI.
>
>So my question is, just what is this KAI doing?
>
>Thanks for advance, and if the answer is obvious my apologies in advance as
>well.

This is a relatively simple one: KAI here is functioning not as a
conjunction but as an adverb for "too" or "also" or "even" emphasizing the
word that follows it. Here the GAR, which must always be second in its
clause, intervenes, but the GAR really construes with hH LALIA: It's "For
even your speech makes you obvious" rather than "And since your speech
makes you obvious" (in fact, that GAR is out of place if the sentence is
read with KAI as conjunction).


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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