examples of unusual word order in hina and hoti clauses

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 29 08:49:05 EDT 2002


At 7:38 AM -0500 8/29/02, Michael Burer wrote:
>I was reading in Galatians this morning and came across Gal 2:10:
>
>MONON TWN PTWCHWN hINA MNHMONEUWMEN
>
>TWN PTWCHWN is here functioning as the direct object of the verb
>MNHMONEUWMEN, but it actually precedes the hINA. My first impression is
>that it is outside the boundary of the hINA clause. Do you know of other
>examples where a semantic component of a hINA or hOTI clause precedes
>the hINA or hOTI? What implications does this have for meaning, if any?
>Is it simply a way of emphasizing the "misplaced" words?

I think this is a good question and that it's worth checking for other
instances; I wouldn't be surprised if Iver has already considered this
question, but I'll look into it myself. My first impression, however, is
that this is a matter of very emphatic placement in a passage that as a
whole is syntactically "irregular" (I'm inclined to think that the whole of
the first two chapters of Galatians is hurried, colloquial, and
syntactically "irregular" in the sense that it's not the sort of writing
done by a calm, careful, collected composer--that's a subjective judgment,
I realize, but it's one that I've expressed about these two chapters of
Galatians repeatedly).

The text of Gal 2:10:

MONON TWN PTWCWN hINA MNHMONEUWMEN, hO KAI ESPOUDASA AUTO TOUTO POIHSAI.

I think that if one Englished this as follows, it's "irregular" English but
perfectly intelligible:

"Just the 'poor'--that we should bear (them) in mind, which I've even made
(it) a point--to do this very thing."
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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