TIS and TIS
Richard Ghilardi
qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Mon Sep 9 14:44:21 EDT 2002
Dear B-Greekers,
Thank you, Carl and Iver. Your remarks are both interesting and helpful
to me as I continue to memorize my way through Romans 8. You have
anticipated most of my questions. I would only note here the reading of
the Byz text (Rom 8:24) and how it confirms Carl's understanding of TIS:
hO GAR BLEPEI TIS, TI KAI ELPIZEI
Having the shorter text (our NA27) before them, and not knowing quite
what to make of it, the Byz scribes inserted TI KAI between TIS and
ELPIZEI. In this way the scribes demonstrated that they understood 1)
that TIS is associated with BLEPEI and not with ELPIZEI, 2) that TIS is
indefinite and not interrogative, and 3) that there should be a pause
after TIS.
I say that this confirms Carl's understanding of TIS because he wrote:
<< I think there surely was, at an earlier stage in the language, a
clear difference of intonation between the oxytone and barytone forms of
TIS and TI--but I think that in most instances this distinction itself
was
assisted or even occasioned by a characteristically distinct positioning
of
the indefinite in an ENCLITIC position, of the interrogative in a marked
INITIAL position in the phrasing. >>
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Carl reads the text the same
way that the Byz scribes did. But once TIS is identified as indefinite it
is most naturally associated with BLEPEI in the enclitic position, as
Carl states above. I know that Carl takes TIS as interrogative -- and
rightly so.
I give below 3 translations of the Byz text in MGrk:
MPAMPAS: DIOTI EKEINO TO hOPOION BLEPEI TIS, DIA TI KAI ELPIZEI;
"For, for that which a man sees, why does he yet hope?"
BELLAS: DIATI NA ELPIZHi KANEIS DI' EKEINO POU HDH BLEPEI;
"Why should anyone hope for that which he already sees?"
IWANNIDHS: GIATI AN ENA PRAGMA TO BLEPEI KAPOIOS GIA POIO LOGO NA TO
ELPIZEI;
"For if someone sees a [hoped for] thing, on what ground should he hope
for it?"
Yours in His grace,
Richard Ghilardi -- qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
New Haven, CT USA
>
> >Rom 8:24: hO GAR BLEPEI TIS ELPIZEI
> > - who hopes for what he sees? or - does anyone hope for what he
> sees?
>
> I can recognize how some might consider this TIS indefinite, and I
> guess
> some might even say it's a "judgment call"--but I wouldn't hesitate
> to call
> this interrogative in its broader context of 1 Cor 10. It would be
> possible
> to understand the TIS as indefinite and mark a pause after the TIS,
> but the
> meaning of the sentence would change radically to: "For what a man
> (=
> anyone) sees, he hopes for." That is intelligible--but it doesn't
> suit the
> context.
>
> >The Friberg tagging system has marked the first two as
> interrogative, the
> >third as indefinite, the fourth as undecided between the two
> options.
>
> I'd only quibble about the fourth: as I've tried to show, it is
> possible to
> interpret the TIS as indefinite, but in the context of the passage
> it seems
> to me that it can only be interrogative.
> --
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