[B-Greek] John 13:24 EIH

bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca
Tue Apr 8 20:09:47 EDT 2003


 > <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca> writes:
> > John 13:24 NEUEI OUN TOUTWi SIMWN PETROS PUQESQAI TIS AN EIH PERI hOU
> >LEGEI.  Can someone translate this for me? The part that I am having
> >trouble with is EIH. I found this to be 3rd. sg present active optative
> >of EIMI. I just don`t know how to make sense of this in this passage.
> >Thank you.
> >Bert de Haan
> 
"Jerker Karlsson" <jerker.karlsson at kdu.se> replied:

> Verbatim: Nods thus at him Simon Peter to inquire who "it might be (AN
> EIH)" about whom he speaks.
> And in English proper: Simon Peter thus nods to him to make an inquiry
> about whom Jesus might be talking.
> 
> >NEUEI 
> Verb "to nod"
> >OUN
> particle with vague meaning. Denoting some sort of logical progression
> 
> > TOUTWi 
> Dative Object of direction "Nod at someone NEUW TINI" 
> 
> >SIMWN PETROS
> Subject, ie Simon is the one noding at TOUTWI 
> 
> > PUQESQAI 
> 
>  Infinitive of reason or motive often preceded by TOU. (Nod at someone to
> make him do someting) Here begins a final clause.  
> 
> 
> >TIS
> 
> Interrogative particle "who, whom"
> 
> > AN EIH 
> 
> "Potential optative" render by trying to add English modifiers such as
> "may, might, can" to the verb. AN is untranslatable and mostly functions
> as a signal that what is said isn't a plane description but something more
> abstract.
> 
> >PERI hOU 
> 
> Prepositional phrase with rel. pron. OS in gen. refering to the person
> about whom Jesus 
> >LEGEI.
> 
> /Jerker Karlsson
> Lund, Sweden

Thank you very much.
In my Grammar there is only a very small section devoted to the optative mood. One of the things it does say is that it is the mood of "wish". I was trying to make sense of this verse by doing something like; "...whoever he might wish it to be..." This obviously was not very satisfying. So, is the optative kind of a more 'hesitant' subjunctive? Something like "who this possibly might be"? instead of  "who this may be"?
What do you mean by -potential optative-?
Bert de Haan.
> 
> 
> 



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