[B-Greek] Subjunctive Aorist

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu May 1 10:18:00 EDT 2003


I'm not sure whether this was meant for me alone or for the list, but I
think I'll send it along with my reply to the list.

Rom 14:11 GEGRAPTAI GAR: ZW EGW, LEGEI KURIOS, hOTI EMOI KAMYEI PAN GONU
KAI PASA GLWSSA EXOMOLOGHSETAI TWi QEWi

Of course this is a citation from Isaiah 45:23 and both verbs, KAMYEI and
EXOMOLOGHSETAI, are future. In response to the question, I frankly don't
see why, although the Isaiah source is involved in both cases, the forms of
Romans 14:11 should have any bearing on how the aorist subjunctives in Phil
2:10-11 should be translated; In Philippians those aorist subjunctives
belong to a hINA clause that is subordinate to a primary clause (hO QEOS
AUTON hUPERUYWSEN); the question of how to translate it is more a question
of English representation of one's understanding of the Greek than of the
certainty of the future happening.

At 9:59 AM -0400 5/1/03, Ronald J Gordon wrote:
>What effect, if any, should the Future middle of Romans 14:11 have upon a
>translator working on Phil. 2:10-11?
>
>Ronald Gordon
>
>On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 06:48:07 -0400 "Carl W. Conrad"
><cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
>> At 10:54 AM +0300 4/30/03, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> >
>> >Would it help if we translated "for every knee to bow and every
>> tongue to
>> >confess"? I am not suggesting that for a real translation, only to
>> indicate
>> >that the hINA plus subjunctive is close to the infinitive, and it
>> is often
>> >not clear whether purpose or result was intended, and I don't think
>> it is
>> >important to make such a distinction every time. One of the
>> problems is
>> >whether to classify "intended result" under result of purpose.
>>
>> I would take this one step further and say (as I have said hitherto
>> in this
>> forum) that clauses in hINA + subjunctive are indeed so close to the
>> infinitive that they often appear as simple noun clauses. The
>> infinitive in
>> Modern Greek is NA + subjunctive (aorist or present subjunctive to
>> differentiate aspect only); the infinitive in Modern Greek is
>> conjugated
>> for person and number, strange as that may seem, The point, however,
>> is
>> that Iver is quite right here; hINA clauses cannot in many cases be
>> readily
>> classified as result-clauses OR as purpose clauses; often enough
>> they are
>> simply substantive clauses.
>> --
>>
>> Carl W. Conrad
>> Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
>> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
>> cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
>> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
>> B-Greek mailing list
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>>
>
>
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-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/


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