[B-Greek] Optatives?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jul 2 09:23:18 EDT 2004


At 9:56 PM +1000 7/2/04, craig wrote:
>> At 5:28 PM +1000 7/2/04, <newsgroupstuff at swiftdsl.com.au> wrote:
>> >I only have a basic Greek text (Wenham), which doesn't say
>> much about
>> >optatives. Can someone explain the basic difference between optative
>> >and subjunctive moods?
>>
>> BASIC difference? This really depends upon which era of Greek
>> linguistic development one is speaking of. In CLASSICAL ATTIC
>> (and in the revived literary language of the late first, and
>> later centuries of the Christian era), the optative has two
>> or three fundamental functions: to express wishes, to
>> indicate possibilities and contingencies more remote than
>> those indicated by subjunctives (particularly in conditional
>> or implicitly conditional constructions), and to mark the
>> verb in a subordinate clause dependent upon a primary clause
>> whose verb is in a past tense. In the non-literary Koine it
>> is more obsolete than obsolescent; in the GNT there are 68
>> instances all told, and of these, by far the greatest number
>> are found in Luke's gospel and Acts--and in Paul. But the
>> Pauline usages (30x) are limited to wishes and to the rather
>> idiomatic expression MH GENOITO
>> (14x) which conveys something of the force of the American
>> English idiom, "No way!" In general, I think I perusal of
>> those 68 instances in the GNT will reveal that the great
>> majority of them are expressions of wishes ("May x happen/not
>> happen!").
>> --
>>
>> 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/
>
>Mainly I have been reading Basil lately, and he seems to use optatives
>frequently. I guess I am trying to understand the general difference in that
>both optatives and subjunctives seem to generally deal with 'uncertainties'.
>>From what you have said, and the little I have read, it seems to be that the
>'uncertainty' is 'more remote' in the case of optative. But I'm not exactly
>sure what it means by 'more remote'?
>
>Where there is an overlap of usage, what is the reason for choosing between
>subjunctive and optative? I detect some fine distinctions in the entries in
>Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox, Overview of Greek Syntax from the perseus site, but
>wondering if there is some general 'rule of thumb' that explains these
>distinctions and helps understand them, or if they just need to be learnt?

A not-very-helpful answer is that it requires considerable reading and
reflection upon subjunctive and optatives in literary texts to acquire a
grasp of the distinction, and even then one might have some difficulty
verbalizing it clearly for another to understand (that's my apologetic
"cop-out"!). On the other hand, an oversimplified description might state
that the Subjunctive originally expresses INTENTION (it's used for the
future in Homeric Greek), while the Optative originally expresses a WISH.
Another exercise that would help to clarify the distinction is to study
conditional constructions, particularly those relating to the future:

hOTAN ELQHi hO KURIOS, OYOMEQA AUTON PANTES "Whenever the Lord comes, we'll
all see him" (note that here the arrival of the Lord is conceived as likely
but indeterminate as to precise time in the future--and the verb of the
result clause is in the indicative because the speaker/writer is confident
that it will happen)

hOTE ELQOI hO KURIOS, OYOIMEQA AN AUTON PANTES "At any time (if and when)
the Lord should/might come, we would all see him" (this is called a "Future
remote" or "Future less vivid" condition by traditional grammarians; it
uses an optative because both the possible coming of the Lord and the
contingency of seeing him are both fervent wishes but something less than
confident expectations)

On the other hand, Classical Attic regularly uses the subjunctive for some
sorts of subordinate clauses when the verb of the main clause is in a
primary tense, the optative when the verb of the main clause is in a
secondary (past) tense, e.g.

ERWTWSIN hHMAS DIA TI TAUTA POIWMEN "They're asking us why we're doing this"
HRWTHASAN hHMAS DIA TI TAUTA POIOIMEN "They asked us why we were doing this."

>It seems that only optative is used when there is an expression of wishes..
>Is that true? Otherwise what else is used instead?

It's true that wishes constitute the original and most common usage of the
optative that survives in the Koine, but wishes are also beginning to be
expressed in Koine with the combination of QELW and hINA + subjunctive, e.g.

Mk 10:51 TI SOI QELEIS POIHSW? hO DE TUFLOS EIPEN AUTWi: hRABBOUNI, hINA
ANABLEYW (Attic would be: TI POIOIMI (SOI)? blind man's response:
ANABLEYAIMI) = "What should I do for you?" "I would see/I wish I could see!"

Mk 6:25 QELW hINA EXAUTHS DWiS MOI EPI PINAKI THN KEFALHN IWANNOU TOU
BAPTISTOU = "I want you to give me/I wish you would give me the head of
John the Baptist on a platter (Attic would be DOIHS MOI ...)

The great majority of the GNT optatives are indeed expressions of wishes or
clichés like MH GENOITO, originally a wish. Other GNT optative usages:

Indirect question after introductory past tense verb (there are several of
these):
Lk 1:29 (Mary) DIETARACQH KAI DIELOGIZETO POTAPOS EIH hO ASPASMOS "... was
upset and wondered what sort of greeting it might be."
Lk 18:36 AKOUSAS DE OCLOU DIAPOREUOMENOU EPUNQANETO TI EIH TOUTO " ... he
asked what that (commotion in the crowd) might be/was"

Potential used in a question (common in Attic, rarer in Koine):
Acts 8:31 ... PWS GAR AN DUNAIMHN EAN MH TIS hODHGHSEI ME? Ethiopian to
Philip: "After all, how could I (understand what I'm reading) unless
someone will show me the way?
-- 

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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