[B-Greek] Phil. 1:27-28
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat May 15 08:05:18 EDT 2004
At 12:40 PM +0100 5/15/04, Jody Barnard wrote:
>Dear b-greekers, I am currently working through
>Mounces graded reader and my question concerns the
>following passage:
>
>. . . AKOUW TA PERI hUMWN, hOTI STHKETE EN hENI
>PNEUMATI, MIAi PSUCHi SUNAQLOUNTES THi PISTEI TOU
>EUAGGELIOU KAI MH PTUROMENOI EN MHDENI hUPO TWN
>ANTIKEIMWN, hHTIS ESTIN AUTOIS ENDEIXIS APWLEIAS,
>hUMWN DE SWTHRIAS . . .
>
>What is the antecedent of hHTIS?
>Some suggest it is THi PISTEI, that is the gospel,
>which seems to make sense to me, but others suggest it
>has a wider application and refers to the entire
>preceding clause. Why do they say this and to what
>extent could hHTIS refer the preceding clause?
>
>Leading on from that, how common is it for a relative
>pronoun to refer back to an entire clause rather than
>a single word and are there any rules/indicators,
>other than context, that help clarify the referent of
>a relative pronoun?
Precisely this question regarding hHTIS was the topic of a lengthy thread
in which Iver Larsen and I were the primary correspondents; it was initited
by Iver in a post of January 8, 2002 with subject-header "Phil 1:28 hHTIS",
continued under that subject-header through January 11, 2002, continued
with a few more messages on January 13-14, 2002, and concluded with my
final comment on February 11, 2002. I really think all the arguments for
and against alternative views of this question were pretty well set forth
there, and if you have sufficient interest and patience you can follow them
through that entire exchange.
In brief, however, hHTIS can refer to the entire preceding clause if one
understands the gender and number of hHTIS as determined by ENDEIXIS in its
own clause: the relative pronoun when it has demonstrative force may agree
in number and gender with its predicate noun. That's the position I took in
the above-referenced correspondence; Iver took the alternative position
that hHTIS had PISTEI as its antecdent. I don't think the matter needs
rehashing, inasmuch as the arguments and counter-arguments are all in that
thread of two years ago.
--
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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