[B-Greek] John 6:9

Dony K. Donev dony at cupandcross.com
Fri Dec 14 10:31:17 EST 2007


Wouldn't a proper rendering keep the singular verb as it is in the Greek 
text:

"But these: what is it for so many?"


Dony K. Donev
________________________
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On Jun 1, 2006, at 7:45 AM, frjsilver at optonline.net wrote:

> Dear Friends --
>
> Isn't the subject here actually TI?
>
> The parenthetic question TI ESTIN is a grammatical capsule with its
> own subject and verb, which agree in number.  TAUTA (neuter plural)
> has merely an implied verb, if any.
>
> In English, maybe this comes out to something like 'But these (few)
> things -- what is *that* to (so many) of those people?'

Some might prefer to think of TI as the subject of ESTIN, but for my
part, I'd rather view the TI as a predicate word ("but these: what
are they for that number of people?"

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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