[B-Greek] M. Sim dissertation on hINA (was hINA in Jn 9:3, 11:4)

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Feb 9 16:26:46 EST 2009


One last time (I think) --

On Feb 9, 2009, at 1:57 PM, Brian Abasciano wrote:

>
>
>>> Carl, are you reversing your judgment that BDAG pretty much has  
>>> hINA right?
>>
>> Not at all; I think that you'll see that different suggested  
>> glosses  are indicated for different usages of hINA, most  
>> fundamentally "in  order that" and "that" (introducing a noun  
>> clause), but these are  really very rough equivalents. In practice  
>> the constructions using  hINA have to be understood as one meets  
>> them, and if one undertakes in  each instance to put them into  
>> English translation, some care will  have to be taken to find the  
>> appropriate locution. There are some  constructions where an  
>> English infinitive would seem to be the most  appropriate  
>> "equivalent."
>
> I agree.
>
>
>> How would you define the semantic value of the conjunction/particle  
>> "that" is in English? If you looked carefully at my "nit-picking"  
>> criticisms, you should have noticed what I said about hINA as a   
>> spatial adverb in classical Greek and hINA TI (= hINATI) in Koine:   
>> that it's not quite completely empty semantically; if I had to  
>> offer a  single equivalent for hINA I might suggest "for" or "to"  
>> -- the "to"  that is used to form an infinitive in standard  
>> English.  Etymologically, I think that hINA originally meant  
>> something like "in  the direction of."
>
> Ok, so then I would say that I agree with your nitpick on that  
> issue, which was the main issue of my comments. But I don't know  
> that it is necessarily merely  a nitpick.

Sure it's a nitpick. When Tiresias tells Oedipus οὐδ' ὁρᾶν  
ἵν' εἶ κακοῦ "nor see how deep in woe you are" , that hINA  
doesn't tell us anything about what the semantic force of hINA in  
OT367. Nor does hINA TI offer much of a clue, especially since the  
interrogative TI by itself can mean "why?"

What Sim says is that hINA alerts the listener/reader to a proposition  
that is potential in nature, just as hOTI (she says) alerts the reader  
to a proposition that is essentially factual in nature. hINA +  
subjunctive = "I/you/he-she-it, etc. SHOULD do x." hOTI + indicative =  
"i/you/he-she-it, etc. IS/DOES x."

>> I don't think a "normal" reader or listener who knows Greek  
>> analyzes a text for contextual clues about hINA. It is only if one  
>> has learned  Greek with the single gloss, "in order that" for hINA  
>> that one will  run into problems with it. And if you use "so that,"  
>> you have  something that will work with both telic and ecbatic  
>> functions. I  think that beginning-intermediate students of Koine  
>> have more trouble  with the substantival clauses introduced by hINA  
>> -- until they've seen  enough of them and recognize them without  
>> further thought.
>
> Well, the significance of context does not have to take place as a  
> scholarly analysis, and very often it can take place quite naturally  
> or almost subconsciouly. I assume you agree that context will  
> largely dictate how the reder/listener takes hINA, or at least the  
> logical relationship of the phrase it heads to what it is connected  
> to. I would think that the gloss "in order that" has come to be  
> regarded as the meaning of hINA because that is its most usual  
> usage. I completely welcome the point hINA often means something  
> else. I am concerned not to deny that hINA might have an unmarked  
> meaning.
>
>>
>> What would you say of English "that" in the following three  
>> sentences.
>>
>> 1. There were so many beautiful paintings in the gallery that I  
>> didn't know where to begin.
>> 2. What I really wish is that you would go away.
>> 3. It is God's will that not a single person should perish.
>>
>> In each instance, "that" serves the same function we're saying  
>> hINA  has in comparable Koine Greek sentences; would you conclude  
>> therefrom  that the semantic value of hINA is "that"? I wouldn't;  
>> I'd say that  "that" in these sentences performs a comparable  
>> syntactic function to  that performed by hINA in Greek constructions.
>
> Again, I would agree with you. But this seems merely to highlight  
> what we already knew without Sim's dissertation, that hINA is a  
> conjuntion / syntactical marker. One important question is, what  
> does it mark? That's where we talk about the range of "meaning" of  
> hINA. It is often used to mark purpose, sometimes result, objective  
> (I wonder if it would be better to call this epexegetic,  
> complementary, content or the like), or emphasis. It seems helpful  
> to me to recognize whether hINA has an unmarked "meaning" or  
> function, which I would think is to mark purpose clauses, though not  
> as unmarked as many assume.
>
> Let me add that I think the English "that" does not seem to have a  
> comparable range of meaning as does hINA. Or perhaps it is more  
> accurate to say that its range of marking function is more easily  
> indicated by its context. This may be because English "that" does  
> not have an ecbatic function on its own; it needs to be "so that".  
> And it is probably true that thre are typically other indicators to  
> mark "that" in English as beginning a purpose clause, such as  
> wording that would indicate a subjunctive. In Greek, hINA's ecbatic  
> sense is used with the subjunctive so that (that's a result usage of  
> "so that" right there) it is only non-grmmatical context that  
> indicates whether the hINA clause is telic, ecbatic, or both.

Well, it doesn't need to be together; the following are instances of  
"ecbatic that": "He had drunk so much that he staggered and fell on  
his way home." "We are sufficiently informed that we can say certain  
things without fear of contradiction."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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