[B-Greek] Galatians 1:6-7

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Wed Jun 10 17:40:34 EDT 2009


On Jun 10, 2009, at 11:27 AM, Steve Runge wrote:

> Here is an excerpt from my blog post that accounts for both your  
> cited exception from 2 Cor, and that from Cooper.

>
> What about εἰ μή? Can it be used in non-negative contexts? The  
> answer in most every case is “no”. But there is one exception  
> (pun intended): rhetorical questions. This apparent exception  
> confused me even more than the original problem, since it seemed to  
> break with the expected pattern of negation. Then I realized that  
> even though the rhetorical questions are technically positive, they  
> expected a negative answer where εἰ μή was used . In other  
> words,  the expected answer to the question is nothing or no one.
> 	-BREAK-
> "To summarize, here is my claim: Although there are several  
> contrastive or adversative particles, the key to distinguishing  
> ἀλλὰ from εἰ μή is the relation of replacement to the  
> original set of items that is replaced/corrected.

Ar.Thes 896-898
Εὐριπίδης
ξένη τίς ἡ γραῦς ἡ κακορροθοῦσά σε;

Μνησίλοχος
αὕτη Θεονόη Πρωτέως.

Γυνὴ Γ
μὰ τὼ θεὼ
εἰ μὴ Κρίτυλλά γ᾽ Ἀντιθέου  
Γαργηττόθεν:
σὺ δ᾽ εἶ πανοῦργος.

EURIPIDHS
XENH TIS hH GRAUS hH KAKORROQOUSA SE;

MNHSILOCOS
hAUTH QEONOH PRWTEWS.

GUNH G
MA TW QEW
EI MH KRITULLA G᾽ ANTIQEOU GARGHTTOQEN:
SU D᾽ EI PANOURGOS.

Steve, I don't see how it could apply here. I have never read this  
play, not even in English. The nearest interrogative is a different  
speaker, EURIPIDHS who asks XENH TIS hH GRAUS hH KAKORROQOUSA SE;.  
Then we see a reply by MNHSILOCOS which is then countered by an object  
from GUNH G (woman #3).  MA TW QEW looks like an exclamation or an  
expletive of some sort, not relevant to our question. EI MH appears to  
introduce a correction/contradiction to the answer given by  
MNHSILOCOS. So I can sort of understand why Cooper might say EI MH  
here functions like ALLA. However, reading EI MH as simple adversative  
here doesn't seem to work. It appears to function also as a negation.

Regardless, there doesn't appear to by any rhetorical question with an  
implied negative answer.

I found Iver's samples very interesting, but I will let him answer  
your response.

Elizabeth Kline







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