Re: hO DE EIPEN...

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 10 1998 - 07:37:17 EST


Jonathan has "gone public" with a discussion he and I were having yesterday
about this issue in his section on usage of the article and Wallace's
account of it. I'm glad he has done so; I'd like to see what others think
about this matter.

At 4:06 PM -0600 1/9/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>I'm interested in constructions that use the article as a demonstrative
>pronoun, like hO DE EIPEN, hOI DE EIPAN, hH DE EIPEN, hO DE EGERQEIS. I
>have just added this to my list of things I don't quite understand about
>the article...
>
>1. Wallace's Grammar seems to imply that this use (hO DE EIPEN) is somehow
>related to substantivizing MEN...DE: "The article is often used in the
>place of a third person personal pronoun in the nominative case. It is only
>used this way with the MEN...DE construction or with DE alone. (Thus, hO
>MEN...hO DE or simply hO DE.)"
>
>Aren't these two completely different constructions? Isn't hO DE EIPEN a
>demonstrative pronoun, where the DE functions as a way of indicating that
>the subject has changed? Isn't hO MEN...hO DE just another example of the
>substantive-making power of the article applied to MEN...DE? So is there
>really any direct relationship between these two uses at all?

I argued yesterday that there is no direct relationship between these two
at all and that it seems erroneous to me to call this a
'quasi-demonstrative function of the article' (my phrase, not Wallace's,
but Jonathan cites him above directly in this sense); I think rather that
this is not a demonstrative usage of the article at all, but rather that
this is a survival of the original demonstrative pronoun hO/hH/TO that came
to have the distinct function of the article. This is already a formulaic
element in Homer, particularly in phrases opening the hexameter line such
as hO D' EFAT(O), hO D' EFH, hWS FAMENOS hO ...; a regular formulaic
pattern in narrated conversation (comparable to our colloquial "And I said
to him ...; and he said to me ...") that one sees over and over again in
Plato is H D' hOS ("he said," where the form of this demonstrative that was
also used as a relative pronoun appears), often preceded or followed by a
first person citation heralded by HN D' EGW ("I said"). Or one may find
forms of FHMI or even LEGW/EIPON thus used in classical Attic.

>2. Why is it that the demonstrative use of the article always seems to
>occur with DE? Why is it that it always seems to be a nominative that
>refers back to a substantive in an oblique case? This seems like a pretty
>obvious violation of agreement, but it also seems to be the way this
>construction works. In the cases I have looked at, it makes the object of a
>previous sentence the subject of the current sentence, and is most
>frequently used to switch the speaker:
>
>John 8:10 ANAKUYAS DE hO IHSOUS EIPEN *AUTH*: GUNAI, POU EISIN? OUDEIS SE
>KATEKRINEN? *hH* DE EIPEN: OUDEIS, KURIE.
>
>Is this an adequate explanation of the way this construction works? Is
>there a really good discussion of this in one of the grammars?

(a) It is NOT a violation of agreement, because the hO/hH or hOI in each of
these instances is the nominative pronoun serving as subject of a 3rd
person verb.
(b) As for the DE, it is already present in the Homeric locutions I have
cited above; certainly this DE used with the archaic weak demonstrative
pronoun hO/hH/TO should not be confused with the substantival alternating
hO MEN ... hO DE, and Wallace does not confuse them either, although he
does seem to want to say this hO is really an article rather than a
pronoun--for reasons I don't understand. Rather the DE in this formulaic
clause (I think that's what it is best called--it's always a combination of
pronoun DE and a 3rd-person form of EIPON) is the common, everyday DE used
as a weak adversitive or connective in ordinary narrative discourse (in
origin it is identical with the stronger particle DH, usually translated
"indeed" or "surely" or "clearly") and is, I think more frequently
translated as "but" than as "and" precisely because the clause marks a
shift from one speaker to another in response (which is why it is often
accompanied inthe formula in the NT gospels with a participle APOKRINAMENOS
or more commonly APOKRIQEIS (the so-called 'passive deponent'). An almost
identical formula appears regularly in Latin narrative hexameters where a
clause describing an assertion or action of one person ends in the middle
of the fifth dactyl and is followed by the phrase AT ILLE or AT ILLA which
is continued (in enjambement) in the following line which further sets
forth the responsive assertion or action of the other person.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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