Degree of indefiniteness of hOSOI clause in Gal 3.10

From: Warren Fulton (warren@inlingua.at)
Date: Sat Feb 05 2000 - 09:10:05 EST


> At 10:53 PM -0600 2/3/00, Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:
>
> >I want to know if the hOSOI clause CANNOT be translated as "those
> >who are under the law" because of the inherent indefiniteness of
> >hOSOI. I wonder if hOSOI EX ERGWN NOMOU in 3.10 cannot refer to
> >the same group as TOUS hUPO NOMON in 4.5 (those who are under the
> >law).

Dr. Conrad replied:

> (2) in Modern Greek hOSOS/H/O is itself the regular relative pronoun,
> having replaced completely (I think--but I'm no expert at modern Greek
> either) the ancient accented hO/S, hH/, hO/--and I'm inclined to think
> that many instances of hOSOS/H/O in Hellenistic/Koine Greek anticipate
> that complete shift in usage.

You might be happy to know that hOSOS/H/O lives on in Modern Greek in its
historic role as a correlative of quantity.

Gal. 3:10 reads:
hOSOI GAR EX ERGWN NOMOU EISIN, hUPO KATARAN EISIN

The BIBLOS translation in colloquial MG:
hOSOI PROERCONTAI APO TA ERGA TOU NOMOU EINAI KATW APO KATARA

The 1967 UBS translation in katherevousa:
hOSOI BASIZONTAI EIS TA ERGA TOU NOMOU, AUTOI EINAI hUPO KATARAN

The 1989 UBS rendition into very free demotic:
hOSOI STHRIZOUN THN ELPIDA TOUS STHN THRHSH TOU NOMOU BRISKONTAI KATW APO KATARA
"All those who base their hope upon the observance of the law stand under a
curse."

> (1) in Attic Greek, if a hOSOI clause is intended to be indefinite,
> it has an AN and a verb in the subjunctive; the above-cited example
> from Gal 3:10 has simply hOSOI and an indicative verb; in my opinion,
> therefore, the word hOSOI here is little more (if anything more at
> all) than a relative pronoun--and therefore I don't think it is
> indefinite at all; if there's a nuance of difference between hOSOI
> and a simpler hOI, perhaps it's this: hOSOI means "all those who ..."
> whereas hOI is less explicit: "the ones who ..."

In MG, hOSIOS can still highlight indefiniteness by the using the subjunctive
with (KAI) AN. Amazing, isn't it, the persistence of this language? Returning to
Moon's original question, then, the Gal. 3:10 use of hOSOI plus indicative,
when viewed through a synchronic lens of language development, would seem to
point to a low degree of indefiniteness.

Warren Fulton
Inlingua School of Languages
Vienna, Austria

PS to Carl: Alas, the relative pronoun hO/S, hH/, hO/ has indeed passed away,
the last vestiges, according to Browning ("Medieval and Modern Greek," 1969),
having disappeared in the 16th century. Of course, most of these forms are
thriving today as regular -- unaccented -- articles. They also survive --
unaccented -- in the katherevousa relative, a paraphrastic formula like our "the
one who/which:" hO hOPOIOS, hH hOPOIA, TO hOPOIO. The demotic relative is an
indeclinable POU, which is even easier to handle than the English "who/which" as
it refers to both people and things. What a blessing POU is for foreign
speakers. There's not even a "whom" for ornery sticklers to catch you on. Just
think: All those permutations of agreement you once had to juggle in your head
when tacking on a relative clause -- all gone, POU-fff!

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