Ελπίζω ότι έσται ούτως.
= είη ούτως
What replaced the optative in Koine?
-
- Posts: 1105
- Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am
-
- Posts: 14
- Joined: February 6th, 2014, 3:25 pm
Re: What replaced the optative in Koine?
Hmmm.. those subjunctives are all in dependent clauses though and function differently than the optative in an independent clause.Peng Huiguo wrote: ↑February 28th, 2020, 6:51 am Bare subjunctive maybe. In Oxyrhynchus Papyri IV 744, a letter from a workman in Alexandria to his wife, circa 1 BC:
εἴρηκας... ὅτι μή με ἐπιλάθης. πῶς δύναμαί σε ἐπιλαθεῖν; ἐρωτῶ σε οὖν ἵνα μὴ ἀγωνιάσης.
Note: fill in the iota subscripts. I copied it as it is.
It seems there's no one form or structure that replaced the optative (potential and wish), but that the meaning was conveyed in spoken Koine in a variety of ways using different forms and collocations.
Part of the reason why I'm asking is because I'm interested in building my active ability in Koine through speaking, but most of what I read is either literary Koine or attic, both of which use the optative regularly (the former less so), and neither of which seem to reflect Koine as it was actually spoken. I'm not a Koine purist, but I do want to speak in a way that's most helpful for my students primarily interested in Christian and Jewish literature.
-
- Posts: 2159
- Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm
Re: What replaced the optative in Koine?
The optative was a bit more stubborn than the common wisdom sometimes would lead us to believe. You can find occasional uses of it even in the Colloquia (late 3rd century), although these appear to be "frozen' forms. You won't find the optative in secondary sequence and so forth. But you do see things like μὴ γένοιτο... So if you want to throw in an optative of wish, there is a good chance a Koine speaker wouldn't have so much as batted an eyelash.Mark Jeong wrote: ↑February 28th, 2020, 10:38 amHmmm.. those subjunctives are all in dependent clauses though and function differently than the optative in an independent clause.Peng Huiguo wrote: ↑February 28th, 2020, 6:51 am Bare subjunctive maybe. In Oxyrhynchus Papyri IV 744, a letter from a workman in Alexandria to his wife, circa 1 BC:
εἴρηκας... ὅτι μή με ἐπιλάθης. πῶς δύναμαί σε ἐπιλαθεῖν; ἐρωτῶ σε οὖν ἵνα μὴ ἀγωνιάσης.
Note: fill in the iota subscripts. I copied it as it is.
It seems there's no one form or structure that replaced the optative (potential and wish), but that the meaning was conveyed in spoken Koine in a variety of ways using different forms and collocations.
Part of the reason why I'm asking is because I'm interested in building my active ability in Koine through speaking, but most of what I read is either literary Koine or attic, both of which use the optative regularly (the former less so), and neither of which seem to reflect Koine as it was actually spoken. I'm not a Koine purist, but I do want to speak in a way that's most helpful for my students primarily interested in Christian and Jewish literature.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
-
- Posts: 3351
- Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: What replaced the optative in Koine?
Yeah, that's often the case with language change. For your purposes, it would probably be best to develop Koine-specific resources were developed rather than to translate Attic.Mark Jeong wrote: ↑February 28th, 2020, 10:38 am It seems there's no one form or structure that replaced the optative (potential and wish), but that the meaning was conveyed in spoken Koine in a variety of ways using different forms and collocations.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne, Australia
-
- Posts: 93
- Joined: April 28th, 2019, 2:02 am
Re: What replaced the optative in Koine?
Then something like ἐλπίζω ταχὺ προκόψαι, soMark Jeong wrote: ↑February 28th, 2020, 10:38 am those subjunctives are all in dependent clauses though and function differently than the optative in an independent clause.
θέλομεν τοὺς ἵππους λήψεσθαι.
For τοὺς ἵππους ἂν δοίη,
ἴσως τοὺς ἵππους δώσει. (Luke 20:13)