Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Stephen Hughes
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:On the other hand, when it follows ἡμᾶς, an enclitic ποτε wouldn't have a graphic accent, but an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult.
Well, your final statement here is about the Greek langauge not about linguistics, so it seems we can go forward with discussion - because your statement allows me to pose a question that I know how to ask...

Are you sure you mean what you are saying here about (what you have termed graphic) accentuation? Do you mean "an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult", or did you mean to write ultima? According to what I was taught about accents, an acute can be written on any of the ultima, penut(imate) or antepenult(imate), whereas a grave can only be written on ultima.

Another problem I have with what you are suggesting is that if ποτέ were to accented on the penultimate (viz. πότε), then it would be the "other" πότε ... ; "When ... ?".

Would it be possible to supply a reference for accenting ποτέ as πότε while still retaining the sense of ποτέ?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:On the other hand, when it follows ἡμᾶς, an enclitic ποτε wouldn't have a graphic accent, but an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult.
Well, your final statement here is about the Greek langauge not about linguistics, so it seems we can go forward with discussion - because your statement allows me to pose a question that I know how to ask...

Are you sure you mean what you are saying here about (what you have termed graphic) accentuation? Do you mean "an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult", or did you mean to write ultima? According to what I was taught about accents, an acute can be written on any of the ultima, penut(imate) or antepenult(imate), whereas a grave can only be written on ultima.

Another problem I have with what you are suggesting is that if ποτέ were to accented on the penultimate (viz. πότε), then it would be the "other" πότε ... ; "When ... ?".

Would it be possible to supply a reference for accenting ποτέ as πότε while still retaining the sense of ποτέ?
By "graphic" accent, I'm assuming that what is meant is ποτέ with the acute accent written or printed over the final epsilon. I don't understand however why the final syllable would be accented at all; it is an enclitic, is it not -- even if followed by a pause? But surely this isn't πότε, the interrogative, "when?" but rather the indefinite adverb meaning, "at some time, erstwhiles." I confess that I haven't really been following this thread; I'm just reacting to the nearer end of it.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Are you sure you mean what you are saying here about (what you have termed graphic) accentuation? Do you mean "an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult", or did you mean to write ultima? According to what I was taught about accents, an acute can be written on any of the ultima, penut(imate) or antepenult(imate), whereas a grave can only be written on ultima.
Sorry, I meant ultima.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

cwconrad wrote:By "graphic" accent, I'm assuming that what is meant is ποτέ with the acute accent written or printed over the final epsilon. I don't understand however why the final syllable would be accented at all; it is an enclitic, is it not -- even if followed by a pause? But surely this isn't πότε, the interrogative, "when?" but rather the indefinite adverb meaning, "at some time, erstwhiles." I confess that I haven't really been following this thread; I'm just reacting to the nearer end of it.
The original post in this thread is wondering whether the first ποτε of Gal 1:23 should be accented as an enclitic, per the Nestle-Aland edition, or as an orthotone, which I've learned from Stephen Hughes that other editions do. Smyth § 187 is on point and suggests that the latter option is at least possible, and the question is whether it applies to Gal 1:23.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
cwconrad wrote:By "graphic" accent, I'm assuming that what is meant is ποτέ with the acute accent written or printed over the final epsilon. I don't understand however why the final syllable would be accented at all; it is an enclitic, is it not -- even if followed by a pause? But surely this isn't πότε, the interrogative, "when?" but rather the indefinite adverb meaning, "at some time, erstwhiles." I confess that I haven't really been following this thread; I'm just reacting to the nearer end of it.
The original post in this thread is wondering whether the first ποτε of Gal 1:23 should be accented as an enclitic, per the Nestle-Aland edition, or as an orthotone, which I've learned from Stephen Hughes that other editions do. Smyth § 187 is on point and suggests that the latter option is at least possible, and the question is whether it applies to Gal 1:23.
Yes, I did look at the original question but didn't read all the intervening correspondence.
Gal 1:23 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,

I'd agree that, on the one hand, Smyth's little note would favor marking the word ποτέ; it is certainly emphatic. But on the other hand, this collocation of words seems unnatural to me (to be sure, I don't have all that much confidence in my sensibility here); for the sense that we are assuming here, it seems to me that something like ... ὅτι ὁ πρὶν διώκων ἡμἀς νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται ... or ... ὅτι ὁ πρότερον διώκων ἡμἀς νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται ... A ποτέ would surely imply a pause such as the comma you've suggested there. It does look like a good question, but I don't think I have anything to offer by way of answer.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

cwconrad wrote:But on the other hand, this collocation of words seems unnatural to me (to be sure, I don't have all that much confidence in my sensibility here); for the sense that we are assuming here, it seems to me that something like ... ὅτι ὁ πρὶν διώκων ἡμἀς νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται ... or ... ὅτι ὁ πρότερον διώκων ἡμἀς νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται ...
For this construction with the "natural" feel - putting the ποτέ with the noun which then goes with the verb is another usage of ποτέ is something that Stephen Carlson has previously differentiated in this discussion saying something to the effect that it can either refer to the whole phrase or just to one of the participants in the phrase.

Examples of ποτέ in a nominal phrase are things like
John 9:13 RP wrote:Ἄγουσιν αὐτὸν πρὸς τοὺς Φαρισαίους, τόν ποτε τυφλόν.
"They brought the one who had previously been blind to the Pharisites, this guy in our story" or
Ephesians 2:13 RP wrote:οἱ ποτὲ ὄντες μακρὰν ἐγγὺς ἐγενήθητε
"You who had at one time were at a distance have become near". Personally, I don't see much of a difference between these two situations, but one has been treated as enclitic and the other as oxytone.

There are some classical examples which I think match Stephen Carlson criterion for ποτέ, but all of them seem to be accented oxytone (except where the final έ) has ellided. They are set out on pages 876 - 879 of Volume 2 of Fragmenta comicae dictionis. (BTW. Volume 1 is here. I guess that that is a choice of the editor of the copendium rather than the orignial editors.

A discussion of what enclitics are can be found at dramata.com and from section 181ff in Smyth, if anyone wants to familarise themselves with them. Smyth's discussion has a logical slight of hand which I don't like in his discussion of the barytone, because he considers that the barytone is the non-existence of an accent and therefore it doesn't exist. (That is, IMHO, like saying because "zero" describes non-existence it itself also doesn't exist. That is perhaps a step backwards in understanding).

I had a look through this topic from various aspects before I initially replied to Stephen Carlson's and one thing that I did find was inconsitency. I think is that if there is a rule to this, then it would be better to be applied to the published texts (after suitable peer review and scholarly evaluation). I also think that if this insight of his is sound, it could be extended to other (disyllabic) enclitics and a proposal for texual emmendations be put forward. I think that despite a few minor errors here, Stephen Carlson has a good and valid point, which perhaps we could help him work with and develop for the good of New Testament studies. Perhaps someone with your experience and wisdom could ask him some better-guided and less-ignorant questions than I have done. I feel tha there is still room to develop whether his initial conditions the the header post are either/or conditions or both conditions, the interplay of other elements in the sentence and other factors too.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Tony Pope
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Tony Pope »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:FYI (and I suppose you already know): It is also orthotonic in both RP 2005 (oxytone with the comma) and the 1905 EP edition (barytone with no comma).
Actually, I didn't know, and I appreciate your pointing them out to me. I agree with either (not being so wedded to the comma).
Ἐκπλήκτως, TR which is purportedly from that same tradition has both the ποτε's in that verse as ποτε.
I thought people might be interested in some more examples of editions of the text and how they accentuated and punctuated the ποτἐ in question.

ἡμᾶς ποτε,
Erasmus 1st ed 1516, Stephanus1550, Elzevir 1624 (= TR), Griesbach 1810, Scholz 1836

ἡμάς ποτέ,
Complutensian Polyglot 1522

ἡμᾶς ποτὲ
Lachmann 1831, Tregelles, Tischendorf 8th ed., Alford, Westcott & Hort 1881

ἡμᾶς ποτε
Nestle 2nd ed 1899, Nestle-Aland 1979, Hodges & Farstad 1982, SBL

ἡμᾶς ποτέ,
Robinson & Pierpont 2005

It's noteworthy that critical editions of the 19th century following Lachmann used an accent, but Nestle reverted to the TR form, though without the comma. (I cite the 2nd ed of Nestle because that is the one I found at archive.org.)
Iver Larsen
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Iver Larsen »

While I have no comment on the theories of so-called enclitics and their accentuation, it may be worthwhile to look at the sentence as a whole and analyze it from a different perspective:

Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει

The main verb is εὐαγγελίζεται with a fronted complex subject: Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε - The one who formerly persecuted us - or said differently: Our former persecutor. The object is again a complex phrase: τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει - the faith which he used to be attacking. The second ποτε is fronted before the verb and corresponds to the fronted νῦν. I take these two to be in contrast and emphatic. The two verbs evangelize and attack/try to destroy also contrast in meaning. But the first ποτε is last in its unit and therefore not emphatic in my book. Paul was described as the one who used to go around persecuting them, but the change from then to now is not emphasized until later.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Iver Larsen wrote:While I have no comment on the theories of so-called enclitics and their accentuation, it may be worthwhile to look at the sentence as a whole and analyze it from a different perspective:
I appreciate your offering a different perspective, but I just cannot wrap my head around the notion that unaccented or deaccented words can be prominent or emphatic. It makes as much sense to me as talking about voiceless vowels, for example. Maybe they exist in some language somewhere, but they are so exotic that a rather extraordinary level of evidence is need to entertain the idea that it existed in Greek.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

Stephen Carlson wrote: I appreciate your offering a different perspective, but I just cannot wrap my head around the notion that unaccented or deaccented words can be prominent or emphatic. It makes as much sense to me as talking about voiceless vowels, for example. Maybe they exist in some language somewhere, but they are so exotic that a rather extraordinary level of evidence is need to entertain the idea that it existed in Greek.
Does the absence of written accent mean that the word must be unaccented in spoken language? Is it possible that some (un)written non-accents are only a matter of convention? For example ου doesn't have written accent, but how about when spoken? If it can't be emphasized, how can one emphasize in speech that something is not? My gut feeling is that negating words are quite often emphatic. Also, based on first hand experience on Finnish language, it's possible when speaking to give accent to any syllable of any word if needed. For example you can say "me elämme maailmassa mutta emme maailmasta" ("we live in the world but not from/of the world") even though only the first syllable is accented in Finnish words.
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