Re: transgressions

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 17 1999 - 11:11:23 EST


At 10:56 AM -0500 2/17/99, Mary L B Pendergraft wrote:
>At 10:48 AM 2/17/99 -0500, Randy LEEDY wrote:
>>Bart Ehrman inquired:
>>
>>>Does anyone want to explain to me how s/he understands the grammar of
>>2
>>>Clement 2:6: ti oun estin poiesantas epituchein auton, ei me to
>>hosios
>>>kai dikaios anastrephesthai?
>>
>>I finally found the passage at V.6 (Lightfoot's edition), and using W
>>for omega and H for eta, the passage reads TI OUN ESTIN POIHSANTAS
>>EPITUCEIN AUTWN, EI MH TO HOSIWS KAI DIKAIWS ANASTREFESQAI.
>>
>>I understand the grammar as follows:
>>
>>TI - object of POIHSANTAS
>>ESTIN - existential use (no complement: "it exists")
>
>What about ESTIN = "it is possible"?

I think ESTIN certainly could be read that way, but what makes me question
it is that structure of the whole clause seems to involve the disjunction
of TI ... EI MH, which is what makes me think of it as "What is X
other-than/but Y?" IF that's what we have here, I would think the ESTIN
must be a copula.

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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