Ei + future ind. vs. subjunctive
kdlitwak (kdlitwak@concentric.net)
Sat, 15 Feb 1997 14:18:02 -0800
This afternoon I encounterd the phrase
HN DER POTE KAI LOGOUS EPOUNTA TINA DEHSHi EISAGEIN (Lucain, How to
Write History 58). This uses ei an plus the future mid. (dep.)
indicative for a potential situation that might happen at some point
(POTE). I could be wrong on this, but I would expect NT Greek to use
ean plus the subjunctive for this. Is this a real difference between
classical and NT Greek, in using ei plus the future vs. ean plus the
subjunctive for possible conditions, or is my sample size too small?
BTW, my reference last weekend to Greek that looked like German was not
meant obe offensive. It only reflected what I see in Lucian: pushing
the verbs and subjects, if stated, to the end of the sentence or clause,
separating the pieces of the object by multiple lines from each other,
etc. At least in written German, I can find the pieces and assemble
them. I can't imagine how ancient Greeks who only heard this tuff read
to them could follow what was going on. Thanks.
Ken Litwak
Ken Litwak