From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 25 1997 - 07:19:04 EST
At 12:49 AM -0600 1/25/97, Tom Launder wrote:
>2nd attempt.... :)
>
>Hi all,
>
>I have a question about 2 Tim 2:25
>
> MhPOTE DWh AUTOIS O QEOS METANOIAN. . .
>
>The mhpote is what I am having a hard time understanding. BAGD 519 3B
>defines this as an interrogative particle "whether, perhaps." Does this
>particle then make the clause dependent? Right now I have this clause
>dependent upon the participle "paideuonta."
> |
> |____PAIDEUONTA____
> /
> /
> / MhPOTE
> /
> | /
> ____QEOS___|____DWh______|___METANOIAN__
> O |
>
>Is this correct?
I think so, but it is the subjunctive DWHi as much as MHPOTE that makes the
clause dependent. I think the sense of MHPOTE here is to introduce what is
formally an indirect question: "whether or not God might grant them
repentance to recognition of truth"; but the indirect question in this
instance assumes the implicit sense: "in hopes that perhaps God may grant
them ..." That is to say: what in form is an indirect question (by virtue
of the conjunction MHPOTE) becomes a sort of purpose clause. To me one of
the most fascinating things about Hellenistic Greek is the way classical
types of subordinate clause assume new syntactic functions.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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