From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 07 1998 - 15:04:13 EST
At 4:21 AM -0600 2/7/98, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>>
>> The text: hWS DE EPOREUONTO KATA THN hODON, HLQON EPI TI hUDWR, KAI FHSIN
>> hO EUNOUCOS, 'IDOU hUDWR, TI KWLUEI ME BAPTISQHNAI?'
>>
>> I haven't done a search for FHMI in the GNT, but I'll say that this is
>> consistent with classical Attic style's use of FHMI to indicate a direct
>> quotation; more often than not, I believe, when LEGW is used, the cited
>> quotation is introduced by an untranslated hOTI. This sort of convention
>> may seem strange to moderns who have punctuation clearly delineating direct
>> citations, but it was one way for ancient Greek to indicate the distinction
>> clearly, and I think that's what we have in this instance.
>
>Carl,
>
>I looked into this a little more. Smyth 2017(a) states that FHMI is used with
>hOTI more often after the classical period. BDF 397(3) states that FHMI is
>hardly ever takes hOTI in the classical period but does occasionally in the
>Koine period. I followed this up with a search in Accordance and found that
>FHMI is used with hOTI in Rom. 3:8, 1 Cor. 10:19, 15:50 (the same examples
>cited by BDF). My search with LEGW followed by hOTI produced something on the
>order of 200 hits. Therefore, the pattern that Carl has pointed out still
>seems to be valid for NT usage.
>
>A Follow on question:
>
>One question that came up in my brief research was the distinction between the
>use of FHMI as an infinitive and as a finite verb in the historical present.
>Both BDF and Smyth spend some time talking about how the infinitive of FHMI is
>used when introducing speech. I don't think they clearly explained the
>difference between the infinitive use and the finite use when introducing
>speech. Could anyone expound on this?
When used with the infinitive and the subject-accusative FHMI quite
regularly means, "I assert that X does/did/will do (etc.) Y"; when negated
with OU, OU FHMI with subject-accusative means, "I deny that X
does/did/will do (etc.) Y." When you have this usage the acc. + inf. tends
to follow immediately upon the form of FHMI. This is the standard classical
Attic way of indicating information given by a source that is not being
cited directly.
On the other hand, when FHMI is being used to indicate a direct citation,
what one generally gets is much like what one gets with Latin
INQUIT/INQUIUNT, i.e., the verb FHSI(N), FASI(N), EFH, EFASAN KTL. is
sandwiched in the middle, normally of the direct citation, e.g. (I'm making
this up):
ALL' hHMEIS, EFH, OU TAUTA POIHSOMEN.
"But we," he said, "won't be doing that."
When I looked at this in Schmoller's Handkonkordanz this morning, I even
noted that it distinguished these usages in the NT in terms of the Latin
equivalents as (1) DICO (= LEGW), (2) AIO (= FHMI + acc/inf),
INQUAM/INQUIT/INQUIUNT (= FHMI interlaced into the direct citation).
I don't have Smyth handy, but I would have thought it would be there. This
is what's taught generally in Beginning Attic Greek grammar.
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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