From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 13 2000 - 13:19:17 EST
At 9:41 AM +0100 12/13/00, Iver Larsen wrote:
>> >>On 12/10/00 8:05 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote (in response to Stephen
>> >>LoVullo's follow-up question to my assertion to which Iver Larsen takes
>> >>exception):
>> >>
>> >>Stephen: Am I correct to assume that it would be a coordinating
>>explanatory
>> >>conjunction in the above case?
>> >
>> >Yes, and it seems to me that the GAR is frequently used ...
>> >to add a rhetorical question:
>
>A rhetorical question can have many different functions or purposes, and it
>doesn't make sense to me that GAR would "add a rhetorical question." That is a
>structural observation, not a discourse function.
>
>What I am trying to communicate is that modern linguistics with its
>emphasis on
>discourse considerations has produced a more adequate description of the
>function of GAR as a discourse particle than the out-of-date standard
>definitions you may find in Greek grammar books and lexicons.
>
>> >
>> >1 Cor 2:10 ... TO GAR PNEUMA PANTA EREUNA, KAI TA BAQH TOU QEOU; 11 TIS GAR
>> >OIDEN ANQRWPWN TA TOU ANQRWPOU EI MH TO PNEUMA TOU ANQRWPOU TO EN AUTOU?
>
>According to the alternative discourse description the GAR in 10b explains how
>"God through the Spirit revealed to us" in 10a. The Spirit can reveal such
>things because "it searches even the depth of God." The GAR in 11 then goes on
>to comment on the "the Spirit of God searching the depth of God" saying that
>even as the spirit of man searches/knows the depth of man so does the
>Spirit of
>God search/know the depth of God. The function of GAR as a discourse
>particle is
>to pick up some idea from the preceding context and then elaborate,
>comment on,
>explain it further. English does not have anything in its grammar that
>corresponds exaxtly to this function, although "for" is the closest. In many
>cases, then, GAR cannot be translated by a particular word in English, but an
>understanding of the function of GAR helps a lot in understanding the
>discourse
>flow of the text. The rhetorical question in the quote above functions to
>emphasize what should be obvious or already known to the reader. There is no
>direct correlation between the use of GAR and the use of a rhetorical
>question.
Nor did I claim that such is the primary or only function of a GAR, only
that it is a not uncommon one. And I will confess that I have NOT
researched the whole usage of GAR in the NT; I did a quick search with
AcCordance for GAR and quickly picked out a couple of instances that seemed
to me illuminating in comparison with Rom 3:6. Frankly my sense that this
is a not uncommon usage of GAR was derived more from lots of reading in
Plato.
>> >1 Cor 2:15 hO DE PNEUMATIKOS ANAKRINEI [TA] PANTA, AUTOS DE hUP' OUDENOS
>> >ANAKRINETAI. 16 TIS GAR EGNW NOUN KURIOU, hOS SUMBIBASEI AUTON?
>
>Here the GAR connects the statement "the spiritual person discerns all things"
>with the explanatory comment which includes the whole of verse 16, not
>just 16a
>as quoted above. The connection is that "although no one - in the OT era -
>knew
>the mind of God, we who have the Spirit of God do have the mind of Christ" (my
>summary of verse 16) and that explains why such spiritual people have a
>spiritual discernment by the Spirit of Christ.
>>
>> I think that these rhetorical questions are in fact very much like that in
>> Romans 3:6 (MH GENOITO: EPEI PWS KRINEI hO QEOS TON KOSMON?) and that Paul
>> COULD just as well have written MH GENOITO: PWS GAR KRINEI hO QEOS TON
>> KOSMON?
>
>But the fact remains that Paul never did write PWS GAR. He used GAR 398 times
>and PWS 27 times, but never together. In the whole NT (UBS text) GAR
>occurs 1041
>times and PWS 117, but only once do the two occur together - somewhat by
>coincidence, and that is in Acts 8:31. Philip has just asked the Ethiopian
>whether he understood what he was reading. The expected answer is no, and the
>Ethiopian knows that Philip expects him not to be able to understand it. This
>implied "no" is then explained - indicated by GAR - through another question
>"How can I unless someone guides me?" To translate this GAR by "then" as some
>interlinear versions do would be a misunderstanding. Even the KJV does not
>translate GAR here, and rightly so. The meaning is carried in English by
>context.
Yes, this is the only instance of PWS GAR in combination in the GNT:
Acts 8:30 PROSDRAMWN DE hO FILIPPOS HKOUSEN AUTOU ANGIGNWSKONTOS HSAIAN TON
PROFHTHN KAI EIPEN: 'ARA GE GINWSKEIS hA ANAGIGNNWSKEIS?' 31 hO DE EIPEN:
'PWS GAR AN DUNAIMHN EAN MH TIS hODHGHSEI ME?'
Far be it from me to defend ANY interlinear's translation of GAR or of
anything else. Nevertheless I think this one instance is not so alien from
the usage I have postulated as not an impossible but a quite possible
equivalent in Romans 3:6 of GAR for EPEI. That the author (Luke?) uses an
optative is, I think, sufficient evidence that he HAS learned his Greek in
a school and has very likely been exposed to literary texts other than the
LXX or other Koine texts. This response is a rhetorical question
underscoring impossibility or improbability. Interesting here is that what
follows the PWS GAR is not a counterfactual construction but a potential
one (although the EAN MH is used with a future indicative instead of a
subjunctive) because the Ethiopian is earnestly desirous that someone MAY
show him the way and then he WOULD be able to understand what he is reading.
I'm not sure to what extent we really differ from each other; I don't deny
that EPEI and GAR are different words and are generally used in different
ways; rather I think that they do overlap in usage to some extent (as we've
said the usage of AGAPAW and FILEW, though generally having distinct
senses, nevertheless can be shown in several instances in the NT to be
interchangeable), and I am still inclined to think that for MH GENOITO:
EPEI PWS KRINEI hO QEOS TON KOSMON Paul COULD just as well have written MH
GENOITO, PWS GAR KRINEI hO QEOS TON KOSMON?
I shall not try to carry this discussion beyond this present reply; it may
well be that modern linguistics and scientific discourse analysis have made
obsolete the information set forth in LSJ regarding such matters as this;
nevertheless I do wonder whether the Greek literature surveyed with regard
to the usage of GAR extends beyond the Greek of the Biblical text or of the
Hellenistic era. It does seem to me that classical usage is not so alien
from those NT writers who did have some schooling that such phraseology as
Plato's recurrent dialogue response, 'PWS GAR OU?' and the colloquial usage
which would seem to lie behind it as well as other instances cited in LSJ
under PWS (I've left the Greek text in beta code as I think that's legible
to most, rather than transliterated it into the more standard B-Greek
equivalents):
LSJ: PWS:
3. p. ga\r . . ; also in reply, as if something had gone before, [that
cannot be], for how can . .? Hom. Il. 1.123, Hom. Od. 10.337, etc.; p. ga\r
ka/toida; Soph. Phil. 250, cf. au=Soph. Phil. 1383; v. infr. III.1.
...
III. pw=s folld. by several of the abovenamed Particles is freq. used in
elliptical sentences, as,
1. p. ga/r; inserted parenthet. in a negative sentence, for how is it
possible? how can or could it be? hence in emphatic denial, ka)gw\ me\n
ou)k e)/drasa, tou=t' e)pi/stamai, ou)d' au)= su/: p. ga/r; IDEM=Soph. El.
911; ou)k a)porw=n (p. ga/r;), o(/s ge . . Dem. 18.312, cf. au=Dem. 21.217,
Plat. Soph. 263c, etc.; ou)d' e)pi\ th\n e(sti/an katafugw/n (p. ga\r
a)/n;), o(/stis . . Lys. 1.27; p. ga\r ou)/; how can it but be? i.e. it
must be so, Aesch. Lib. 754, Soph. El. 1307, Plat. Theaet. 160c, al.; p.
ga/r; (sc. a)/llws e)/xei) is so used in Soph. Aj. 279.
>> whether or not it is etymologically valid, I have come to understand the
>> way GAR works most adequately by seeing it as derivative from an original
>> enclitic, GE that follows upon a preceding word to underscore its
>> importance + an ARA which itself has a broad range of meanings, one
>> significant one being to mark a conclusion being drawn (= "then," "in that
>> case"), the combination yielding the linkage, "Yes indeed, because ..." And
>> particularly when GAR follows upon an interrogative word (such as TIS in 1
>> Cor 2:11 or TIS in 1 Cor 2:15), its sense seems to me to be "in that case"
>> or "if that's the case." And that's why I think Paul might just as well
>> have written MH GENOITO; PWS GAR KRINEI hO QEOS TON KOSMON?
>
>ARA and GE do occur together in the NT four times. But the order is invariably
>ARA+GE. The hypothesis that GAR should be a contraction of GE+ARA does not
>have
>any linguistic basis (why would the final "a" be dropped, if that was the
>case?), and therefore cannot be used to assist in deriving or describing the
>meaning or function of GAR.
ARA is itself a fascinating word, appearing in three forms, ARA, hRA, and
AR; the elision of the E of GE is hardly problematic. I don't know whether
your extensive research into GAR has led you to look at Denniston's
conceivably out-of-date work, _The Greek Particles_, which discusses this
etymology at length and affirms it.
>Since GAR is a discourse particle (sentence connector), the most fruitful
>way >to analyze its function is by discourse analysis.
While I don't doubt that discourse analysis has been very fruitful for
revealing important things about the way narrative and expository prose
function in the GNT, I still think that the old tools and a broader
familiarity with Greek texts over the centuries before the composition of
the GNT are not yet obsolete.
--
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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