you learn something new every day
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
A Particle Lesson
GREEK
What I learned today...
The particle Ge (gamma-epsilon)
Function: to bring emphasis or prominence to a word with which it occurs.
Cognates: In Sanskrit there is a particle gha that has the same function. In Latin, qui seems to be a cognate form with the same function.
English Equivalent: None.
BGAD lists 3 function, (1) Limiting. For an example it gives Luke 11:8, "dia ge tan anaideian autou," in literal gloss translation, "because of yet/though the shamelessness of him."
(2) Intensifiying. For an example, BGAD gives Romans 8:32, "os ge tou idiou uiou ouk efeisato," in literal gloss translation, "who indeed the his own son not did spare," or cleaned up a little, "who indeed did not spare his own son." (3) Often added to other particles. Ei ge (eige), "if indeed/inasmuch as" with examples found in Ephesians 3:2 and 4:21. The ESV has the first word of Eph 3:2 "assuming" based on context, the NASB nails it literally, and the KJV disregards it and treats it as if it were only ei with no ge ("if ye have heard..."). The NKJV corrects this, by the way, by adding indeed!
Another particle combination with ge is ei de me ge, as seen in Matthew 9:17, "ei de ma ge rhegnuntai askoi," or in literal glossing, "if but not indeed/yet are being broken the bottles," or more understandably, "otherwise the bottles break." Most other combinations are pretty self-explanatory after this: kai ge, kaitoige (and yet), memounge (rather), metige (not to mention), ge toi (indeed), ofelon ge (would that indeed). Alla ge and ara ye are listed in the lexicons, but not fleshed out. Robertson's Larger Grammar argues that they add irony, argumentative climax, etc. to these otherwise commonplace conjunctions (page 1148 if you are a student who is interested).
Interesting Tidbit: Robertson's larger grammar states that the conjunction gar is actually a compounding of ge and ara.
Running a simple search, I found 26 independent occurances of ge in the NT and 134 in the LXX (Rahlf's edition of the Greek OT). I went to zhubert.com and ran a lemma search (no, I don't Biblework$ yet...), and found that his engine locates 199 occurences of the word in the OT/NT/Apocrypha. Interestingly enough, the book of Ecclesiastes far outranks all others in the quantity of uses. I think the function of these would make an interesting research project.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-12/3361.html was an interesting discussion.
And after learning these things, I think I'm well on my way to appreciating this little particle when I come upon it in the text. If you are a koine student, hopefully you can say the same. Ge, by the way, seems to be extinct in Modern Greek as best as I can tell.
Maybe someone will be able to write back that "the salmon was indeed delicious when cooked in the dishwasher!"
(Babelfish renders the modern terms into Greek: ho solomos en malakos ge hotan hepsematos en planterio-piatwn)
What I learned today...
The particle Ge (gamma-epsilon)
Function: to bring emphasis or prominence to a word with which it occurs.
Cognates: In Sanskrit there is a particle gha that has the same function. In Latin, qui seems to be a cognate form with the same function.
English Equivalent: None.
BGAD lists 3 function, (1) Limiting. For an example it gives Luke 11:8, "dia ge tan anaideian autou," in literal gloss translation, "because of yet/though the shamelessness of him."
(2) Intensifiying. For an example, BGAD gives Romans 8:32, "os ge tou idiou uiou ouk efeisato," in literal gloss translation, "who indeed the his own son not did spare," or cleaned up a little, "who indeed did not spare his own son." (3) Often added to other particles. Ei ge (eige), "if indeed/inasmuch as" with examples found in Ephesians 3:2 and 4:21. The ESV has the first word of Eph 3:2 "assuming" based on context, the NASB nails it literally, and the KJV disregards it and treats it as if it were only ei with no ge ("if ye have heard..."). The NKJV corrects this, by the way, by adding indeed!
Another particle combination with ge is ei de me ge, as seen in Matthew 9:17, "ei de ma ge rhegnuntai askoi," or in literal glossing, "if but not indeed/yet are being broken the bottles," or more understandably, "otherwise the bottles break." Most other combinations are pretty self-explanatory after this: kai ge, kaitoige (and yet), memounge (rather), metige (not to mention), ge toi (indeed), ofelon ge (would that indeed). Alla ge and ara ye are listed in the lexicons, but not fleshed out. Robertson's Larger Grammar argues that they add irony, argumentative climax, etc. to these otherwise commonplace conjunctions (page 1148 if you are a student who is interested).
Interesting Tidbit: Robertson's larger grammar states that the conjunction gar is actually a compounding of ge and ara.
Running a simple search, I found 26 independent occurances of ge in the NT and 134 in the LXX (Rahlf's edition of the Greek OT). I went to zhubert.com and ran a lemma search (no, I don't Biblework$ yet...), and found that his engine locates 199 occurences of the word in the OT/NT/Apocrypha. Interestingly enough, the book of Ecclesiastes far outranks all others in the quantity of uses. I think the function of these would make an interesting research project.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-12/3361.html was an interesting discussion.
And after learning these things, I think I'm well on my way to appreciating this little particle when I come upon it in the text. If you are a koine student, hopefully you can say the same. Ge, by the way, seems to be extinct in Modern Greek as best as I can tell.
Maybe someone will be able to write back that "the salmon was indeed delicious when cooked in the dishwasher!"
(Babelfish renders the modern terms into Greek: ho solomos en malakos ge hotan hepsematos en planterio-piatwn)
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