How is ὅτι an adverb?

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Alan Bunning
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How is ὅτι an adverb?

Post by Alan Bunning »

Robinson’s parsing always has ὅτι marked as a conjunction, but Tauber’s parsing (which he may have inherited) sometimes has ὅτι marked as an adverb instead. I am told that Friberg’s parsing apparently has ὅτι listed as an adverb in these places as well. Here are the first 3 places where it has been marked as an adverb:

Matt. 2:23 καὶ ἐλθὼν κατῴκησεν εἰς πόλιν λεγομένην Ναζαρέτ· ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν ὅτι Ναζωραῖος κληθήσεται. (the start of a quotation)
Matt. 24:43 Ἐκεῖνο δὲ γινώσκετε ὅτι εἰ ᾔδει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης ποίᾳ φυλακῇ ὁ κλέπτης ἔρχεται, ἐγρηγόρησεν ἂν καὶ οὐκ ἂν εἴασεν διορυχθῆναι τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ. (with the meaning “because”)
Matt. 26:54 πῶς οὖν πληρωθῶσιν αἱ γραφαὶ ὅτι οὕτως δεῖ γενέσθαι; (with the meaning “that”)

I can’t seem to figure out what ὅτι has in common in these verses that would make it an adverb, for it still looks like a conjunction to me. Can anyone speculate as to why it would be an adverb in these places?
Jonathan Robie
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Re: How is ὅτι an adverb?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I'll ping James on this one.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
MAubrey
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Re: How is ὅτι an adverb?

Post by MAubrey »

It's because ὅτι can introduce adverbial subordinate clauses, as well, as complement subordinate clauses. Strictly speaking, both functions are still subordinating conjunctions, just that one is a complementizer and the other is an adverbializer.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
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