τοῦτ᾽ εστιν

[Alan Bunning]

Now that I have all of the words in my collation (http://cntr.t15.org/) tied to a lexical entry, the issue of word divisions has come up again, especially those of which modern editors disagree. I have written a program which looks for words that are subsets of other words and came up with about 100 such words that I need to consider. I won’t bother you with all 100 words, but am looking for general principles to guide me about whether words should be split into two words or not.

For τοῦτ᾽ εστιν, most modern texts have this divided into 2 words (as I currently do), but Stephanus 1550 has it as 1 word. The problem I now find with dividing it into 2 words is that τοῦτ᾽ is not a word that stands by itself (at least not anywhere else in the New Testament). Nor is it found with any other word except εστιν (and not any other form of εἰμί for that matter). That makes it highly specialized, only appearing in about 20 verses. You might think that the “ο” was elided from τοῦτο because εστιν begins with a vowel, but that it not the case, as the “ο” is not elided from τοῦτο when it comes before any other word that begins with a vowel. Thus, the best explanation might be something like krasis, which would make it one word. I am not really wanting to change things unless I have to, so can someone give a good reason to justify making it 2 words, or do you agree that it should be one word?

[Jonathan Robie]

If you made it one word, what lexeme would it correspond to? Can you think of any lexicon that has that lexeme?

Katabiblon makes this claim:

τοῦτό ἐστιν means this is/those are;
τοῦτ’ ἔστιν means that is, i.e., i.e.

Compare τοῦτό ἐστιν in Mt 26:26, Mk 14:22, 24, Jn 6:29, Acts 2:16 to τοῦτ’ ἔστιν in Mt 27:46, Mk 7:2, Acts 1:19, Acts 19:4, Rom 7:18, Rom 9:8, Rom 10:6, Rom 10:7, Rom 10:8, Phlm 1:12, Heb 2:14, Heb 7:5, Heb 9:11, Heb 10:20, Heb 11:16, Heb 13:15, 1Pt 3:20

I didn't know that. ταῦτ’ is used twice in 2 Maccabees, in 9:12 and 14:33. Neither of these involve ἐστιν.

[Alan Bunning]

Can you think of any lexicon that has that lexeme?

It would not matter to me if they do, the question is whether they should. There are several other entries that are krasis.

[Stephen Hughes]

You could apply the test of whether the sum of the parts actually equals the whole, or something else. Phrases, consisting of many words, but just one meaning are lexical units, but are not given their own entries in word based lexicons. In most cases the phrase - eg "off the cuff" would be found in the dictionary entry of the most significant word. That is not necessarily a practice that I think is best practice, but any other encounters organisational difficulties - indexing.

In Modern Greek there are many fossils of this type that serve as discourse markers. If a phrase is a immutable and likely a fossil, then giving it separate (one word) entry might be meaningful. Another consideration is whether in the subsequent period of the language, the prepositional or other phrase was verbalised by the addition of an appropriate ending.

[Stephen Hughes]

Language teachers are the ones that should design dictionaries, not lexicographers Look at the vocab lists for the "words" at the end of any chapter of a language learning text. There are words, phrases and idioms listed together separately.

[cwconrad]

... You might think that the “ο” was elided from τοῦτο because εστιν begins with a vowel, but that it not the case, as the “ο” is not elided from τοῦτο when it comes before any other word that begins with a vowel. Thus, the best explanation might be something like krasis, which would make it one word. I am not really wanting to change things unless I have to, so can someone give a good reason to justify making it 2 words, or do you agree that it should be one word?

I question the proposition that the omicron of τοῦτο is not elided before ἐστιν.
Smyth §70--71:

70. Elision is the expulsion of a short vowel at the end of a word before a word beginning with a vowel. An apostrophe (’) marks the place where the vowel is elided.
ἀλλʼ (ὰ) ἄγε, ἔδωκʼ (α) ἐννέα, ἐφʼ (= ἐπὶ) ἑαυτοῦ (64), ἔχοιμʼ (ι) ἄν, γένοιτʼ (ο) ἄν.
a. Elision is often not expressed to the eye except in poetry. Both inscriptions and the Mss. of prose writers are very inconsistent, but even where the elision is not expressed, it seems to have occurred in speaking; i.e. ὅδε εἶπε and ὅδʼ εἶπε were spoken alike. The Mss. are of little value in such cases.

71. Elision affects only unimportant words or syllables, such as particles, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions of two syllables (except περί, ἄχρι, μέχρι, ὅτι 72 b, c), and the final syllables of nouns, pronouns, and verbs.
a. The final vowel of an emphatic personal pronoun is rarely elided.

BDF §17:

17. In line with the scribal tendency of the period towards greater isolation of individual words, there is little to note regarding elimination of hiatus by elision or crasis in the NT MSS. From this it is by no means to be concluded that there was a similar disposition in the spoken language. Rather, it is clearly evident from the agreement in practice of other MSS and inscriptions of not designating elision which was required by metre (χρηστὰ ὁμιλίαι instead of χρήσθʼ ὁμ. in the verse from Menander 1 C 15:33), that the spoken language was more elided than the written (on τετραάρχης and the like s. §124). The NT MSS never indicate elision in nominal and verbal forms, seldom in pronouns, frequently in the most common particles, customarily in prepositions in current formulae and with following pronouns. Proper names following prepositions were preferably kept independent and more readily identifiable by scriptio plena of the preposition. In all of these practices the NT MSS follow the prevailing custom (Mayser I1 155–8; Helb. 12f.; Thack. 136f.).

Elision in pronouns: only τοῦτʼ ἔστιν or τουτέστιν (§12), therefore a fixed formula; τοῦτʼ εἰπών Jn 20:22 in the Poxy. ...

[Stephen Carlson]

Ultimately, you're going to have to come up with your own definition of a word and apply that. Wordhood isn't some Platonic truth out there we can objectively and unanimously determine. What's more important is the purpose you have in mind for your classifications. From a cognitive linguistics perspective, τοῦτ' ἐστιν is probably a word because it was probably spoken like one (as the elision shows, though the orthographic accentuation doesn't show it) and its meaning as i.e. shows some specialization not predictable from the components (idiomaticity). Koine speakers probably acquired it as a fixed expression. Lexicons, on the other hand, would consider it a phrase, and language learning materials like primers tend to follow the lexicons.. Both are defensible but both are not equally useful in every application.

[Alan Bunning]

Elision in pronouns: only τοῦτʼ ἔστιν or τουτέστιν (§12), therefore a fixed formula; τοῦτʼ εἰπών Jn 20:22 in the Poxy. ...

It would be nice to know the number for what Poxy. But regardless, showing that elision with another word help supports the case for keeping it as 2 words. But then again, I suppose, you could say that that is another example of krasis – just as krasis occurs with και and several words that begin with epsilon. LSJ has τουτερον as krasis for το ετερον.

Stephen is right that I will have to come up with my own definition of a word, and that is what I am struggling to do. Some do things one way, and others another way. BDAG, Thayer, LSJ, MM, and Strongs all have entries for τουτέστιν (and most of them are “see” entires), but it is still an entry nonetheless.

After working through several examples, I am hoping t to see if I can come up with a consistent set of rules if possible to apply. For words of this category, I was initially thinking that a loss of only 1 vowel could be explained by elision (making it two words), but if more than 1 vowel was dropped/changed then krasis would be the better explanation (making it one word). I am not sure that this will hold though.

[Stephen Hughes]

Does the loss of the omicron in τοῦτ᾽ εστιν / τουτέστιν follow the current rules of the language or a former period? No. Being from a former period is as good as being from another language. If τοῦτο was a word and ἔστιν was a word, the current rules of the language would apply, and the omicron would be kept.

You could try accepting that a space (in our writing convention) may on some occasions be the marker of a break between words, and at other times it is another character in a sequence of characters making up a sense unit. The is an entry in English dictionaries for "par excellence", definitely consisting of two words, but one sense unit, the two words are always those two words together, with the same meaning. Are they one word? Are they two?

To try the patience of the forum's tolleration of theological diversity for a moment, the idea that two or three words having definite distinctions between them, and which have individual roles within the one wordhood, and which we refer to as one word, is not an unfamiliar way of conceptualising. Of course, anybody can see that τοῦτ᾽ εστιν is made manifest for us in writing as two, but essentially and indivisably it is one word.

[cwconrad]

To try the patience of the forum's tolleration of theological diversity for a moment, the idea that two or three words having definite distinctions between them, and which have individual roles within the one wordhood, and which we refer to as one word, is not an unfamiliar way of conceptualising. Of course, anybody can see that τοῦτ᾽ εστιν is made manifest for us in writing as two, but essentially and indivisably it is one word.

Tolerance of theological diversity? What I'm put in mind of here is 13th-century disputes between nominalists and realists. "Wordhood" indeed! What's that? ὀνοματότης? λογότης?
One factor that has been mentioned but perhaps hasn't been taken seriously enough is the distinction between the spoken language and orthographical conventions of scribes. I think that we're in agreement that τοῦτεστιν represents the way this word/phrase was pronounced. What seems less certain is that it represents a single notion. A compound adjective, e.g. δύσκολος is a single word but is still semantically composite. Is τοῦτ’ ἐστιν or τοῦτεστιν (τούτεστιν?) a single word signifying a notion that can readily be conveyed by a single word in another language? I think of it in terms of our "i.e." or "viz." or "namely" or "I mean" or German zwar or French c'est à dire. I don't have any problem with thinking of it as a unitary expression, even if it's spelled as two words (and pronounced as one), but I have a problem with talking about "wordhood." And incidentally, when I try to type that word, my automatic spell-checker immediately separates the two elements into "word hood". But of course my automatic spell-checker doesn't speak (τοῦτ’ εστιν "write") the kind of English that we speak on B-Greek (and probably doesn't share out theological diversity).