Variable placement of γάρ in Paul

[Stephen Carlson]

In Romans, Paul writes:

Οὐ γὰρ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο, ἵνα μὴ ἦτε [ἐν] ἑαυτοῖς φρόνιμοι,

However, in 1 Corinthians, Paul phrases it this way:

Οὐ θέλω γὰρ ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν πάντες ὑπὸ τὴν νεφέλην ἦσαν καὶ πάντες διὰ τῆς θαλάσσης διῆλθον,

The two statements begin almost the same way, but the position of γάρ changes. Any suggestions why?

[Stephen Carlson]

I should note that οὐ γάρ is much more common than οὐ Χ γάρ. I count eighty (80) cases of the former and just six of the latter (Mark 13:33, Mark 13:35, Acts 4:20, 1 Cor 10:1, 1 Cor 16:7, Heb 12:20) in the New Testament.

[David Lim]

I should note that οὐ γάρ is much more common than οὐ Χ γάρ. I count eighty (80) cases of the former and just six of the latter (Mark 13:33, Mark 13:35, Acts 4:20, 1 Cor 10:1, 1 Cor 16:7, Heb 12:20) in the New Testament.

Here is a breakdown of occurrences of "ου P V" compare to "ου V P" for some post-positives P in the LXX+NT:
P: "ου P V":"ου V P"
γαρ: 121:9
δε: 0:12
ουν: 0:3
μεν: 0:1
I suspect each post-positive has a default position with respect to "ουκ", but if so what's the reason for the default?

[Stephen Carlson]

Here is a breakdown of occurrences of "ου P V" compare to "ου V P" for some post-positives P in the LXX+NT:
P: "ου P V":"ου V P"
γαρ: 121:9
δε: 0:12
ουν: 0:3
μεν: 0:1

Thanks for the stats. I suspect that ού δε V is spelled ούδὲ V. Likewise for οὔκουν. This should change the statistics.

[David Lim]

Here is a breakdown of occurrences of "ου P V" compare to "ου V P" for some post-positives P in the LXX+NT:
P: "ου P V":"ου V P"
γαρ: 121:9
δε: 0:12
ουν: 0:3
μεν: 0:1

Thanks for the stats. I suspect that ού δε V is spelled ούδὲ V. Likewise for οὔκουν. This should change the statistics.

I thought "ουδε" had by then come to have acquired a distinct sense. In particular, "ουδε" invariably comes after a negative clause that is "at the same syntactic level". Do you have any example where "ουδε V" does not function this way? For example, Gen 15:10 "ελαβεν δε αυτω παντα ταυτα και διειλεν αυτα μεσα και εθηκεν αυτα αντιπροσωπα αλληλοις τα δε ορνεα ου διειλεν" has the negated verb not following another negated verb but in all such cases that I found the "ουκ" is never before "δε". Likewise it is really that "ουκουν" meant the same as "ουκ ουν" would logically have meant as separate words? Interestingly, there was no "ουκουν" in the LXX and only one occurrence of "ουκουν" in the NT at John 18:37. But I don't have access to larger corpuses that I can search for syntactic patterns, so except for "γαρ" the statistics I have are only good enough to show that the other post-positives just don't occur next to a negated verb.

[David Lim]

I thought "ουδε" had by then come to have acquired a distinct sense. In particular, "ουδε" invariably comes after a negative clause that is "at the same syntactic level". Do you have any example where "ουδε V" does not function this way? For example, Gen 15:10 "ελαβεν δε αυτω παντα ταυτα και διειλεν αυτα μεσα και εθηκεν αυτα αντιπροσωπα αλληλοις τα δε ορνεα ου διειλεν" has the negated verb not following another negated verb but in all such cases that I found the "ουκ" is never before "δε".

I should qualify my statement; by "negative clause" I include not only negated verbal clauses but also clauses with implicit negated verbal ideas, such as in Matt 9:17 "ουδε βαλλουσιν οινον νεον εις ασκους παλαιους ει δε μηγε ρηγνυνται οι ασκοι και ο οινος εκχειται και οι ασκοι απολουνται αλλα βαλλουσιν οινον νεον εις ασκους καινους και αμφοτεροι συντηρουνται", where the previous clause "ουδεις δε επιβαλλει επιβλημα ρακους αγναφου επι ιματιω παλαιω αιρει γαρ το πληρωμα αυτου απο του ιματιου και χειρον σχισμα γινεται" contains the implicit verbal idea of "people do not ...".

[Stephen Carlson]

Well, οὐδέ basically means "and not," which is what we'd expect from both members of the compound: οὐ "not" + δέ "but/and". Now, there may be some specialization in terms of the kinds of contexts it prefers out of competition with καὶ οὐ and ὰλλὰ ού, but that issue seems to me to lean more toward pragmatics rather than lexis. One also has to take into account the pragmatics of placing οὐ first in the sentence versus later positions.

LSJ says that δέ is not placed immediately after ού to avoid confusion with οὐδέ, which was my initial thinking too, but if οὐδέ historically derives from οὐ δέ and there is little appreciable difference in meaning, despite its strong preference for negative contexts, who is to say that οὐδέ isn't just an orthographic convention for writing for οὐ δέ?

So, at this moment, I'm not convinced that δέ is strongly avoided immediately after a sentence-initial οὐ. We just may spell that οὐδέ. And I'm not sure how distinguish ού δέ from ούδέ by sense in negative contexts, where we could expect either to be found. On the other hand, it does seem that δέ is strongly avoided after (adverbial) καί in classical and Koine Greek. I can find examples of καὶ δέ in Homer and then starting in 4th century CE Greek, but between them I could only find the combination in the immensely prolific Galen and a couple of editorially restored manuscripts on TLG. So there are cases where δέ does avoid the second position with certain words in first position, but I'm not sure at this point that an initial οὐ is one of them.

[David Lim]

Well, οὐδέ basically means "and not," which is what we'd expect from both members of the compound: οὐ "not" + δέ "but/and". Now, there may be some specialization in terms of the kinds of contexts it prefers out of competition with καὶ οὐ and ὰλλὰ ού, but that issue seems to me to lean more toward pragmatics rather than lexis. One also has to take into account the pragmatics of placing οὐ first in the sentence versus later positions.

Yes I agree that this makes it harder to analyze.

LSJ says that δέ is not placed immediately after ού to avoid confusion with οὐδέ, which was my initial thinking too, but if οὐδέ historically derives from οὐ δέ and there is little appreciable difference in meaning, despite its strong preference for negative contexts, who is to say that οὐδέ isn't just an orthographic convention for writing for οὐ δέ?

So, at this moment, I'm not convinced that δέ is strongly avoided immediately after a sentence-initial οὐ. We just may spell that οὐδέ. And I'm not sure how distinguish ού δέ from ούδέ by sense in negative contexts, where we could expect either to be found.

The data that I have from the LXX+NT is merely that every of the 133 occurrences of "ουδε V" were preceded by an "ουκ" within the same verse, which I assume begins an immediately preceding negative clause, except for 9 cases which I manually checked and found the negative clause in the preceding verse, including Matt 9:17. At the same time, there are about 70 occurrences of verbal clauses of the form "X δε ... ου V" (there were a few false positives to my regular expression), and almost all of them do not have any immediately preceding negative clauses. I manually checked those in Gen-Exo and they are Gen 2:20, 15:10, 37:24, 39:8, 42:4,13, Exo 3:2, 9:32, 33:11,23. The only exception is Exo 24:2.

In short, if "ουδε" was merely a spelling for "ου δε", then I cannot see why there is no occurrence of a negated verbal clause using "ουδε" that has no immediately preceding negative clause, while there are many such clauses of the form "X δε ... ου V". This suggests that "ουδε" has a specialized meaning and thus perhaps "ου δε" isn't used because it would otherwise be confused with "ουδε".

On the other hand, it does seem that δέ is strongly avoided after (adverbial) καί in classical and Koine Greek. I can find examples of καὶ δέ in Homer and then starting in 4th century CE Greek, but between them I could only find the combination in the immensely prolific Galen and a couple of editorially restored manuscripts on TLG. So there are cases where δέ does avoid the second position with certain words in first position, but I'm not sure at this point that an initial οὐ is one of them.

I don't know about "και δε" but since there isn't a word "καιδε" avoidance of "και δε" cannot be due to the same reason that I propose for "ου δε". I can conjecture that in this case it is just a semantic matter, since "δε" denotes a switch to a different entity (a bit like "however" in English) but adverbial "και" denotes that the entity is the same in some way, and these two don't seem to quite go together. Is it really common in Homer or later?

Off-topic, I searched Google for "και δε" and found that "δε" is no longer a post-positive in Modern Greek. How did that happen?

[Stephen Hughes]

Off-topic, I searched Google for "και δε" and found that "δε" is no longer a post-positive in Modern Greek. How did that happen?

What you find in Modern Greek as δε started as οὐδὲν and then simplified to either δεν before a verb starting with a vowel or consonant, and sometimes as δε before a verb starting with a consonant. It is a particle of negation.

There are a number of example of οὐδέν in the New testament, where it is mainly used with transitive verbs. In Modern Greek δε is used with both transitive and intransitive verbs. New Testament examples like Matthew 13:34 "καὶ χωρὶς παραβολῆς οὐδὲν ἐλάλει αὐτοῖς·" could be seen as ambiguously either οὐδὲν as a simple negative OR by taking it as what you are expecting it to be after training in Classical / New Testament Grammar.

[Stephen Carlson]

In short, if "ουδε" was merely a spelling for "ου δε", then I cannot see why there is no occurrence of a negated verbal clause using "ουδε" that has no immediately preceding negative clause, while there are many such clauses of the form "X δε ... ου V". This suggests that "ουδε" has a specialized meaning and thus perhaps "ου δε" isn't used because it would otherwise be confused with "ουδε".

Then what's the specialized meaning? All you've shown is a specialized context. At any rate, focusing on γάρ doesn't have this complication.

I don't know about "και δε" but since there isn't a word "καιδε" avoidance of "και δε" cannot be due to the same reason that I propose for "ου δε". I can conjecture that in this case it is just a semantic matter, since "δε" denotes a switch to a different entity (a bit like "however" in English) but adverbial "και" denotes that the entity is the same in some way, and these two don't seem to quite go together. Is it really common in Homer or later?

δέ doesn't always switch to a different entity, and it's OK to use δέ after an entity introduced with καί, for example: Luke 1:76 Καὶ σὺ δέ, 2:35 καὶ σοῦ [δὲ] αὐτῆς τὴν ψυχήν, John 6:51 καὶ ὁ ἄρτος δὲ ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω, 8:17 καὶ ἐν τῷ νόμῳ δὲ τῷ ὑμετέρῳ, 15:27 καὶ ὑμεῖς δέ, Acts 3:24 καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ προφῆται, Acts 22:29 καὶ ὁ χιλάρχος δὲ, 1 Tim 3:10 καὶ οὗτοι δέ, 2 Tim 3:12 καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ θέλοντες, and 3 John 12 καὶ ἡμεῖς δέ. What we don't see, however, is *καὶ δὲ σύ, etc.

As for Homer, the collocation καὶ δέ occurs 20 times.

Off-topic, I searched Google for "και δε" and found that "δε" is no longer a post-positive in Modern Greek. How did that happen?

I'm not really sure. Jannaris's historical grammar (which is out of copyright and online) seems to indicate that all the postpositive conjunctions died out in the living language (i.e. speech) by the Byzantine era in favor of prepositive conjunctions. Δέ is just one casualty among many.