Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> Oh dear, I should've known that my quoting from the Pater Noster might lead
> us off into theological discussion. I didn't intend this, I wanted to
> present the three petitions as _linguistic_ examples. I'll just requote
> before commenting on responses:
Well, that'll teach you! :)

>
> At 12:05 pm -0400 27/4/99, Padraic Brown wrote:
> [....]
> >
> >I'm not entirely certain _why_ the subjunctive is used here (we are taught
> >that the name _is_ holy, the plan _is_ in effect and the kingdom _is_ at
> >hand); so I think it's basically up for argument and discussion what sort
> >of forms these are.
>
> No argument, I'm afraid, about what form the original Greek is.
I never got far enough in Greek to even be daring enough to start arguing!
In English, though, there does seem to be a fair amount of room for such
difference of opinion.

> >Personally, I've always thought of them along the
> >lines of a supplicatory "polite command", though not necessarily second
> >person.
>
> Nothing in the Greek to convey politeness - and, conversely, nothing to
> convey impoliteness!  Just that politeness doesn't come into the original.
No, but in English (leastways as I learned it) subjunctives and/or
"modals" are so used.  The difference being: "get yer ass outta my chair!"
vs. "would you kindly move down a seat".  But perhaps "polite command" was
not a very proper term here.  Granted that the morphology is "3rd sing.
subjungtive pres."; what that means or how it's used in this instance I
don't really know, though I'd wager it's fairly well influenced by the
source language it was translated from. In other words, it can be
interpreted as a 3rd pers.  command (jussive), a 2nd pers. polite command,
some kind of exhortation, etc.  That's what can be argued.

And at the moment it struck me oddly (though it's not really a surprise)
that such a central item of (Christian) faith ought to contain a
contradiction.


Padraic.

>
> Ray.
>