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Re: THEORY: third-person imperatives

From:Raymond A. Brown <raybrown@...>
Date:Tuesday, April 27, 1999, 19:35
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:

hagiasthe:to:        to onoma sou
hallow+PASS+3RD-IMP  the name of-you

elthato:      he: basileia sou
come+3RD-IMP the kingdom of-you

gene:the:to:            to thele:ma sou, ho:s en ourano:i kai epi ge:s
come-into-being+3RD-IMP the will of-you, as   in heaven   even on earth
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 2:07 am -0400 27/4/99, Nik Taylor wrote:
[....]
>Well, as I've understood it, it's more like "may thy name be hallowed", >that is, "may thy name be honored among humans" or something to that >effect.
....which one would expect to optative mood in Greek. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- At 4:14 pm +0200 27/4/99, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 06:59:07 +0100 > From: "Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@...> > > hagiasthe:to: to onoma sou > hallow+PASS+3RD-IMP the name of-you > >In Danish, the verbs in these three phrases are put in the present >subjunctive, and I guess that it's the same in English even though you >can't really tell.
It is the same in English; you can tell only by the fact that though the subjects are singular nouns (cf 'Thy kindom come' ~ 'thy kindom comes [indic.]), the verb appears without final -s or in the case of 'to be' is simply "be" (cf. 'Hallowed by the name' ~ 'hallowed is thy name' [indic.]). The Latin version also, of course, has subjunctives; many (European) languages use the subjunctive for the "3rd pers. imperative" or "jussive" as it is perhaps better termed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.
>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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- At 12:12 pm -0400 27/4/99, Nik Taylor wrote: [....]
>Basically. In Lutheran theology, these are the "petitions", the Lord's >Prayer being broken up into seven petitions, plus the doxology (for >thine is the kingdom ...); it's parallel to "Give us this day our daily >bread", etc., except that the last four are second-person (you give us, >you forgive us, you lead us not, you deliver us), while the first three >are third-person (not *"hallow thy name", but "thy name be hallowed")
Exactly - and not just Lutheran theology. In the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (the Catechism prepared following Vatican II) PART FOUR, Section Two , Article 3 is titled "The Seven Petitions" [of the Lord's Prayer]. I guess, indeed, this must be common to all 'mainstream' Christian theology. The last four petitions are 'normal' second person imperatives in Greek: dos he:min - give us.... aphes he:min - forgive us.... me: eiseneNke:is he:mas... don't take us into... rhysai he:mas.... free us.... (Ok - I know the third one is 2nd. sing. subjunctive - that's because negative imperatives were expressed that way). But in Greek the first three petitions are also expressed in the _imperative_ mood, since ancient Greek had 3rd person endings (singular & plural) for this mood besides the normal 2nd person forms. Whatever one may think or wish or theologize, the first three in the Greek (I know the _oral_ original of the prayer would've been in Aramaic - but it was first written down in Greek) are no more & no less than 3rd singular imperative. [The doxology BTW is not part of the Greek original - but got added to some versions later from the habit of adding doxologies to psalms & other portions of scriptures used in worship. But the above Catechism does have Article 4: The Final Doxology :) ]. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So, to get back to the start of this thread: there is IMHO a need for a language to be able to express such forms and, indeed, several conlangers have told us how their langs do that. We can't, I think, simply scrap them and rephrase with 2nd person imperatives. Ray.