Grace
Theological Journal 12.1 (1992) 99-118.
[Copyright © 1992
Grace Theological Seminary; cited with permission;
digitally prepared for use at
WHAT DOES THE GREEK FIRST
CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY?
GRICEAN METHODOLOGY AND
THE
TESTIMONY OF THE
ANCIENT GREEK
GRAMMARIANS
L.
W. LEDGERWOOD III
Debate has been engaged for more than a century over what
im-
plications, if any, a Greek First Class Conditional (FCC) has concern-
ing the proposition in its protasis.
Some pedagogical grammars claim
that the Greek FCC is well translated with the English causative
con-
struction introduced with "since." In this paper a twofold
approach is
used to show that this claim is in error.
First, a methodology for formulating and testing
hypotheses con-
cerning historical languages is established. The methodology is
based
on a Popperian view of hypothesis
testing. In this case a testable hy-
pothesis is formed utilizing the descriptive apparatus of H. P.
Grice.
The hypothesis is that
the FCC is well translated with English "since"
and it is proven false.
Second, the testimony of four ancient Greek grammarians
is eval-
uated. The grammarians examined are: Dionysius Thrax (1st century
BCE), Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd century CE), Stephanos
and Hel-
liodorus (Byzantine period). It is shown that these grammarians
agree
with the conclusion that it is not appropriate to translate the
FCC with
an English causal introduced by" since."
* * *
I.
INTRODUCTION
DOES
a Koine Greek conditional sentence introduced by ei] ("if")
with the indicative imply the truth of the
proposition in its prota-
sis? Debate on this issue has been engaged for over
100 years. In the
19th
century two of the major participants in the debate were William
100
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
Goodwin1
and Basil Gildersleeve.2 Early in this century, A. T. Robert-
son,3 claiming to be in the Gildersleevian tradition, asserted that the
truth of the proposition in the protasis
is implied to be true or at least
assumed true for the sake of argument. Some
modern pedagogical
grammars follow Robertson's assertions and carry
them to an extreme
that Robertson himself did not.
These pedagogical grammars claim that a Greek
conditional intro-
duced by ei] with the indicative should be translated
with an English
causal construction. That is, a
sentence like:
(1a) Ei]
ou#n sunhge<rqhte t&? Xrist&? ta> a@nw
zhtei?te (
should be translated with the causal (lb) below and
not with the condi-
tional (lc).
(1b)
Since then you have been raised up with Christ, keep
seeking the
things above.
(lc) If then you have been raised
up with Christ, keep seeking the
things above.
They
claim that sentence (la) implies that the proposition in its prota-
sis, namely, "You have been raised up with
Christ," is true and for this
reason an English causal sentence should be used.
Recently, James
Boyer4
argued that such a claim is in error.
This debate has been clouded by at least two
factors: ambiguity of
terms and hypotheses formulated in an untestable manner. For this rea-
son, no one has achieved a level of proof on which
all can agree. How-
ever, H. P. Grice5 has developed
linguistic theory which provides a
descriptive apparatus in which testable hypotheses
concerning implica-
tions can be formulated.
Using Grice's descriptive apparatus it is pos-
l Wi11iam Goodwin,
"The classification of Conditional Sentences in Greek Syntax,"
in Journal
of Philology 15 (1874) 188-205; "'Shall' and 'Should' in Protasis, and Their
Greek
Equivalents," in Journal of
Philology 18 (1877) 18-38; Syntax of
the Moods and
Tenses of the Greek Verb (London: MacMillan, 1889); Greek
Grammar (
Millan, 1879, reprinted by
2 Basil L. Gildersleeve,
"Studies in Pindaric Syntax," in American
Journal of Phi-
lology, 3 (1882) 434-55;
"A Reply to E. B. Clapp," in American
Journal of Philology 9
(1888)
491-92; "Stahl's Syntax of the Greek Verb," in American Journal of Philology
30
(1909) 1-21.
3 A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of New Testament Greek in Light of Historical Re-
search (Nashville: Broadman, 1934).
4 James L. Boyer, "First Class
Conditionals, What Do They Mean?" in Grace
Theological Journal 2.1 (1981) 75-114.
5 R. P. Grice,
"Logic and Conversation," in Syntax
and Semantics 3, Speech Acts,
ed. P. Cole and J. P. Morgan (New York: Academic,
1975) 41-58; R. P. Grice, "Further
Notes
on Logic and Conversation," in Syntax
and Semantics 9, Pragmatics, ed. J. M. Sa-
dock (New York: Academic, 1978) 113-27.
WHAT DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 101
sible to define a clear and
unambiguous hypothesis to test whether or not
the claim of these pedagogical grammars is indeed
sound. In the fol-
lowing paper, the assertions of some grammarians over
the past century
are reviewed. The claim of the pedagogical grammars
which assert that
a first class conditional should be translated
with English "since"is for-
mulated into a testable
hypothesis. The methodology employed proves
unambiguously that conditional
sentences introduced with ei] plus the
indicative do not imply the truth of the
proposition in the protasis.
In the debate over the implications of Greek
conditionals, no one
has gone back to examine what ancient Greek
grammarians said about
the issue. A second purpose of this paper is to do
just that. The relevant
claims of Greek grammarians from 200 B.C. to A.D. 600
are reviewed.
These
confirm that conditional sentences introduced with ei with the
indicative do not imply that the proposition in the
protasis is true.
II. NOTATIONAL
CONVENTION
There are two conditional particles in Greek: ei] and e]a<n. Readers
of this paper not familiar with Greek may, for the
time being, consider
both
ei] and e]a<n to mean "if" neglecting any differences in
meaning
between them. Greek also has a causal particle e]
translated by the English "since."
Many grammarians categorize the Greek
conditionals in different
ways and use different names for their categories.
Only two of the
forms of the conditionals will be discussed in this paper:
the forms
many grammarians call the first and third class
conditionals. The
causal construction will also be discussed. The
following notational
shorthand will be used to refer to these
constructions.
Shorthand Syntactic
form Common name
ei] p,q
ei] + indicative,
indicative first class
conditional
e]a<n p,q
e]a<n + subjunctive,
indicative third class
conditional
e]
In
this notation, "p" and "q" are variables representing
clauses in the
protasis and apodosis
respectively.
III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF
THE ARGUMENT
A.
William Goodwin
William Goodwin sets forth his claims in no
uncertain terms:
(2)
Probably no grammarian would now maintain the absurdity that the
indicative in the protasis expresses either "certainty in fact" or
"what is believed
by the speaker to be true." . . . Most grammarians
102
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
are eager to disclaim any
connection between the "certainty" here
intended and the matter of fact
or even opinion; and thus they
reduce the
"certainty" to a harmless abstraction, which is utterly
valueless as a definition. . .
I have now nothing to change the statement which
I made in
1864, . . . Every example that I
have met has only confirmed the
opinion, which I now express
with the greatest confidence that
there is no inherent
distinction between the present indicative [ei]
p,q] and present
subjunctive [e]a<n p,q] in the protasis, except that
of time6
(Goodwin's emphasis).
Goodwin
spends the bulk of his article on aspectual and temporal
differences
between conditionals of the form e]a<n p,q
and ei] p,q
when
the proposition q is expressed with a future
indicative.
B.
Basil Gildersleeve
Concerning the first class condition Gildersleeve says:
(3)
It is used of that which can be brought to the standard of fact; but
the standard may be for or
against the truth of the postulate. All
the logical condition [ei] p,q] asserts
in the inexorable connection
of the two members of the
sentence. It is the favorite condition in
argument. . . when one wishes to
be or seem fair. . . when one is
sure of the premise. . . . But
so long as the negative continues to
be mh<, the conditional and
the causal do not coincide. . . . In
prose, it is semi-causal.7
An
observation to make concerning this passage is that Gildersleeve
does not say that ei p,q
implies that the proposition p is true like a
causal e]
Robertson
claims to be in the Gildersleevian tradition.
However, the
terminology he uses is not as concise as Gildersleeve's and he has been
interpreted by some to suggest more than Gildersleeve did, namely that
ei] p,q
implies the truth of p.
C.
A. T. Robertson
Robertson says concerning these conditionals:
(4)
This theory in brief is that there are four classes of conditions
which fall into two groups or
types. The two types are the deter-
6 Goodwin, "Conditional Sentences in
Greek Syntax," in Journal of
Philology 15
(1874) 189-90.
7 Gildersleeve,
"Studies in Pindaric Syntax," in American
Journal of Philology 3
(1882) 435.
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 103
mined [ei] p,q is in this
group] and the undetermined [e]a<n p,q
is in
this group]. The point in
"determined" [ei] p,q] is that the premise
or condition is assumed to
be true. . . . The indicative is used for
this type. . . The other
type is the undetermined condition. Natu-
rally the indicative is not
allowed here. The element of uncer-
tainty calls for the subj. or
the optative. . . .8 In broad outline
these four classes of
conditions may be termed Reality [ei] p,q],
Unreality, Probability [e]a<n p,q] and Possibility. . . . This brings
us to the other theory. . .
expounded by Goodwin. . . . Goodwin
confuses the "fact"
with the "statement" of the fact. He describes
his first condition thus:
"When the protasis simply states a present
or past particular
supposition, implying nothing as to the fulfill-
ment of the condition, it
takes a present or past tense of the indic-
ative with ei]." The words to which I object. . . are "implying
nothing as to the fulfillment
of the condition." This condition [ei]
p,q] pointedly implies the
fulfillment of the condition. . . . This is
the crux of the whole
matter9 (Robertson's emphasis).
Robertson
moderates his stance slightly to account for the many
examples in which ei] p,q
clearly does not imply truth of the proposi-
tion in the protasis. Such an instance is Matt
"If
[ei]] I cast out demons by Beelzebul . . ." Concerning this Robert-
son says,
(5)
This class of condition [ei] p,q] assumes the condition to be a
reality and the conclusion
follows logically and naturally from
that assumption. . . This
condition therefore, taken at face value,
assumes the condition to be
true. The context or other light must
determine the actual situation.
This is a good example (cf. also
Gal 5:11) to begin with, since the assumption is
untrue in fact,
though assumed to be true by
Jesus for sake of argument.10
What
Robertson is saying here is that Matt 12:21 should be translated,
"Assuming
for the moment that I do cast out demons by Beelze-
bul. . ." instead of with
the causative, "Since I cast out demons by
Beelzebul . . ." In this statement Robertson
makes it clear that he is
not asserting that the propositions in the protasis are in fact true.
However, Robertson's claims are vague and untestable. He calls
the condition of the type ei] p,q
"determined," in contrast to "undeter-
mined." He calls it a condition of
"reality," in contrast to "possibility."
He
says that this condition assumes the premise to be true, in another
that it pointedly implies the fulfillment of the
condition and finally that
8 Robertson, Greek Grammar (Nashville: Broadman, 1934) 1004.
9 Robertson, Greek Grammar, 1005-6.
10 Robertson, Greek Grammar, 1007-8.
104
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
it assumes the condition to be a reality.
Apparently misunderstanding
Robertson,
some pedagogical grammars, which claim Robertson as
their authority, have gone so far as to identify
conditionals of the form
ei] p,q
with causal constructions.
D.
The Claim of Summer's Pedagogical Grammar
Only one of the pedagogical grammars is quoted
here as an
example of what some of Robertson's followers
claim. Others may be
examined by the interested reader.11
Ray Summers, in his pedagogical
grammar says,
(6)
The first class condition [ei] p,q] affirms the reality of the condi-
tion. . . "ei] maqetai> tou? kuri<ou e@smen swqh<setai"
. . . This con-
struction is best translated,
"Since we are disciples of the Lord,
we shall be saved.”12
E.
Boyer's Rebuttal
Boyer attributes much of the confusion in this
argument to Rob-
ertson's unclear terminology.
Furthermore, he notes that Robertson is
inconsistent in the application of
his theory to conditionals in his com-
mentary Word Pictures. In Word
Pictures sometimes Robertson notes
that a protasis is assumed
true, but in many cases where it is obviously
false, he fails to mention that a first class
conditional is used in the
Greek.13
Boyer sought to bring some focus to this debate
by examining all
of the conditionals in the New Testament. He used gramcord to
search
the New Testament for all the examples of each kind
of condition.14
He
then sorted first class conditionals into three groups: (1) instances
where the condition was obviously true, (2) instances
where the condi-
tion was obviously false,
(3) instances where the condition was unde-
termined. According to his
classification, 115 of the condition in the
NT
are obviously true and 36 are obviously false.15
He considers these
11 Some other grammars which assert claims
like Summers' are: F. Blass, A. De-
brunner and R. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and
other Early Christian
Literature (Chicago: University
Press, 1961); H. E. Dana and J. R. Mantey, A Manual
Grammar of the Greek New
Testament
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1957); Huber L. Drum-
wright, An Introduction to New Testament Greek (Nashville: Broadman, 1980).
12 Ray Summers, Essentials of New Testament Greek (Nashville: Broadman,
1950)
108-9.
13 Boyer,"First
Class Conditionals," GTJ 2.1
(1981) 79-80.
14 Boyer's work is reported in four
articles in Grace Theological Journal.
In addi-
tion to the one cited above
there are: "Second Class Conditions in New Testament
Greek,"
3.1 (1982) 81-88; "Third (and Fourth) Class Conditionals," 3.2 (1982)
163-75;
"Other Conditional Elements in New Testament
Greek," 4.2 (1983) 173-88.
15 Boyer, "First Class Conditionals," GTJ 2.1 (1981) 76.
WHAT DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 105
36
conditions in the obviously false category to be counterexamples to
those who would translate the ei] p,q with
"since."
Boyer's work is exhaustive and convincing.
However, there is still
an element of uncertainty in Boyer's analysis
because the methodology
by which he separated the conditions into
categories of "obviously
true" and "obviously false" is
apparently his own intuition. There are
many examples in his obviously false category
concerning which it is
not so obvious that they are false. For example:
(7a)
If [ei]] you are the Christ,
tell us. Luke 22:67
(7b)
If [ei]] to others I am not an
apostle, yet I am to you. 1 Cor 9:2
In
sentence (7a), Jesus was in fact the Christ, though the speakers of
this sentence may not have believed He was. In (7b)
there were in fact
others who believed Paul was not an apostle, which
makes the protasis
in fact true, even though Paul was in fact an
apostle and believed him-
self to be one.
IV. GRICEAN DESCRIPTIVE
APPARATUS
Significant progress has been made in linguistic
description in the
past two decades in the area of implications. The
work of H. P. Grice16
is foundational in this area. Many unambiguous
tests for identifying
and proving the existence of implicatures
17 have been developed. One
of these tests will aid us in this endeavor.18
Grice made a useful distinction between two
kinds of implicature:
conventional implicature
and conversational implicature. A conven-
tional implicature
is one which is associated with the meaning of the
words and the grammar of a sentence, which cannot be
canceled by the
context. For example, factive
verbs19 have the conventional implicature
16 See n. 5 above.
17 Grice defined the term "implicature" saying, "I wish to introduce as
terms of art,
the verb implicate
and the related nouns implicature
(cf. implying) and implicatum (cf.
what is implied). The point of this maneuver is to
avoid having, on each occasion, to
choose between this or that member of the family of
verbs for which implicature is to do
general duty" (Grice [1975] 43, 44).
Generally speaking, one may think of an implica-
ture as an implication. But
Grice introduced this unique term, because terms like "impli-
cation,"
"presupposition," and "assumption" have been used for a
variety of different
and poorly defined uses.
18 Some helpful introductory texts on Gricean implicature are: Stephen
C.
Levinson,
Pragmatics (Cambridge: University
Press, 1983) 97-166; John Lyons, Seman-
tics (Cambridge: University
Press, 1977) 592-606; John McCawley, Everything that
Linguists Have Always
Wanted to Know About Logic (Chicago: University Press, 1981)
214-34.
19 Factive verbs
are verbs which presuppose the truth of their complements. This
class of verbs was first identified by Paul and Carol
Kiparsky in their article "Fact" in
Progress in Linguistics, ed. M. Bierwisch and K. Heidolf (The Hague:
Mouton, 1970)
106
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
that the proposition in their complement is true.
Evaluative verbs20
have a conversational implicature
that the proposition in their comple-
ment is true. Consider the
following sentences with the factive verb
"regret" and the evaluative verb "criticize."
(8a)
I regretted that John told a lie.
(8b)
I criticized John for telling a lie.
The
complement's proposition in both cases is the same: "John told a
lie." But what about the implicatures? Does a person who utters (8a) or
(8b)
implicate that John told a lie? It may seem that both sentences do,
but on closer inspection we find that they are
different with respect to
implicature.
A common test for implicature
is to place the utterance in a con-
text which attempts to cancel the implicature. If a sentence with a con-
ventional implicature
is placed in a context which attempts to cancel
the implicature, a
pragmatically ill-formed sentence results. If a sen-
tence with a conversational implicature is placed in a context which
attempts to cancel the implicature,
the implicature is canceled and the
sentence remains well formed. For example the
sentences in (8) are put
in such contexts in (9) below.
(9a)
#I regretted that John told a lie, but I shouldn't have regretted it
because it was Joe who lied.
(9b)
I criticized John for telling a lie, but I shouldn't have criticized
him because it was Joe who
lied.
I
use a pound symbol (#) to the left of a sentence to indicate that the sen-
tence is pragmatically
ill-formed. Since (9a) is ill-formed, this proves
that the sentence (8a) has a conventional implicature that John told a lie.
In
sentence (9b) the implicature that John told a lie is
canceled by the
143-73.
Some examples of factive
verbs in English which take object clause comple-
ments introduced by that are:
regret, resent, deplore, be odd, be glad. Some examples of
factive verbs in Greek which
take object clause complements introduced by o!ti are: qau-
ma<zw, lanqa<nw, xai<rw,
lupe<omai, metame<lomai. See L. W. Ledgerwood, "Syntactic Insu-
lation of Factive
Clauses," in The Journal of the
Linguistic Association of the Southwest
5.2 (1982) 105, 112.
20 Evaluative verbs are verbs like
criticize, accuse, praise, congratulate. Filmore
first
identified this class of verbs in C. Filmore, “An Exercise in Semantic Description," in
Studies in Linguistic
Semantics,
ed. C. J. Filmore and D. T. Langendoen
(
1972) 273-89. Karttunen
and Peters showed that the implicature associated
with them was
not conventional but conversational. Lauri Karttunen and Stanley
Peters, "Conventional
Implicature,"
in Syntax and Semantics 9, Presupposition
(New York: Academic, 1979).
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 107
context without resulting in a pragmatically
ill-formed sentence. There-
fore the implicature in
(8b) was a conversational implicature.21
English causal sentences have a conventional implicature that the
proposition in their protasis
is true but English conditionals do not.
Sentences
(10) below illustrate this. Sentence (10a) implicates conven-
tionally that the moon is full,
but sentence (10b) does not.
(10a)
Since the moon is full, it is opposite the sun.
(10b)
If the moon is full, it is opposite the sun.
To
speakers of English this seems intuitively obvious. However, this
claim may be moved beyond the realm of intuition by
placing both
sentences in a context that attempts to cancel the
implicature as shown
in sentences (11) below.
(11
a) #Since the moon is full, it is opposite the sun;
but the moon is
not full today.
(11b)
If the moon is full, it is opposite the sun; but the
moon is not
full today.
This
suggests a way to formulate a test of Summers' claim that ei] p,q
is
best translated with English "since p,q." Summers' claim entails ei] p,q
21 By using Gricean
terminology in this paper I do not mean to imply that Grice has
said the last word on implicature.
There have been challenges to Grice's methodology.
Most recently several books and papers have
appeared proposing relevance theory
as superior to the Gricean
framework. Relevance theory and discussions of the problems
with Grice's theory are contained in: Dianne
Blakemore, "The Organization of Dis-
course," in Linguistics,
The
bridge: University Press, 1988); Dianne Blakemore, Semantic Constraints on Relevance
(Oxford:
Blackwells, 1987); Ruth Kempson,
"Grammar and Conversational Principles,"
in Linguistics,
The
University
Press, 1988); D. Sperber and D.
Cognition (Oxford, Blackwells, 1986).
Two comments are offered in defense of applying Gricean terminology in this pa-
per. First, most of the challenges to Grice's work
have come in the area of what he called
conversational implicatures
(for example, Jerrold M. Sadock, "On Testing for
Conversa-
tional Implicature,"
in Syntax and Semantics 9, Pragmatics,
ed. P. Cole [
ademic, 1977]). The notion of
conversational implicature is not used in this paper;
conventional implicatures
are. (For more on conventional implicature see the
following
papers by Lauri Karttunen and Stanley Peters: "Requiem for
Presupposition," in Papers
from the Third Annual Meeting of the
tional Implicature,"
in Syntax and Semantics 11,
Presupposition (
1979);
"Presuppositions of Compound Sentences," in Linguistic Inquiry, vol. 4 (1973)
169-93.
Secondly, the goal of this paper is to show that by making use of a methodology
like that of Grice, one can formulate clear and
testable hypotheses which facilitate com-
munication and advance research in
applied areas such as this. These arguments could be
reformulated in terms of relevance
theory without changing the result.
108
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
having a conventional implicature
that the proposition p is true. Sum-
mers' claim can be
formulated in a hypothesis based on this entail-
ment:
(12)
Summers' hypothesis: Sentences of the form ei] p,q have the
conventional implicature
that p is true.
Formulating
his hypothesis in this manner yields one that is very test-
able. If indeed ei] p,q does have a conventional implicature
that the
proposition p is true, then it will not occur in
contexts which cancel
implicature.
In an investigation of Koine
Greek, it is not possible to record
speech of native speakers nor to quiz them concerning
their intuitions
about their language. So, a disciplined methodology
is needed for test-
ing hypotheses from texts.
David Lightfoot says in his Principles of
Diachronic Syntax,22 "One can never
demonstrate the truth of a the-
ory, only its falsity. Thus
progress in scientific endeavors can be
viewed as the successive elimination of theories shown
by empirical
investigation to be false." I
take this somewhat Popperian view of sci-
entific progress to be
axiomatic. Thus the historical grammarian's goal
is to formulate hypotheses that are well enough
defined that they can
be proven false. No hypotheses will ever be proven
true in an inductive
endeavor such as this; they will only be
supported by arguments from
silence. The confidence that may be placed in a
hypothesis will be a
function of how "silent" the text is;
that is, of how many possibilities
were examined in which the hypothesis could have
been proven false
and was not.
Large volumes of Greek texts must be searched to
find whether ei]
p,q occurs in contexts
which cancel the implicature. If ei] p,q is not
found in such contexts, then this will be an argument
from silence that
it contains a conventional implicature.
This is a weak argument. But if
ei] p,q
is ever found in a context in which the implicature
is canceled,
then it will be proven that the ei] p,q does not
have a conventional
implicature that p is true.
A systematic way of searching large amounts of
text to look for
examples like this is to imagine discourse forms
which always cancel
the proposition in the protasis.
Sometimes this process can be made
regular enough that a computer may be used to do
some of the search-
ing for such occurrences.
For example, two conditionals linked by an
adversative or disjunctive with the second protasis negated is such a
construction.
22 David Lightfoot, Principles of Diachronic Syntax (
1974) 74f.
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 109
(13)
if P then q but if not p then r
Another
construction which cancels the proposition in the protasis
is a
modus tolens argument which
has the form:
(14)
if p then q, but not q, therefore not p
V. TESTING THE
HYPOTHESIS
The first two books of Arrian's
Discourses of Epictetus,23 the
Cynic
Epistles24 and the New Testament, all dating from around the
first century A.D., have been searched for examples
in which a condi-
tional of the form ei] p,q occurs in
a context in which the proposition p
is negated. Such examples are abundant. Following
are some of them.25
A.
Examples of the Form ei] p,q but ei] not p, r
(15a)
ei] ga>r mh> ei]si>n
qeoi<, pw?j e]sti te<loj
e!pesqai qeoi?j; ei] d ] ei]si>n
me<n, mhdeno>j d ] e]pimelou<menoi, kai> ou@twj pw?j u[gie>j e@stai;
For if [ei]] there are not gods,
how is it an end to serve gods?
But if [ei]] there are and they
don't care, how will this be sound?
Epictetus 1.12.4
(15b)
Ei] me>n ou#n a]dikw?
kai> a@cion
qana<tou pe<praxa< ti, ou] paraitou?-
mai
to> a]poqanei?n, ei] de> ou]de<n e]stin . . .
If [ei]] I am a wrongdoer, and
have committed anything worthy
of death, I do not refuse
to die; but if [ei]] none of those things
are true . . .
(Acts 25: 11)
Note
that in both of these cases, translation with "since" is not possible
because the conventional implicature
that "since" generates is canceled.
(16a)
#Since there are not gods. . . , but since there are .
. .
(16b)
#Since I am a wrongdoer. . . , but since none of these
things are
true. . .
23 Epictetus in Epictetus, the Discourses as Reported by Arian,
T. E. Page et a1.,
eds. (Cambridge: Harvard, 1967). Also the machine
readable text of Epictetus' Dis-
courses encoded in the Thesaurus Linguae Graeca database at the
nia at
24 Abraham J. Malherbe,
The Cynic Epistles (Missoula, MT: Scholars,
1977).
25 0ther examples not listed here are: Epictetus 1.12.4, 1.29.7, II.1.17, II.2.24,
II.4.4,
II.5.25, II.10.13, II.15.6; Ma1herbe, The Cynic Epistles,
Crates 30, p. 80, 1. 6; 35,
p. 88, 1. 19; Diogenes 5, p. 96,
.1. 1; 24, p. 116, 1. 10. In the NT see Matt
12:27-28,
26:39-40;
Luke 11:19-20; John
110
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
B.
An Example of a Modus Tolens Argument
(17)
Ei] de> a]na<stasij
vekrw?n ou]k e@stin, ou]de> Xristo>j e]ge<ger-
tai.
. . Nuni> de> Xristo>j
e]gh<gertai
e]k nekrw?n. . .
But [ei]] if there is no
resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has
been raised. . . . But now
Christ has been raised from the dead. . . .
1 Cor
Note
that the argument makes no sense if ei] is translated with
"since"
because Paul intends for the Corinthians to
deduce that there is a resur-
rection of the dead.
(18)
#Since there is no resurrection of the dead, not even
Christ has
been raised. . . But now
Christ has been raised from the dead.
Examples
such as these disprove the Summers hypothesis as formu-
lated above. That is, they
prove that conditionals of the form ei] p,q do
not have the conventional implicature
that the proposition p is true.
Therefore
the English causal "since p,q"
is not a good translation for ei]
p,q across the board.
C.
Examples of ei] p,q in which p Is True
Nevertheless; sometimes there are cases in which
conditionals of
the form ei] p,q
can be translated with English "since." Following are
two such examples.26
(19a)
ei] e]me> e]di<wcan, kai> u[ma?j diw<cousin.
If [ei]] they persecuted me,
they will persecute you also.
John
15:20
(19b)
Ei] de> kalo>j h#n Pla<twn kai> i]sxuro<j, e@dei
ka]me> kaqh<menon
e]k-
ponei?n, i!na kalo>j
ge<nwmai h} i!na i]sxro<j,
w[j tou?to a]nagkai?on
pro>j filosofi<an, e]
sofoj;
Now if [Ei]
Plato was handsome and strong, is it necessary for me
to sit down
and strive to become handsome or strong on the
assumption
that this is necessary for philosophy, since [e]
philosopher
was at the same time both handsome and strong?
Epictetus 1.8.13
26 For other examples in
which the proposition in the protasis is true and
translation
with "since" is possible, see Malherbe, Cynic
Epistles, Crates 30, p. 80 1. 8 and Sopho-
cles Fr. 877N (sentence 28
in this paper); Rom
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 111
Translations
with "since p, q" are appropriate for these examples as
shown in sentences (20) below.
(20a)
Since they persecuted me, they will persecute you
also.
(20b)
Since Plato was handsome and strong. . .
To
the people who originally heard these utterances, and to those who
are acquainted with Jesus' life and Plato's
physique, it is generally
known that Jesus was in fact persecuted and that
Plato was in fact hand-
some and strong. That is, it is known from other
sources that the prop-
osition in the protasis is true. For this reason, translation with
"since
p, q" is acceptable, because the implicature generated by "since" does
not conflict with the known facts of the case. In
all the cases in the cor-
pus under investigation where "since p,q" may be used to translate ei]
p, q, it is clear from the context that p is
true. The truth of p comes from
the context, not from a supposed implicature associated with ei] p, q.
But the fact that ei] p, q sometimes can and sometimes cannot
be
translated with "since p,q"
indicates that there is something else going
on in these conditionals other than conventional implicature and for
this reason it is not appropriate to recommend a
translation of ei] p, q as
"since p, q."
Why does ei]
p, q have this on again-off again implicature?
Why
don't such implicatures
occur with e]a<n p, q? These are not the subject of
this paper. Answers to these questions have been
proposed elsewhere.27
What
this paper claims to offer is unambiguous proof that the first class
conditional does not conventionally implicate the
truth of its protasis.
The following quotes from ancient
Greek grammarians show that
they agree with this conclusion.
VI.
TESTIMONY OF THE ANCIENT GREEK GRAMMARIANS
Passages from four ancient Greek
grammarians are presented
below. The grammarians are:28
Dionysius Thrax
(1st century B.C.)
Apollonius Dyscolus
(2nd century A.D.)
Stephanos (Byzantine period)
Heliodorus
(Byzantine
period)
27 Unpublished proposal
presented by L. W. Ledgerwood at the 1989 meeting of
the Linguistic Association of the Southwest in
meeting in
28 The text used is found
in G. Uhlig, Grammatici Graeci I I/II, Dionysii Thracis
and Grammatici Graeci,
II II/III,
Apollonii Dyscoli (
1910, reprinted 1965). The English translations are
original.
112 GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
Dionysius
is the father of western grammatical tradition; however, his
work is quite short. Stephanos
and Heliodorus wrote commentaries on
Dionysius'
grammar which flesh out his arguments with example sen-
tences. Apollonius wrote the
most voluminous and original grammar
of the four. We will examine Dionysius and his
commentators first,
then Apollonius.
A.
Dionysius Thrax
Dionysius classed conditional and causal
particles (ei] "if," e]
"since,"
e]a<n "if") along
with conjunctions (kai< "and," h@ "or," de<
"but," etc.). He has only one short passage on
conjunctions. The por-
tion of this dealing with
conditionals and causals is listed below.
If Dionysius' account seems unclear, his
commentators adequately
explain his meaning.
(21)
Conditional particles are those which do
not assert existence,
but they signify
consequence. They are: ei],
ei@per, ei]dh<, ei]dh<per.
Causal connective
particles are those which assert order
along with existence. They
are e]
Expletive conjunctions
are those which are used on
account of meter or adornment.
They are: dh<, r[a<, nu<, pou?, toi<,
qh<n,
a@r, dh?ta, pe<r, pw?, mh<n,
a@n, nu?n, ou#n, ke<n, ge< (20.3.4,8).
Note
that Dionysius does not discuss the conditional particle e]a<n. e]a<n
is constructed from ei] plus the modal particle
a@n. He mentions the
modal particle a@n under Expletive
Conjunctions.29
B.
Dionysius' Commentators, Stephanos and Heliodorus
(22)
The conditional particles differ from the causal connective par-
ticles as follows: the
conditional particles only connect proposi-
tions, they do not affirm the
reality. For example, if I say, "If
[ei]] the
sun is over the land," it is not clear whether the sun is
over the land. But the
causal connective particle, in addition
signifying consequence and
connecting to another proposition
29 Dionysius has lumped
a lot of different types of particles into his "Expletive
Conjunctions." His statement about
them indicates that he considers that they add little
or no meaning to a text. Rather, they are added
simply to make meter (i.e., in poetry)
come out right and to add adornment. It seems that
he really did not know what to do
with these. Apollonius discusses a theory which said
that expletive conjunctions merely
"fill up the empty holes in a text" and takes strong
objection to this theory. He says that
each of the expletive conjunctions adds some special
meaning such as "transition in
logic" for dh<, "moderation"
for ge<, etc. (III.127-29).
Unfortunately, he does not tell us
what the special meaning of a@n or e]a<n is.
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 113
also affirms the reality,
for example, "since [e]
over the land, it is
day" (Stephanos, in Uhlig
1965 I/III,
p. 284.30).
(23)
Of the conjunctions, some assert existence, others assert order
and others both.
Coordinating conjunctions [i.e., kai< "and"]
assert existence. For example,
if I say, "God and day and justice
exist," everything is
affirmed.30 The conditional particles dis-
close order. For example, if
I say, "If I am walking I am mov-
ing," the sentence
holds consequence, but it is not also affirmed;
for I can say this while I
am sitting. But if I turn it around, the
truth is destroyed. For
example, "Whenever [o[tan] I am mov-
ing, I am walking" is
not true, for it is possible for me, while
sitting, to move something. The
causal connective particles
have both the reality of the
coordinating conjunctions and the
order of the conditional
particles; for "Since [e]
ing, I am moving" is
both affirmed and has order. In the same
way, it being turned around
is no longer true (Stephanos, in
Uhlig 1965
!/III, p. 286.5).
(24)
The difference between the coordinating conjunction and the
conditional particle is this: the
coordinating conjunctions have
the force of reality but
they are unordered with respect to the
flow of speech. For example,
"I am walking and I am thinking,"
and the reverse, "I am
thinking and I am walking.”31 But the
conditional particles do not affirm
the force of reality; rather
they affirm the consequence
of the expression and they preserve
the order. For example,
"If [ei]] I shall walk, I shall
be moving."
But I may not say, "If [ei]] I shall be moving, I shall be walk-
ing," for it is false
(Heliodorus in Uhlig 1965 I/III
105.10).
(25)
The conditional conjunction stands in place of e]a<n, in "If [ei]]
there is light, it is
day." . . . It also, stands in place of the causal
connective particle e]
things, you must suffer
terrible things."
One must see that the causal connective
particles have this
much more than the conditional particles, they not
only have
30 By "Everything is affirmed," Stephanos means that a person who utters the
phrase, "God and day and justice exist," is
asserting that God exists, it is presently day
and justice is presently occurring. On the
contrary, a person saying, "If I am walking, I
am moving," does not assert that he is
presently walking or moving.
31 Heliodorus is
saying that with the conjunction kai< ("and") it
does not matter
what order the propositions come in. Thus, "I
am walking and I am thinking" means the
same as "I am thinking and I am walking."
However, in the case of the conjunction ei],
changing the order changes the meaning.
114
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
consequence and order, but also
they indicate the existence of
reality. For I may say,
"Since [e]
. . . and there is not
uncertainty as with the conditional particle
(Heliodorus
in Uhlig 1965 lIIII, pp.
439.4-11).
Dionysius
and his commentators address specifically the questions of
implicata of Greek conditionals.
They here are interested in two prop-
erties of the so-called
conjunctions. These are: (1) existence and (2)
what they refer to as consequence and order. The
following definitions
of these terms are proposed for these passages.
Existence:
Uttering the phrase implies that the
propositions joined
by the conjunction are
true in reality.
Consequence:
There is a logical or causal relationship between the
phrases joined by the
conjunction.
Order:
The linear order of the propositions
in speech flow is
significant. The order cannot be
reversed.
The
Greek grammarians quoted above tell us that their so-called con-
junctions have the following properties:
Conjunction
Properties
Coordinating
Conj. (kai<, and) existence
Conditional
Conj. (ei], if) consequence and order
Causal
Conj. (e]
The
examples they give leave no doubt as to their conclusion. Stepha-
nos gives the sentences:
(26a)
If [ei]] the sun is over the
land, it is day.
(26b)
Since [e]
He
says that (26a) does not imply that the sun is over the land while
(26b)
does.
Of particular interest is Heliodorus
statement in quote (25) above.
He
says that ei] may be used in place of
e]a<n and gives an example
repeated
as (27) below and that ei] may be used in place of
e]
gives an example repeated in (28) below.
(27) If [ei]] there is light, there
is day.
(28) Since [ei]] you have done terrible
things, you must suffer terrible
things (Soph
Fr 877 N).
Sentence
(27) is a statement of general truth. It does not assert that it is
necessarily day or not, it just asserts the
entailment that whenever it is
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 115
light, it is day. It seems that Heliodorus
considers it more natural to
make such a generalized statement in Greek with e]a<n p,q
(what Good-
win called the present general condition: e]a<n and the present subjunc-
tive in the protasis and a present indicative in the apodosis). But he
gives sentence (27) as an example of a case in which ei] p,q means the
same as the present general condition e]a<n p,q.
Sentence (28) is an
example of ei] p,q
being used in a context in which it is clear that p is
true. In this example, he says that ei] p, q means about the same as e]
p, q.
Yet, he cannot mean that ei] and e]
for he says clearly in other passages that e]
osition p is true in reality
while ei] p,q
does not. He just observes, as
has been observed above (pp. 110-11), that ei] can sometimes be used
where the causal could also be used.
C.
Apollonius Dyscolus
(from Syntax, Book III)32
In the following passage Apollonius is
discussing the origin of the
names of the moods. Previous to this passage, he has
dealt with the
indicative and optative
and shown that these names ("Indicative" and
"Optative") come from the meaning of the mood. But in
the case of the
subjunctive, the term subjunctive does not refer to
a quality of its
meaning, but to its syntax. That is, it occurs
primarily in clauses that
are subjected (i.e., subordinated) to another
clause and it got its name
from this property. Specifically here he is refuting
the theory that the
subjunctive should be called the dubative.
This naming theory is relevant to the discussion
at hand in that
Apollonius
asserts that conditionals with ei] and e]a<n have about the
same degree of doubt. Furthermore, he is the only
grammarian to say
anything substantive about the conditional e]a<n p,q.
(29)
Next it is necessary to speak about the subjunctive mood which
some call dubative because of its meaning, just as also the pre-
viously mentioned moods have
received their names. For it is
clear that "If [e]a<n] I ever write" and
the like express a doubt
concerning a future matter.
But perhaps someone will
object that these [i.e., the
moods] are not the source of
the sense of doubt, but the accom-
panying conjunction is the
source of doubt. Now, if it is reason-
32 Two very helpful works on Apollonius
have recently appeared. They are: David
L.
Blank, Ancient Philosophy and Grammar, The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus
(
CA: Scholars, 1982); and a translation of
Apollonius' extant books on syntax in F. W.
Householder,
The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1981).
Another
helpful work discussing Apollonius' model of AN is R. Camerer,
"Die Behand-
lung der Parikel AN in den Schristen des
Apollonius Dyskolos," in Hermes 93 (1965)
168-204.
116
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
able to name verb forms
after the meaning of their conjunctions,
then nothing prevents us
from changing the names of the other
moods also when they receive
this meaning from their conjunc-
tions. . . . Roughly speakIng, "If [ei]] you are talking you
are
moving" falls under the
same doubt as "If [e]a<n] you walk you
will move," but
"If [ei]] you are walking"
is not called dubative
(3.123-24).
Apollonius'
point is that an indicative introduced by ei] is just as duba-
tive as a subjunctive
introduced by e]a<n. Therefore the source of the
dubative meaning is not the mood
(subjunctive or indicative) but the
conjunction (e]a<n or ei]) is the source. This is important for
evaluating
Robertson's
model of Greek conditionals, because Robertson bases his
classification of conditionals
primarily on the distinctions between the
moods accompanying the conjunction.
In the following passages, Apollonius gives us
an interesting
statement concerning the tenses which are
grammatical with e]a<n p,q.
(30)
The above-mentioned mood [the subjunctive] with the conjunc-
tion e]a<n and its equivalents33
is accompanied by the future or
present tense. For example,
"If [e]a<n] I study Dion will come,"
and "If [e]a<n] I ever read, Tryphon comes." For a past tense is
ungrammatical (3.131).
(31)
It is necessary also to examine the syntax of the conjunctions, to
determine why they refuse the
endings of the past tense. For the
syntax of "If [e]a<n] I was saying" is
not acceptable, or "If [e]a<n]
I have trusted”34 and the like. . . It
is evident that the cause of
such ungrammaticality is the
conflict of the past tense with the
meaning of the conjunction. For
they present a doubt about com-
ing matters and also about
those matters to be completed. . . .
33 One would like very much to know what
Apollonius meant by "Its equivalents"
(i]sodunamou<ntwn).
He probably means the terms e]a<n, e]a<nper
("if indeed") and the like,
since
Dionysius classes ei] with ei]per, etc. However, would
Apollonius include o!tan
("whenever") in this class? Both e]a<n and o!tan are constructed by
adding a@n to another
particle. e]a<n comes from ei] + a@n; o!tan comes from o!te + a@n. Both e]a<n and o!tan take the
subjunctive. o!tan is frequently
interchangeable with e]a<n. (For example, note that Steph-
anos uses o!tan for e]a<n [quote (23) above].) In spite of these
similarities, there are ex-
amples of o!tan with the indicative, used to express an iterative sense,
which cannot be
written off as grammatical quirks. See for
example: Polybius IV .32.5, Ignatius Eph 8:1,
Exod
11:19.
Apollonius does not tell us what he thinks about such uses of
o!tan.
34 "If I was saying" (e]a<n e@legon) is e]a<n plus an imperfect
indicative verb. "If I
have
trusted" (e]a>n pe<poiqa) is e]a<n plus a perfect
indicative verb. One would have to use
the
conjunction ei] instead of e]a<n to make these sentences grammatical in Greek. For e]a<n
to be used grammatically, it must be used with a
subjunctive, which is atemporal.
WHAT
DOES THE FIRST CLASS CONDITIONAL IMPLY? 117
Because how can that which has happened be
brought together
with that which is coming?
(3.137-138).
In
the quote (30), Apollonius is saying that in e]a<n p,q, the proposition
q
cannot be in the past tense of the indicative. In the
quote (31), he is
saying that the proposition p may not be in the past
tense of the indic-
ative. This second statement
seems a bit odd, because e]a<n is not sup-
posed to have any form of the indicative in the protasis proposition p,
no matter what tense.35
The import of this passage for this
investigation is as follows.
Apollonius
said earlier that ei]
p,q and e]a<n p,q have about
the same
degree of doubt, but in this passage he seems to
consider e]a<n p,q more
dubative in some way than ei] p,q, though he
does not explicitly say so.
For
he says that there is a conflict between the meaning of the past
tense and the meaning of the conjunction e]a<n. But he and we both
know that the conditional ei] can be constructed with
past tense indica-
tives in either the protasis or apodosis. So, either e]a<n seems more
dubative to him in some way than
ei], or he had not thought
out thor-
oughly the consequences of his
statement.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
It has been proven, and the ancient Greek
grammarians agree, that
a conditional of the form ei] p,q does not have
a conventional implica-
ture that the proposition p
is true.
Conditionals of the form ei] p,q
should not be translated across the
board with the English causal "since p,q." Such a translation is appro-
priate in some cases, but is
not in the majority. In the few cases that ei]
p,q can be translated with
"since p,q," the English "if p,q" will also be
appropriate because, in these cases the context
carries the implication
that the proposition p is true. The use of English
"since p,q" in
these
cases only adds redundancy.
Robertson's assertions are unclear. The way that
he is interpreted
by some today yields an erroneous analysis of
conditionals. Robertson
claims to be in the tradition of Gildersleeve;
however, he went farther
than Gildersleeve went. Gildersleeve never said that ei] p,q implies the
35 It is noted here that in Apollonius'
day, significant diachronic changes in the syn-
tax of conditionals were occurring. The conditional
ei] was dying out and the
conditional
e]a<n was taking over. Not
long after Apollonius' day, e]a<n came to be used with
the indic-
ative (see A. N. Jannaris, An
Historical Greek Grammar [
1968] §§ 1772 and 1987). There are some examples
of e]a<n used with the
indicative in
the NT (1 Thess 3:8, 1
John
this change. However, these grammarians were writing
about the classical forms of their
language, the language as they felt it should be.
At any rate, diachronic factors are ne-
glected in this paper for
simplicity.
118
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
proposition p is true; some read Robertson as saying
that it does. The
ancient Greek grammarians disagree with
Robertson and those in his
tradition, but they do not disagree with either
Goodwin's or Gilder-
sleeve's claims. Goodwin and Gildersleeve
were writing more about
aspectual and temporal interpretations than about
implications con-
cerning truth.
Bible students should not be taught that ei] p,q
means "since p,q."
Exegetes
should be honest in their hermeneutics and should refrain
from stating or implying in an exegesis of a passage
that the Greek
conditional ei] p,q
itself implies that p is true. Nor should an exegete
state that ei] p,q
does not imply doubt like English "if p,q"
can and that
it would be better translated with "since p,q." In those cases where one
wishes to make a point that the proposition p is not
being called into
question, it should be demonstrated that the
context implies that the
proposition p is true or that the participants in
the communication
knew that p was true in fact.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Grace
Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
thildebrandt@gordon.edu