Forms of directives in New Testament Greek. Politeness, textual genre and language change
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
This paper deals with directive speech acts in New Testament Greek, with special attention to the topic of politeness. Data come from the Gospel of Matthew. As is well known, second-person imperatives are the most typical expression of directive speech acts in ancient Greek. There are some linguistic strategies to balance and reduce the force of directives, which work at both the syntagmatic and paradigmatic levels. On the one hand, the use of allocutives, such as κύριε ‘Lord’, and voluntative expressions, such as εἰ βούλει ‘if you want’, which both combine with imperatives; on the other hand, the use of the future instead of the imperative, and of third vs second person. Some directive speech acts uttered by Jesus appear to be impolite, but they are not so. The analysis of these expressions sheds new light on both the Gospel genre and on the topic of politeness/impoliteness.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Bakker, W. F., 1966, The Greek Imperative: An Investigation Into the Aspectual Differences Between the Present and Aorist Imperatives in Greek Prayer From Homer Up to the Present Day, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Adolf M. Hakkert.
Blass, F., A. Debrunner, & R. W. Funk, 1961 [1896], A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Boyer, J. L., 1987, «A classification of imperatives: a statistical study», Grace Theological Journal 8, 35-54.
Browning, R., 1983, Medieval and Modern Greek, Cambridge: CUP.
Brown, P., & S. C. Levinson, 1987 [1978], Politeness. Some universals in language usage, Cambridge: CUP.
Bruno, C., 2019, «Forms of the directive speech act: evidence from early Ptolemaic papyri», en D. Rafiyenko, I. Seržant (eds.), Contemporary Approaches to Postclassical Greek, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 221-244.
Cuendet, G., 1924, L’impératif dans le texte grec et dans les versions gotique, arménienne et vieux slave des Evangiles, Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Guethner.
Dana, H. E., & J. R. Mantey, 1943, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
Denizot, C., 2011, Donner des orders en grec ancien. Etude linguistique des formes de l’injonction, Mont-Saint-Aignan: Publications des universités de Rouen et du Havre.
Fantin, J. D., 2010, The Greek Imperative Mood in the New Testament. A Cognitive and Communicative Approach, New York: Peter Lang.
Poccetti, P., 2014, «Politeness/Courtesy Expressions», en G. K. Giannakis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, vol. 3, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 112-114.
Porter, S. E., 1989, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood, New York: Peter Lang.
Robertson, A. T., 1919, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Ruiz Yamuza, E., 2014, «Mood and Modality», en G. K. Giannakis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, vol. 2, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 452-459.
Searle, J. R., 1978 [1975], «Per una tassonomia degli atti illocutori», en M. Sbisà (ed.), Gli atti linguistici. Aspetti e problemi di filosofia del linguaggio, Milano: Feltrinelli, 168-198 [«A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts», en K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 344-369].
Slotty, F., 1914, Der Gebrauch des Konjunktivs und Optativs in den griechischen Dialekten, I Teil: der Hauptsatz, Göttingen: Druck der Univ.-Buchdruckerei von E.A. Huth.
Wallace, D. B., 1996, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House.
Unless otherwise noted, the contents of the electronic edition of the OJS platform are licensed for use and distribution under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND) license.
The journal does not charge any financial compensation to authors for publishing in it and provides full access to the archives without any kind of embargo from the day of electronic publication. This respects the national open access policy.
All originals published in the journal Veleia, whether in print or digital format, are the property of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). © UPV/EHU
Authors of articles (whether research articles, news articles, news items or reviews) will be able to access their own work on the Journal's website. Authors will be able to put them in their personal repositories and will also have the possibility of pre-print dissemination of articles accepted for publication.