Thursday, January 25, 2018

Non-enclitic indefinite τίς again

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In THGNT the editors have accepted non-enclitic indefinite τίς in a number of instances. I’ve mentioned this type of indefinite here and its appearance in GNT has generated discussions here and here.

One case where we vary accentuation is Matthew 21:3:

καὶ ἐάν τις ὑμῖν εἴπῃ τί

In our edition τις is always enclitic after ἐάν, not that we ever observed that pattern until we’d finished editing. We also notice that the accented form is clause final, which might be a reason for greater prodosic prominence.

Now for some manuscripts. I start with 478 (C10). This is nice because it shows us the use of the grave for the indefinite. This is less common than the acute for the indefinite, but it shows that when Erasmus, Stephanus and others printed grave indefinites in their editions, they weren’t just making things up.


Vaticanus (03) is hard to read but I reckon the acute is faintly there for the second indefinite.


G (011) is beautifully clear with the second acute.


So is K (017).


115 has no acute.
560 does for the second.


As does 788, with a correction on εαν.


And 1424, with what I would count as an error on εαν.


What I would conclude from this (which is a pattern we typically found in editing) is that the accents in the more carefully accented manuscripts were reasonably consistent with each other as to which instances of indefinite τίς they accented. Therefore either they inherited a common accenting tradition or they had a common feel about the language and did it independently. Either way, that gives us access to an earlier form of the language. The fact that consistency on these matters can be found in manuscripts already in the 9th century points me to an earlier period.

The accentor of Vaticanus in particular is learned and, I believe, gives us a window into debates which simply do not survive in the epitomes of grammarians. Compare Herodian with B’s accentor’s treatment of the different cases of ιχθυς, οσφυς and οφρυς.

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