Good morning, boys and girls! Last night’s reading came from the books of Matthew and Mark, pericope 34, the calling of the disciples. Verbs of motion can be troublesome to translate, as it can seem as though the primary verbs of motion translated as “come” and “go” are used interchangably. The Greeks seem like they lacked the common decency to make sense like we do in English, right? Hmm.
If you look at the glosses for ἔρχομαι in BDAG, you will find two main headings: come and go. How can ἔρχομαι mean both? Well, it doesn’t, it just seems like it does. What has been missing is a theoretical framework to understand and describe the directionality expressed by these verbs. It is just a matter of deictics (sorry Carl, that’s what they call it).
Deictics describes the directional aspects of language like verbs of motion, demonstratives (this and that) or other kinds of modifiers. If we look at the demonstratives, this is used for things that are typically near(er) and thematically central, whereas that is used for the further of two things, or what is athematic. I did some posts on this issue which begin here. There are a bunch of others also. Let’s not forget temporal deixis, that which Rod Decker wrote a thing or two about.
One important concept to understand is the “deictic center”, ie determining the central point on which the deictic reference is based. In most cases, it is the speaker by default. So if my wife is holding up two sweaters and asks, “Which do you like better honey, this one or that one?” she would be the center.1
Now2 it’s time to apply deictics to verbs of motion. In English (as in Greek) there is quite a bit of flexibility as to where the deictic center may be placed, linguistically. It may be the speaker, the addressee, or some other point of reference where neither speaker or addressee are involved (i.e. third-person narrative). Here is an example lifted from an article by Stephen Levinsohn:
Thus, an English speaker can take the location of the addressee as the point of reference and say, ‘I’m just coming [to where you are]’. Spanish speakers, in contrast, take their own location as the point of reference, so say, ‘I’m just going [from where I am]’. Greek is like English, rather than Spanish, in that the location of either the reported speaker or the addressee can be taken as the point of reference (sec. 2.1).
The key point here is to recognize that the orientation of the deictics is RELATIVE to the deictic center. The reference of this and that could change if the center is moved. Ready for an example out of the gospels? A great example of the deictic distinction between the primary verbs of motion is found in the centurion’s speech in Luke 7:8:
Luke 7:8 καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπός εἰμι ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν τασσόμενος ἔχων ὑπʼ ἐμαυτὸν στρατιώτας, καὶ λέγω τούτῳ· πορεύθητι, καὶ πορεύεται, καὶ ἄλλῳ· ἔρχου, καὶ ἔρχεται, καὶ τῷ δούλῳ μου· ποίησον τοῦτο, καὶ ποιεῖ.
He uses these verbs ostensibly based on their contrast in meaning. I will continue this in another post later. In the mean time, I would encourage you to read Levinsohn’s paper. His work has saved me decades of boxing the air, you would do well to read it closely.
Isn’t language groovey?
- If she actually used an opposition instead of saying “this one or this one,” you can apply your linguistic prowess to infer that “this one” is the right answer. If there is no this/that opposition, I would suggest responding “Tell me what you think about them”. [↩]
- + development, for those of you in Glasgow [↩]
Steve, it’s not gobbledygook when you explain a term (clearly) that you don’t expect the reader to understand intuitively and also use it consistently; it’s gobbledygook only when you invent your own term which is not quite equivalent to someone’s else’s preferred term and don’t explain clearly what you intend by it. It’s not gobbledygook when you’re really talking to those of us who don’t live up there inside the (ivory) Tower of Babel.
Hmmm. How about the short, simple version? “ἐρχομαι means to move from A to B, the translation (in English) depends on which end the writer is looking at.” I’ve yet to find a first year student who can’t understand that, nor one that finds a more complicated explanation helpful. I guess you have to have a degree in linguistics before that explanation ceases to be clear. 🙂
> you have just defined every verb of motion without a semantic distinction between them. That only works in first year.
That is way overstated. There are many other factors that are adequate to distinguish other verbs of motion. All my statement is intended to do is to distinguish the two senses of ἐρχομαι in English and I think it is adequate to do that without all the extra talk about deictic factors (which, yes, I know a bit about).
> B-Greek is having a discussion about the problem of such explanations.
Since I’m not privy to the b-greek discussion, I can’t comment further on that or address those concerns.
(I assume that the comment that I cited above will appear on the blog in due time; I received it by email, but it was not yet on the blog when I posted this.)
I’m not quite sure what B-Greek discussion is being referred to here. What I’m reminded of is the passage in Aristophanes’ Frogs 11555-1168 where Aeschylus and Euripides (in Hades) are arguing over whether or not ἥκω and κατέρχομαι are or are not synonyms; now, having just checked κατέρχομαι in LSJ, I find its range of usage astounding. I really think that compounded verbs of motion are not too easily pinned down semantically; there’s also a tendency — as with superlatives — for aggregation of prefixes over time when the original compound has become synonymous with the simplex.
Rod, I posted then comment, then pulled it because it was a reaction, one which I did not deem appropriate after some reflection. Your second comment clarifies my disagreement. What do you mean by distinguishing “the two senses of ἐρχομαι in English”? Are you concentrating on the translation problem that arises from mismatches in use between Greek and English motion verbs, or are you talking about the meaning of the verb in Greek? I disagree with the assertion in your first comment, though it will work as a basic explanation.
Carl’s point about compounded verbs, by which I am guessing prefixed prepositions is what he is referring to, is dead on. The point I will be making in this series of posts that we are too quick to apply a simple rule that solves the translation problem, and in doing so miss some important exegetical indicators in the text.
I had intended to go further in this post, but ran out of time. There are drafts of two others and a third that is outlined, but this answer will have to do for now.
[…] last post on deictics and verbs of motion stemmed from running into a synoptic difference regarding the call […]