In my chapter from the DGGNT on connectives, I talk about how each conjunction brings to bear a specific constraint to the context in which it appears. Conjunctions do not so much have a meaning as they do a function (Rick Brannan found a great quote from Funk to this effect, posted here). They signal to the reader to relate the two elements to one another in a particular way, be they words, phrases, clauses, or paragraphs, etc. The picture of the fences illustrates what I am talking about. Between each of the corrals, there is a lane within which to move the horses from one place to another. It constrains their movement. The space is not so narrow as a path, nor is it boundless like a field or meadow. There are boundaries limiting the range of movement.

The same idea of boundaries and limits applies to the “meaning” of conjunctions, and how they constrain it. There are specific boundaries in the meaning of one connective over against another, constraining the reader in the range of ways they might relate the connected elements.   Blakemore states, “English but encodes a single constraint linked to the cognitive effect of contradiction and elimination, and the way in which a hearer will interpret an utterance  in accordance with this constraint depends on the linguistic environment in which but occurs.”1 In other words, but has one basic function, yet can have what we traditionally refer to as different “senses” based on the specific context.

Going back to the fence analogy, all of the senses should fall within the “lane of meaning” for the connective. If not, you have left the reservation and are out of bounds. IMO, the key to understanding connectives is understanding the core constraint that they bring to bear, and not to settle for less. To be sure, there are some classical connectives that are beyond mysterious to me when it comes to their meaning, which may explain why so many have dropped out by the Koine period (It would be great to have someone comment on this that has more background in the Classical literature). Determination of a more specific meaning of the general constraint is determined by contextual factors, e.g.

  • Does but fall between positive and negative propositions?
  • If so, what order are they in, neg-pos or pos-neg?

I take the time in the grammar to demonstrate that the traditional “senses” assigned to the connectives can indeed be reconciled by a single cognitive constraint that they signal to the reader (see chapter 2 here). The problem is that senses often have more to do with how something is translated into English than they do with describing the core meaning or function of the Greek word. It is not just Greek that has unique constraints for each connective, English does as well. When you try to map the constraint unique to the Greek word to the unique one of an English counterpart, you will often find mismatches. I demonstrate this several times in chapter 2. This is exemplified in the cross-listing of καί and δέ with and and but as glosses. Καί does not have an “and” sense and a “but” sense, it simply relates two comparable elements without making any comment about semantic continuity or discontinuity. This constraint is not present in Greek, but we expect it to be since this is how it works in English. English is different, having two connectives to accomplish this, one to signal semantic continuity “and” and one to signal semantic discontinuity “but”. This is why we have the mismatch: Greek is not English.

Senses can provide a useful framework of discussion for exegesis, but the can also cloud the underlying issue: determining the core meaning or function of the Greek word, regardless of how we might translate it into English or German.

  1. Diane Blakemore, Relevance and Linguistic Meaning (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 113. [↩]