| 9. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with the comparative phrase houtos kai hymeis {οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς | hoú-tōs kaí hymeîs} ‘so also you’, explicitly linking the audience with the previously stated principle about intelligible sound. The prepositional phrase dia tes glosses {διὰ τῆς γλώσσης | diá tês glṓs-sēs} ‘through the tongue’ foregrounds the instrument of speech, with the genitive governed by the preposition. The conditional protasis is formed by ean me eusemon logon dote {ἐὰν μὴ εὔσημον λόγον δῶτε | eán mḕ eú-sē-mon ló-gon dô-te}, where ean with the aorist subjunctive dote marks a third-class condition, presenting a real but uncertain possibility: “if you do not give.” The adjective eusemon modifies logon and stresses the requirement that the “word” be distinct and recognizable. The interrogative apodosis pos gnosthesetai to laloumenon {πῶς γνωσθήσεται τὸ λαλούμενον | pôs gnōsthḗ-se-tai tó la-loú-me-non} asks, “how will what is being spoken be known?”, with the neuter participle to laloumenon functioning substantivally as “the spoken content.” The explanatory clause introduced by gar, esesthe gar eis aera lalountes {ἔσεσθε γὰρ εἰς ἀέρα λαλοῦντες | é-se-sthe gár eis a-é-ra la-loûn-tes}, uses a periphrastic sense (“you will be … speaking”) to depict the result of unintelligible speech: it is speech directed “into the air,” an idiomatic metaphor for futility or ineffectiveness. In translation, the conditional structure is preserved with “if … how will,” and the metaphor is retained while making explicit its sense of uselessness. |