Conjunction – διό, οὐδέ, μηδέ

ObjectivesLearning objectives

The syntax and semantics of the conjunctions διό, οὐδέ, and μηδέ

VocabularyVocabulary

Greek	Gloss	Part of speech	Paradigm
ὁ Ἰορδάνης, -ου	the Jordan	noun	B.a.α.iv
ὁ ἀσκός, -οῦ	the wineskin	noun	B.a.β.i
ἐλάχιστος, -η, -ον	least	adjective	A.a.α
ἡ νόσος, -ου	the disease	noun	B.a.β.i
ὑψοῖ τινα	(he) lifts something/one (acc)	verb	C.a.δ
μοιχεύω σε1	(I) commit adultery with you (acc)	verb	C.a.α

Noteδιό

As we said in 25.2.2, the conjunction διό is a combination of διά and the relative pronoun ὅ. It is used in much the same way that διά is used for causation except that the cause points back to something previous in the discourse:

1 In the active voice, this verb normally has a male subject. Female subjects are normally found with passive voice.

Example 453Pointing back to a cause

διό [therefore] God exalted him (Phil 2:9)

In this example, the cause is Jesus being obedient (mentioned in the previous verse) and the effect is him being exalted, so διό points back to the cause before introducing the effect. Normally, the kind of cause-effect relationship is real-world causation (see 31.4.3.1). Because Jesus was obedient even to the point of dying, Paul asserts that God has actually exalted him in the real world.

Noteοὐδέ, μηδέ

The two conjunctions οὐδέ and μηδέ negate an additional element and are commonly used in elliptical constructions (see 43.3.3.1). As a reminder, ellipsis is where one part of the sentence is deleted phonologically but is understood semantically:

Example 454Negating an additional element

οὐκ ἐσμὲν νυκτὸς οὐδὲ σκότους (1 Thess 5:5)

We are not of the night, nor of the dark

We understand something we do not hear in this sentence. We interpret the clause as Οὐκ ἐσμὲν νυκτὸς οὐδέ ἐσμεν σκότους where the verb (and the implicit subject) is supplied in the second clause. Although this is the correct way to understand the sentence, it isn’t what we have written. This mismatch between what we hear or read and what we understand is the hallmark of ellipsis, and it is common with the negative conjunctions μηδέ and οὐδέ.

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