What Does the Greek First Class Conditional Imply? Gricean Methodology and the Testimony of the Ancient Greek Grammarians

Debate has been engaged for more than a century over what implications, if any, a Greek First Class Conditional (FCC) has concerning the proposition in its protasis. Some pedagogical grammars claim that the Greek FCC is well translated with the English causative construction introduced with "since." In this paper a twofold approach is used to show that this claim is in error. First, a methodology for formulating and testing hypotheses concerning historical languages is established. The methodology is based on a Popperian view of hypothesis testing. In this case a testable hypothesis is formed utilizing the descriptive apparatus of H. P. Grice. The hypothesis is that the FCC is well translated with English "since" and it is proven false. Second, the testimony of four ancient Greek grammarians is evaluated. The grammarians examined are: Dionysius Thrax (1st century BCE), Apollonius Dyscolus (2nd century CE), Stephanos and Helliodorus (Byzantine period). It is shown that these grammarians agree with the conclusion that it is not appropriate to translate the FCC with an English causal introduced by" since." * * *