Translating ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ Conditionals

Abstract

The Greek conditional construction ἐὰν μή is usually translated into English using unless, which is a portmanteau combining the ideas of a conditional if and a negative not. Sentences containing ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ can often be challenging to translate for a combination of reasons: 1) in the majority of cases, the usual order of protasis (conditional clause) and apodosis (consequence clause) is reversed; 2) typically, both clauses are negative (or the protasis is negative and the apodosis is a rhetorical question expecting a negative response); 3) at the pragmatic level, the protasis usually describes the only situation or fact that would invalidate the apodosis. In this paper I will show that in many cases conditional sentences with ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ can be rephrased by removing the negative elements in both clauses and making explicit the pragmatic idea of exclusivity. However, this type of rephrasing is not always appropriate, and I discuss a number of situations in which it should potentially be avoided.