About the project

Project Name: Linguistic Analysis of εἰ and ἐάν: A Corpus‑Based Study of the New Testament

Grantee: Emmanuel Bawa

Discipline: Linguistics

Funding Cycle: 2025-2026

This project proposes a digitally driven linguistic study of the Koine Greek conditional particles εἰ and ἐάν, using the New Testament as a structured research corpus. Although these particles are central to understanding conditionality in ancient Greek, their actual usage patterns—semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic—have not been comprehensively examined using modern corpus‑linguistic methods. This project addresses that gap by applying computational tools to systematically analyze every occurrence of εἰ and ἐάν across the New Testament.

Using digital text‑analysis techniques, the project will generate a dataset that includes frequency counts, collocations, syntactic environments, verb‑mood patterns, author‑specific tendencies, and semantic classifications of conditional clauses. The study will employ open‑source tools for corpus annotation, data visualization, and statistical analysis, producing a replicable digital workflow that can be used by scholars of ancient languages, linguistics, and biblical studies. The resulting dataset and visualizations will offer new empirical insights into how conditionality functions in Koine Greek and will model how digital humanities methods can deepen the study of ancient texts.