[B-Greek] More Basil questions
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jun 7 09:49:52 EDT 2004
At 10:52 PM +1000 6/7/04, <newsgroupstuff at swiftdsl.com.au> wrote:
>Hi again. I have some more questions on Basil. Here is a couple of
>sentences, questions follow.
>
>MH QAUMAZETE DE EI KAQ hEKASTHN hHMERAN EIS DIDASKALOU FOITWSI, KAI TOIS
>ELLOGIMOIS TWN PALAIWN ANDRWN DI hWN KATALELOIPASI LOGWN SUGGINOMENOIS
>hUMIN, AUTOS TI PAR EMAUTOU LUSITELESTERON EXEURHKENAI FHMI. TOUTO MEN OUN
>AUTO KAI XUMBOULEUSWN hHKW, TO MH DEIN EIS hAPAX TOIS ANDRASI TOUTOIS,
>hWSPER PLOIOU TA PHDALIA THS DIANOIAS hUMWN PARADONTAS, hHiPER AN AGWSI,
>TAUTH XUNEPESQAI, ALL hOSON ESTI CRHSIMON AUTWN DECOMENOUS, EIDENAI TI CRH
>KAI PARIDEIN.
>
>Maybe I've been staring at it too long, but I can't figure these out:
>
>1. EIS in both sentences does not seem to have an accusative, being with
>genitive or dative. Is this not the preposition EIS? (Maybe some form of
>EIMI?)
No, you recognized the genitive DIDASKALOU with EIS; here there's an
implicit or elliptical OIKIAN, as we would say,"Let's go over to
John's"--meaning "to John's house" or "to John's tavern," or whatever. In
the other instance the EIS is not going with TOIS ANDRASI TOUTOIS but
simply is understood with hAPAX--sometimes it's even written as one word
EISAPAX with the sense "for one time only."
>2. In the second sentence, how should I translate hHiPER AN AGWSI? Is hHiPER
>dative feminine form of hOSPER? Also, how to parse AGWSI (is it from AGAW)?
Yes it is a dative feminine form of hOSPER, but inthis instance there is
(or once was) an implicit hODWi so that hHiPER AN AGWSI means something
like "whichever way in fact they lead (you/us) ..." This usage of the
feminine dative sg. of a demonstrative TAUTHi or of a relative pronoun hHi
or sometimes even the weak demonstrative THiDE or the weaker demonstrative
that is identical with the article (which was originally a very weak
demonstrative) THi is old and persistent in Greek.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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