[B-Greek] Emphatic pronouns

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Wed Oct 26 11:37:00 EDT 2005


Dear Kat,

I'm sorry. This web page I gave you is actually quite abbreviated:

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:GV2RxOEYr14J:humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/classics/People/Faculty/helmadik/HelmaDikabstract.pdf+enclitic+pronouns+greek&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Here is a longer treatment, but it is mostly about accenting:

[PDF] A Brief Note on Greek Accents
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
A Brief Note on Greek Accents. Particularly on 
Enclitic Forms and ... The following
are the enclitics found in the New Testament: the pronouns µ?, µ??, ...
faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/documents/enclitics.pdf - Similar pages

HH: This grammar review has some help on the enclitic:
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:nud-UOs4dMgJ:instruct.uwo.ca/classical-studies/022/final_review.pdf+enclitic+pronouns+greek&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

2. Interrogatives and Indefinites
* these two pronouns (also used as adjectives) 
have the same forms except for the fact that the
indefinites are enclitic.
Interrogatives:
* the interrogatives (as the name implies) ask a 
question: É-? ɿɫɿɊ?ÉÕÉÀ; ="which book?" 
É-?ÉÀÉÕV É-?
¼ÉøÉ«É¬?Éø; ="whose children?" É-?V ?ɻɈ?ÉÀÉÕV ?É-É-?; = "who is that man?"
* in order to differentiate between these and the 
indefinites, the accent of the interrogatives 
never
changes from acute to grave.
Forms of the Interrogative Pronoun and Adjective:
masculine/feminine
neuter

Indefinites:
* the main thing to remember about the indefinite 
pronoun/adjective is that it is enclitic (it does
not normally have an accent). Since the 
interrogative uses the acute accent on its first 
syllable, if
there is no acute accent, you can be nearly 
certain that the form of É-É«V/É-É« in the 
sentence is an
indefinite and not an interrogative.
* by definition, nouns with an indefinite 
adjective modifier do not normally have a definite
article as well
Forms of the Indefinite Pronouns and Adjective:*
masculine/feminine

3. Personal Pronouns and Éø?É-?V
* Greek has pronouns for the first and second 
person, but recycles a separate pronoun (Éø?É-?V)
for the third person personal pronoun. One uses 
Éø?É-?V in its various numbers and cases (except
the nominative) to express explicitly "he/she/it" or "him/her" or "them".
* remember that the personal pronouns are only 
used for emphasis or clarification in a sentence,
since the personal endings of the verb supplies the proper pronoun.
* for the first and second person, there are both 
emphatic and unemphatic forms of the singular;
the unemphatic form is far more common, and is also enclitic.

HH: Smythe has some notes on the enclitic:
http://www.ccel.org/s/smyth/grammar/html/smyth_2l_uni.htm

HH: He writes:

a. The enclitic forms are used when the pronoun 
is unemphatic, the longer forms and the accented 
are 
used when the pronoun is emphatic. Thus, 
[unemphatic]: give me the book,  [emphatic]: they 
are plotting not against me, but against you.

				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard



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