[B-Greek] Use of Accusative case

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Aug 20 05:03:15 EDT 2007


On Aug 19, 2007, at 11:34 AM, John M. Linebarger wrote:

> Please forgive what may seem like an obvious grammatical issue, but  
> I'm just starting to teach an Elementary Greek class at our church  
> and I need to have an explanation for my students.  I'm trying to  
> lighten the class up by singing songs on Bill Mounce's Web site,  
> and I love the Doxology in Greek.  (I'm a former student of J.I.  
> Packer at Regent College, and he always started his class this way,  
> so it brings back great memories.)  The Doxology in Greek can be  
> found at:
>
> http://www.teknia.com/public/pdf/Doxologia.pdf
>
> My question is the accusative case that starts the doxology off:   
> TON THEON W DOXAZETE. Why is it in the accusative case instead of  
> in the nominative case, especially since the relative pronoun  
> appears to be in the dative case?  I've scoured the usual grammars  
> without success.
>
> Also, is this a reasonable working translation:
>
> God, whom we glorify
> The creatures which you have made delight in [your] gift
> Father, Son, and Spirit, Amen.

τὸν θεὸν ὠ δοξάζετε,
TON QEON W DOXAZETE,
"Oh praise God ..." (QEON is accusative direct object of DOXAZETE,  
which is imperative present active 2 pl., W is exclamatory)

εὐδοκήσαντα δωρεάν,
EUDOKHSANTA DWREAN,
I think this was intended to be "who has blessed freely/generously"  
-- but EUDOKHSANTA (aor. sg. acc. masc., presumably construing with  
QEON) doesn't really seem like a verb that fits properly here -- I  
would have thought that EULOGHSANTA would serve better metrically and  
lexicographically. If, on the other hand, EUDOKHSANTA is neuter  
plural acc, it might be intended to agree with TA KTISMATA in the  
phrase that follows: "creatures taking delight" -- but it can't  
really work well with DWREAN an adverbial accusative bearing the  
sense, "freely, as a gift."

τὰ κτίσματ’ ἂ πεποίηκεν,
TA KTISMAT' hA PEPOIHKEN,
"creatures whom/which he has made," -- I take it that TA KTISMAT(A)  
is vocative plural neuter (or nominative for vocative), perhaps to be  
construed with the W that follows the initial QEON;  hA is, of  
course, the relative pronoun accusative neuter, construing with KTIMAT 
(A) and object of the 3 sg. perfect active of POIEW.

πάτερα,υἱόν, καὶ πνεῦμα.
PATERA, hUION, KAI PNEUMA.
"Father, Son, and Spirit" -- all accusative singular and presumably  
in apposition with TON QEON at the beginning. I don't understand the  
acute accent on the first syllable of PATERA (normally it's on the  
second syllable).

ἀμήν.
AMHN.

All this is guesswork, I think the composition displays some of the  
perils of reverse composition in an alien language. One has to  
question the value of using back-translated material like this  
pedagogically. It may be "fun" to "play" with a language that one is  
not intimately familiar, but one really has to question its  
pedagogical value. I can recall a dreadful composition that my little  
Greek class prepared for a Classics Christmas party in my Freshman  
year in college (1952); it was a dreadful thing based on a pop tune  
of the time, "Come onna my house, my house, I'm gonna give you  
everything" (I think it was Rosemary Clooney); what we got was AGETE  
OIKON, OIKON EMOU, DWSW SOI TA PANTA -- note the plual AGETE and the  
singular SOI! Then there's the Saturday afternoon, Dec 7, 1996 when  
some foolish people on B-Greek played around with putting Lewis  
Carroll's "Jabberwocky" into Greek. What we (or I in my attempt)  
ended up with was:

HN BRILLIG, hAI D' APOSTROFAI
GURWSAI OUABON HSTRAPTON:
hHSUXASAN MEN BORGOBOI,
MWMREIS D' EXESTHSAN.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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