[B-Greek] accusative sing with plural adjective
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 16 18:36:48 EDT 2008
I'm not sure what your problem might be with SKHNOPOIOI being a noun since so are FUSIN, YUCHN, EUGENEIAN. Perhaps you could explain.
.
.
george
gfsomsel
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----- Original Message ----
From: Elizabeth Kline <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
To: greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 6:12:09 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] accusative sing with plural adjective
Reading the latest book by Helma Dik, "Word Order in Greek Tragic
Dialogue" Oxford 2007, p74, I ran into a passage in Aesch. Pers. 441-4
which caused me to slow down and get out HSmyth and GCooper. Here is
the passage with the translation used by H.Dik (Loeb Lib. ?).
Aesch. Pers. 441-4
Περσῶν ὅσοιπερ ἦσαν ἀκμαῖοι φύσιν,
ψυχήν τ’ ἄριστοι κεὐγένειαν
ἐκπρεπεῖς,
αὐτῷ τ’ ἄνακτι πίστιν ἐν πρώτοις
ἀεί,
τεθνᾶσιν αἰσχρῶς δυσκλεεστάτῳ
μόρῳ.
PERSWN hOSOIPER HSAN AKMAIOI FUSIN,
YUCHN T ARISTOI KEUGENEIAN EKPREPEIS,
AUTWi T ANAKTI PISTIN EN PRWTOIS AEI,
TEQNASIN AISCRWS DUSKLEESTATWi MORWi.
What Persians who were in their life's prime,
bravest in spirit, pre-eminent for noble birth,
and ever among the foremost in loyalty
unto the King himself--
these have fallen ignobly by a most inglorious doom.
Note the accusatives FUSIN, YUCHN, EUGENEIAN ... I believe this is a
species of the accusative of respect, or something similar, common
enough in classical greek. G.Cooper (1:44.1.7.A) had a comment on
these lines in regard to number, using a singular with a plural but he
didn't comment on the case. So I turned to Smyth and found something
somewhat similar but not identical to this in section 1601.c
Aesch.Pers. 27 DEINOI MACHN "terrible in battle.
Then I turned to the NT grammars to see if this was a NT idiom. It is
not. Apparently this function of the accusative has been taken over by
the dative in Hellenistic Greek see Turner (Syntax p.220-21), BDF
#159.3,#160, ATR p.486f.
However, the text of Acts 18:3 shows a variant which is interesting:
ACTS 18:3 NA27/UBS4
καὶ διὰ τὸ ὁμότεχνον εἶναι ἔμενεν
παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἠργάζετο· ἦσαν
γὰρ σκηνοποιοὶ τῇ τέχνῃ.
KAI DIA TO hOMOTECNON EINAI EMENEN PAR AUTOIS,
KAI HRGAZETO: HSAN GAR SKHNOPOIOI THi TECNHi.
Robinson-Pierpont show a division in the Byzantine some read THi
TECNHi and others THN TECNHN.
ACTS 18:3 Robinson-Pierpont
και δια το ομοτεχνον ειναι εμενεν παρ
αυτοις και ειργαζετο ησαν γαρ
σκηνοποιοι την τεχνην
KAI DIA TO hOMOTECNON EINAI EMENEN PAR AUTOIS,
KAI EIRGAZETO: HSAN GAR SKHNOPOIOI THN TECNHN.
I am not sure what to make of this, SKHNOPOIOI is a noun not an
adjective, so it isn't a perfect match with Aesch. Pers. 441-4.
Elizabeth Kline
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