[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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