[B-Greek] Jussive Dative?

Edgar Foster edgarfoster2003 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 19 22:23:00 EDT 2008


Dear George,

Thanks for undertaking the search for the term
"jussive" in Leaf. The first result that you have
below is the sentence I had in mind. Let me first say
that I know the difference between a jussive and the
dative case. That is not the problem. But notice in
the first result that you were able to produce, Leaf
does write: 

"Observe the four consecutive datives: instrumental,
jussive, modal, and 'commodi.' 'ἐπι
... νεῦσε', because he
wishes to give a silent hint for departure to the
envoys."

In the Iliad (9:620-623), we read: ἦ
καὶ
Πατρόκλῳ
ὅ γ᾽ ἐπ᾽
ὀφρύσι
νεῦσε
σιωπῇ
Φοίνικι
στορέσαι
πυκινὸν
λέχος,
ὄφρα
τάχιστα
ἐκ
κλισίης
νόστοιο
μεδοίατο:
τοῖσι δ᾽
ἄρ᾽ Αἴας
ἀντίθεος
Τελαμωνιάδης
μετὰ
μῦθον
ἔειπε

It seems to me that Leaf does speak of a "jussive"
dative in this part of his commentary. The other
categories that he mentions are certainly uses of the
dative case, even if grammarians assign them different
labels. What am I misunderstanding here?

Regards,

Edgar Foster

--- George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com> wrote:

> It immediately seemed to me that you were mixing
> apples and oranges since "jussive" refers to a 3rd
> person imperative (which I'm familiar with from
> Hebrew, but don't recall seeing in Greek) while
> "dative" is a case in which nouns, adjectives and
> participles may be found so I searched Leaf's
> commentary and found these references
> 
> Searched selected documents for "jussive"     
> 5 from Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> 
>    1. Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> book 9, commline 620
>       Observe the four consecutive datives:
> instrumental, jussive, modal, and ‘commodi. (9.26)
> 
>    2. Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> book 10, commline 238
>       : some have taken it as a ‘jussive’ future,
> but this does not seem in place here. (11.11)
> 
>    3. Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> book 19, commline 208
>       The fut. is defended by Hentze as representing
> a ‘jussive’ or permissive (27.56)
> 
>       Collapse Less
>    4. Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> book 24, commline 704
>       The ‘jussive’ future expresses the
> indifference of the speaker, e.g. , and is thus out
> of place here. (9.26)
> 
>    5. Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900)
> book 24, commline 717
>       , here the ‘jussive’ or rather concessive
> future, expressing ‘then I shall say nothing against
> your taking your fill. (17.72)
> 
> Note that none of these conjoins "jussive" with
> "dative."  I think you must have misunderstood
> something.



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