[B-Greek] Ellipsis

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Mar 28 16:12:49 EDT 2010


On Mar 28, 2010, at 3:40 PM, Mark Lightman wrote:
> 
> 
> Richard Lindeman wrote:
>  
> <Is there a definitive study that has been done
>  on the subject of ellipsis?>
>  
> In his wonderfully fossilized text book, J. Gresham Machen
> provides a comprehensive treatment of the subject
> of ellipsis by leaving it out.
>  
> Get it?  "Ellipsis" is what you leave out. Ha, Ha.  MARKOS
> GELOIOS ESTIN!
>  
> Actually, Richard raises a good point, because on
> a practical level, ellipses make reading Greek very
> tough.  It's one of the things that drove (drives) me
> crazy about 2 Corinthians.   You have to know that
> in 8:23 ειτε υπερ Τιτου (EITE hUPER TITOU) "...if
> about Titus" means "...if [there is a question] about
> Titus..."  I'm reading Plato's Symposium right now, 
> where you find this gem in 173b4: ου μεντοι αλλα
> και  (OU MENTOI ALLA KAI) "not indeed however but"
> which makes NO sense until you read Steadman's
> note which fills in the ellipsis ("(I had) not (been present)
> however, but..."
>  
> I'm not sure if I would ever be able to figure out these
> ellipses not matter how much reading in Greek I had done
> or no matter how much stuff in English I would read
> ABOUT ellipsis.   This is what commentaries are for,
> I guess.   Ellipsis is just one of the Top Ten Things that
> Makes Reading Ancient Greek so Darn Hard.
>  
> Ellipsis can also make verbs hard because sometimes
> an object of the verb is left out but nobody tells you,
> e.g. προσεχω (PROSECW) can mean "I hold my MIND (νουν NOUN) 
> towards something."  This is really maddening when the left out
> noun changes the verb from transitive to intransitive, again
> without anyone telling you.
>  
> "Ellipsis" is one of the few grammatical terms that Randall
> Buth would like, since it is at least a GREEK term.
> On the other hand, NT Greek Linguists may not like the term
> because it is so easy to understand and it does not
> really account for what is going on in the Cantonese.  :)

But whenever we talk about ellipse, there's always that sneaky
feeling that something important has been left out.
And it is well and good that it has been omitted. If it
were not so, it would not be Greek.

Well, they used to say,  "To err  is human, but to forgive is divine."
But some might say -- about Greek, of course, but in English:
"To lisp is human, but to ellipse is divine."   (STENAGMOS)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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