Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Stephen Hughes
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

When you have a moment, could you have a quick look through the couple of dozen instances of ποτέ in the NT, and note which ones are in or not in the Wackernagel position. Or perhaps, if this was only a scratch at the surface and you don't want to see it opening up any deeper, could you suggest a reference which I could look at then work through them. Gettign what is in what position in a sentence for an element is something that doesn't seem so obvious. I've been through them, but don't seem to be able to make much of a diffrence between them. There is also a classical reference work that I've been through called Comicae dictionis index: ποτέ, but I'm unable to intuit a pattern about the usage as yet.

Is the definition of "Focus" relevant to this?
focus, ([url=http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4JdI9_Jl_AsC&pg=PT210&dq=The+concise+oxford+dictionary+of+linguistics,+focus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FiK3UsnRKIPCkwXUnoCADA&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20concise%20oxford%20dictionary%20of%20linguistics%2C%20focus&f=false]The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Peter Hugoe Matthews[/url]) wrote:focus An element or part of a sentence given prominence by intonational or other means. Usually where there is a contrast or emphasis, or a distinction of new vs. *given: e.g. certainly in I CERtainly can or can in I certainly CAN; was in the pseudocleft It WAS me who did it, or me in It was ME who did it. Other means include, in particular, *clitics or other *particles marking focused elements.
I take it that this thing about "clitics ... marking focused elements" is a copernican reorientation of your Wackernagel's rule, isn't it? Were there any other advances in our understanding of clitics that made such a change of viewpoint seem more expedient?
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:When you have a moment, could you have a quick look through the couple of dozen instances of ποτέ in the NT, and note which ones are in or not in the Wackernagel position.
There seem to be 29 of them (all ποτε in bold, and the ones in bold red are apparently not in the Wackernagel position, with intonations breaks not indicated by the editorial punctuation signaled by |):
Luke 22:32 καὶ σύ ποτε ἐπιστρέψας στήρισον τοὺς ἀδελφούς σου.
John 9:13 Ἄγουσιν αὐτὸν πρὸς τοὺς Φαρισαίους τόν ποτε τυφλόν.
Rom 1:10 πάντοτε ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου, δεόμενος εἴ πως ἤδη ποτὲ εὐοδωθήσομαι ἐν τῷ θελήματι τοῦ θεοῦ ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς.
Rom 7:9 ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόμου ποτέ·
Rom 11:30 ὥσπερ γὰρ ὑμεῖς ποτε ἠπειθήσατε τῷ θεῷ, νῦν δὲ ἠλεήθητε τῇ τούτων ἀπειθείᾳ,
1 Cor 9:7 τίς στρατεύεται ἰδίοις ὀψωνίοις ποτέ; τίς φυτεύει ἀμπελῶνα καὶ τὸν καρπὸν αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἐσθίει;
Gal 1:13 Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ,
Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν | ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 2:6 —ὁποῖοί ποτε ἦσαν οὐδέν μοι διαφέρει·
Eph 2:2 ἐν αἷς ποτε περιεπατήσατε κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου,
Eph 2:3 ἐν οἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες | ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν,
Eph 2:11 Διὸ μνημονεύετε ὅτι ποτὲ ὑμεῖς τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί,
Eph 2:13 νυνὶ δὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ὑμεῖς | οἵ ποτε ὄντες μακρὰν ἐγενήθητε ἐγγὺς ἐν τῷ αἵματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Eph 5:8 ἦτε γάρ ποτε σκότος, νῦν δὲ φῶς ἐν κυρίῳ·
Eph 5:29 οὐδεὶς γάρ ποτε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σάρκα ἐμίσησεν, ἀλλὰ ἐκτρέφει καὶ θάλπει αὐτήν,
Phil 4:10 Ἐχάρην δὲ ἐν κυρίῳ μεγάλως ὅτι ἤδη ποτὲ ἀνεθάλετε τὸ ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ φρονεῖν,
Col 1:21 Καὶ ὑμᾶς ποτε ὄντας ἀπηλλοτριωμένους καὶ ἐχθροὺς τῇ διανοίᾳ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς,
Col 3:7 ἐν οἷς καὶ ὑμεῖς περιεπατήσατέ ποτε ὅτε ἐζῆτε ἐν τούτοις.
1 Thess 2:5 οὔτε γάρ ποτε ἐν λόγῳ κολακείας ἐγενήθημεν, καθὼς οἴδατε, οὔτε ἐν προφάσει πλεονεξίας,
Tit 3:3 Ἦμεν γάρ ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀνόητοι, ἀπειθεῖς, πλανώμενοι, κτλ.
Phlm 11 τόν ποτέ σοι ἄχρηστον νυνὶ δὲ [καὶ] σοὶ καὶ ἐμοὶ εὔχρηστον,
Heb 1:5 Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων,
Heb 1:13 πρὸς τίνα δὲ τῶν ἀγγέλων εἴρηκέν ποτε,
1 Pet 2:10 οἵ ποτε οὐ λαὸς νῦν δὲ λαὸς θεοῦ,
1 Pet 3:5 οὕτως γάρ ποτε καὶ αἱ ἅγιαι γυναῖκες αἱ ἐλπίζουσαι εἰς θεὸν ἐκόσμουν ἑαυτάς,
1 Pet 3:20 ἀπειθήσασίν ποτε ὅτε ἀπεξεδέχετο ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ μακροθυμία ἐν ἡμέραις Νῶε κατασκευαζομένης κιβωτοῦ,
2 Pet 1:10 ταῦτα γὰρ ποιοῦντες | οὐ μὴ πταίσητέ ποτε·
2 Pet 1:21 οὐ γὰρ θελήματι ἀνθρώπου ἠνέχθη προφητεία ποτέ, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἄνθρωποι.
Some of these aren't clausal clitics (e.g. John 9:13), so Wackernagel's Law wouldn't apply.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Or perhaps, if this was only a scratch at the surface and you don't want to see it opening up any deeper, could you suggest a reference which I could look at then work through them. Gettign what is in what position in a sentence for an element is something that doesn't seem so obvious. I've been through them, but don't seem to be able to make much of a diffrence between them. There is also a classical reference work that I've been through called Comicae dictionis index: ποτέ, but I'm unable to intuit a pattern about the usage as yet.
Unfortunately, that page on Google Books is not available in my country. :cry: As for references about Wackernagel's Law, I recommend Goldstein's recent dissertation on the subject at http://escholarship.org/uc/item/55s527ct
Stephen Hughes wrote:Is the definition of "Focus" relevant to this?
focus, ([url=http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4JdI9_Jl_AsC&pg=PT210&dq=The+concise+oxford+dictionary+of+linguistics,+focus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FiK3UsnRKIPCkwXUnoCADA&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20concise%20oxford%20dictionary%20of%20linguistics%2C%20focus&f=false]The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Peter Hugoe Matthews[/url]) wrote:focus An element or part of a sentence given prominence by intonational or other means. Usually where there is a contrast or emphasis, or a distinction of new vs. *given: e.g. certainly in I CERtainly can or can in I certainly CAN; was in the pseudocleft It WAS me who did it, or me in It was ME who did it. Other means include, in particular, *clitics or other *particles marking focused elements.
I take it that this thing about "clitics ... marking focused elements" is a copernican reorientation of your Wackernagel's rule, isn't it? Were there any other advances in our understanding of clitics that made such a change of viewpoint seem more expedient?
I think the term "clitics ... marking focused elements" in that encyclopedia article refers to language-specific particles whose main or only purpose is to mark the focus. I think some African languages may work that way. I don't think Greek has them, maybe γε perhaps. Nevertheless, the most prominent position and a favorite position for focused elements in Greek is first position (there are some complications when topics are also articulated), so the placement of clausal clitics can be a clue for which elements are focussed.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Some of these aren't clausal clitics (e.g. John 9:13), so Wackernagel's Law wouldn't apply.
I guess that you mean that it is used adjectivally, and so doesn't affect the overal sense of the clause, but only the noun that it is with.

But how does that distincition of clausal v. (my suggestion of) adjectival work in Gal 1:13 Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ, where on the face of it ποτέ is with a noun, but my gut tells me it is with the verb ἀναστρέφειν which has been nominalised for the sake of sentence construction. Should one go with what one percieves to be the underlying construction when deternining whether the clitic is clausal or not, or just with the sentence we have before us?
Stephen Carlson wrote:Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν | ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Stephen Carlson wrote:not in the usual position (Ὁ διώκων ποτὲ ἡμᾶς)
Looking at your alternative suggestions a and b here for our verse Galatians 1:23, you seem to be suggesting that to conform to Wackernagel's rule there ought to be either a change in accentuation or a change in punctuation, viz.
Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
If I haven't reversed your meaning.

With regard to the "usual position" statement, I understand that that statement was made by you to explain where the Wackernagel is, not to suggest that that is where you think it ought to be - you are decidedly more descriptivist about what is in the Greek, than I - being prescriptivist (and sometimes almost to the point of proscriptivist) - am in my handling of the text. But perhaps we need to consider that the personal pronoun has a stronger attraction to the verb than perhaps the Wackernagel position. What do you think? Can the Wackernagel position be displaced / delayed by one in the case of a pronominal object? If that were to be argued then perhaps your original hypothesis that the (first) ποτέ in Galatians 1:23 may be orthotonic, could be invalid. Is there any thinking on the balance between attraction of object pronoun to the verb v. the Wackernagel position?
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Some of these aren't clausal clitics (e.g. John 9:13), so Wackernagel's Law wouldn't apply.
I guess that you mean that it is used adjectivally, and so doesn't affect the overal sense of the clause, but only the noun that it is with.

But how does that distincition of clausal v. (my suggestion of) adjectival work in Gal 1:13 Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ, where on the face of it ποτέ is with a noun, but my gut tells me it is with the verb ἀναστρέφειν which has been nominalised for the sake of sentence construction. Should one go with what one percieves to be the underlying construction when deternining whether the clitic is clausal or not, or just with the sentence we have before us?
Hmmm, ἀναστροφήν may well be nominalized, but, as far as this clause is concerned, the verb that heads it up is ἠκούσατε. The sense does not appear to be "For you have once heard of my behavior..." but "For you have heard of my former behavior..."
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν | ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Stephen Carlson wrote:not in the usual position (Ὁ διώκων ποτὲ ἡμᾶς)
Looking at your alternative suggestions a and b here for our verse Galatians 1:23, you seem to be suggesting that to conform to Wackernagel's rule there ought to be either a change in accentuation or a change in punctuation, viz.
Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
If I haven't reversed your meaning.
I don't understand what you're doing here. I think example 23a ought to have a difference accent (either as ποτέ, or ποτὲ) and example 23b might use a comma before the relative (but my own style can be somewhat "comma heavy" compared to other people's tastes).
Stephen Hughes wrote:With regard to the "usual position" statement, I understand that that statement was made by you to explain where the Wackernagel is, not to suggest that that is where you think it ought to be - you are decidedly more descriptivist about what is in the Greek, than I - being prescriptivist (and sometimes almost to the point of proscriptivist) - am in my handling of the text. But perhaps we need to consider that the personal pronoun has a stronger attraction to the verb than perhaps the Wackernagel position. What do you think? Can the Wackernagel position be displaced / delayed by one in the case of a pronominal object? If that were to be argued then perhaps your original hypothesis that the (first) ποτέ in Galatians 1:23 may be orthotonic, could be invalid. Is there any thinking on the balance between attraction of object pronoun to the verb v. the Wackernagel position?
It doesn't really make sense for a delayed Wackernagel position. What can happen is that a pronominal object can become so deaccented that it behaves like a clitic, but all that means is that there would be multiple clitics in the Wackernagel position, and there tends to be a fairly strict order for them when they do all line up there. So, even if a pronominal object cliticizes and joins the Wackernagel position, it still has to wait its turn behind the others.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:not in the usual position (Ὁ διώκων ποτὲ ἡμᾶς)
Okay, okay, wait a moment... Something is still confusing me here... Ὁ διώκων ποτ ἡμᾶς is what you have written for what happens to ποτέ in the Wackernagel position, but is that actually what you wanted to write? What I understand from our conversation in this thread is that in the Wackernagel postion a clitic throws back its accent to the first element - here the paroxytone διώκων, have I gotten that right? So did you mean that if ποτέ was in its "normal" (normal for enclitics) position it would be Ὁ διώκων ποτε ἡμᾶς (without the accent which is thrown back, but because διώκων is paroxytone it can't also carry an accent as oxytone). Is that what you were intending to write? Isn't your point that because it is not in the Wackernagel position it is orthotonic, but in this case it isn't not in it. In your example it is in it, isn't it? :?

Forgive my low IQ, but am I missing something obvious here?
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Looking at your alternative suggestions a and b here for our verse Galatians 1:23, you seem to be suggesting that to conform to Wackernagel's rule there ought to be either a change in accentuation or a change in punctuation, viz.
  • Gal 1:23a μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
    Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
If I haven't reversed your meaning.
I don't understand what you're doing here. I think example 23a ought to have a difference accent (either as ποτέ, or ποτὲ) and example 23b might use a comma before the relative (but my own style can be somewhat "comma heavy" compared to other people's tastes).
I was simply realising your several suggestions in Greek with accents and punctuation rather than colour. The colours and emboldening are beautiful and creative, but don't show definitely what you are imagining, which seem to be:
  • Gal 1:23a1 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτὲ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
    Gal 1:23a2 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ, νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
    Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
Is that it in black and white? Three posibilities?

What about saying yes to all options on the menu, and having a full cooked breakfast?
  • Gal 1:23a2+b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ, νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
Stephen Carlson wrote:example 23b might use a comma before the relative (but my own style can be somewhat "comma heavy" compared to other people's tastes).
I wasn't going to leap in and mention it without you bringing it up and mentioning it first, but now you have, so perhaps then so will I. I think that maybe by experimenting with this you may be allowing the current English rules for the placement of commata before relatives to affect your expectation of what should be explicated in the Greek. There is a conserativeness about the conventions of both Koine and classical Greek punctuation that cleaves more closely to an older style-sheet. I suggest that before you go out on a limb over this, look at the Modern Greek conventions - a language with relatives (που for every case, and ο οποίος which is more literary and sometimes discouraged from use) - and tether your rather admirable ambition somewhere there.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:I was simply realising your several suggestions in Greek with accents and punctuation rather than colour. The colours and emboldening are beautiful and creative, but don't show definitely what you are imagining, which seem to be:
  • Gal 1:23a1 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτὲ νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
    Gal 1:23a2 μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτέ, νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει,
    Gal 1:23b μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν ποτέ ἐπόρθει,
Is that it in black and white? Three posibilities?
Either a1 or a2 is OK, depending on whether one wants to mark off these topicalized subjects. Option b is not what I've suggested, for I consider the second ποτε to be enclitic and it should not take an accent (unless the preceding word is a paroxytone and then it would take a grave like other two syllable enclitics).
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:example 23b might use a comma before the relative (but my own style can be somewhat "comma heavy" compared to other people's tastes).
I wasn't going to leap in and mention it without you bringing it up and mentioning it first, but now you have, so perhaps then so will I. I think that maybe by experimenting with this you may be allowing the current English rules for the placement of commata before relatives to affect your expectation of what should be explicated in the Greek. There is a conserativeness about the conventions of both Koine and classical Greek punctuation that cleaves more closely to an older style-sheet. I suggest that before you go out on a limb over this, look at the Modern Greek conventions - a language with relatives (που for every case, and ο οποίος which is more literary and sometimes discouraged from use) - and tether your rather admirable ambition somewhere there.
Quite the contrary. Unlike the accentuation system, the punctuation of our modern critical texts of the NT is not particularly traditional or conservative and it ignores the conventions of the manuscripts in favor of a more modern, Western style of punctuation. Ignoring your misdiagnosis of my mental state (something which you should avoid doing), I was in fact perfectly happy with the punctuation of the modern critical editions until I started seriously studying Greek phonology and the Greek manuscript tradition. What we have in our critic editions does not reflect how they intoned the text.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Ignoring your misdiagnosis of my mental state (something which you should avoid doing),
Well, evidently it is not only your menal state that I am finding ellusive here.

Despite our lengthy exchange, I honestly still have little to no idea about the mechanism at work here by which one could judge whether and according to what rules and in what circumstances a clitic would be enclitic or orthotone nor how Wackernagel's rule works. After time-consuming reading and re-rading your posts, more time-consuming reading around (that you can see evidence of in my posts) and my extensive guesses (that you can also see in my posts) - most of which were wrong (as you can see too), I'm left with trying to read you ("your mental state") to find out what you are doing here - that is something that I find important to understanding what you are doing here. I tried that, so perhaps understanding your mental state, the pieces might fall into place for the other stuff, and I might understand what you original propositon is getting at.

I hear what you are saying, I'm happy to break off our conversations at an earlier point of befuddlement if you would like. I'm at a point now where I don't have any understanding of this topic - not even enough to formulate another question to ask you ellucidate another aspect of it (or of your thinking).

Thank you very much for your replies to my questions and guesses about the . You have obviously taken a great deal of time to do that, but if you don't have another way forward for this thread that I could understand in a straightforward way - which even if I can't get something from, at least I could follow, then I'd like to break off from this exchange here. I'm sorry to say that my feeling once again in leaving this conversation is that linguistics is complex in itself, and has added nothing to my understanding of Greek - I'm not sure why - either I'm too stupid to understand it, it is perhaps incompatible with me personally or with the body of knowledge that I alreadly have, but I do know that I have given fair hearing to this topic before coming to my conclusion.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:What we have in our critic editions does not reflect how they intoned the text.
Byzantine musical notation is not a difficult thing to learn. It records how the texts were (and still are) intoned.
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Re: Is ποτε really enclitic in Gal 1:23

Post by Stephen Carlson »

There were so many separate posts that I missed this one from earlier.... (Apologies)
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:not in the usual position (Ὁ διώκων ποτὲ ἡμᾶς)
Okay, okay, wait a moment... Something is still confusing me here... Ὁ διώκων ποτ ἡμᾶς is what you have written for what happens to ποτέ in the Wackernagel position, but is that actually what you wanted to write? What I understand from our conversation in this thread is that in the Wackernagel postion a clitic throws back its accent to the first element - here the paroxytone διώκων, have I gotten that right? So did you mean that if ποτέ was in its "normal" (normal for enclitics) position it would be Ὁ διώκων ποτε ἡμᾶς (without the accent which is thrown back, but because διώκων is paroxytone it can't also carry an accent as oxytone). Is that what you were intending to write? Isn't your point that because it is not in the Wackernagel position it is orthotonic, but in this case it isn't not in it. In your example it is in it, isn't it? :?

Forgive my low IQ, but am I missing something obvious here?
As you state correctly, the accentuation convention for two-syllable enclitics is that it takes an accent (usually grave, but acute before a punctuation) in the second syllable when it follows a paroxytone. So it has to be διώκων ποτ ἡμᾶς, whether it's an enclitic or not. I'm not proposing to change the accentuation conventions of enclitics (though if I had my way, I'd drop the graves of proclitics, but that's a different issue). As a result of my adherence to this convention, my use of ποτὲ does not and cannot unambiguously mark an orthotonic ποτέ after a paroxytone. So, yes, I did intend to write ποτ--not to indicate that I thought it was orthotonic, but to follow the convention.

On the other hand, when it follows ἡμᾶς, an enclitic ποτε wouldn't have a graphic accent, but an orthotonic ποτέ should have one (either as grave or acute) on the penult.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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