Euripides IA 590

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C. S. Bartholomew
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Euripides IA 590

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Χορός ανδρων Αργειων

590 ἰὼ ἰώ: μεγάλαι μεγάλων
εὐδαιμονίαι: τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως
ἴδετ᾽ Ἰφιγένειαν, ἄνασσαν ἐμήν,
τὴν Τυνδάρεω τε Κλυταιμήστραν:
ὡς ἐκ μεγάλων ἐβλαστήκασ᾽
595 ἐπί τ᾽ εὐμήκεις ἥκουσι τύχας.
θεοί γ᾽ οἱ κρείσσους οἵ τ᾽ ὀλβοφόροι
τοῖς οὐκ εὐδαίμοσι θνητῶν.
looking at the syntax, I see more than one way to "parse":

τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως
ἴδετ᾽ Ἰφιγένειαν, ἄνασσαν ἐμήν,
τὴν Τυνδάρεω τε Κλυταιμήστραν:

The placement of the verb ἴδετ᾽ inside the constituent τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως … Ἰφιγένειαν might suggest that τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως and Ἰφιγένειαν were separate constituents with the article τὴν used to make the genitive τοῦ βασιλέως sit in apposition (terminology?? ) to Ἰφιγένειαν. On the other hand, the following line τὴν Τυνδάρεω τε Κλυταιμήστραν might be seen as favoring reading τὴν with Ἰφιγένειαν.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by mwh »

τὴν with τοῦ βασιλέως. "the king's (daughter) Iphigeneia and Tyndareus' (daughter) Klyt." Technically speaking the names are in apposition. The position of the verb makes no difference to the syntax.

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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

mwh wrote:τὴν with τοῦ βασιλέως. "the king's (daughter) Iphigeneia and Tyndareus' (daughter) Klyt." Technically speaking the names are in apposition. The position of the verb makes no difference to the syntax.
OK, then the first reading was the correct one. The article construed with arthrous constituents in a different case.


Euripides frag.

φίλαι φίλαι,
πρόβατε, μόλε τις ὧδε· ποδαπὸς ὁ ξένος
Κορινθίοις ἔμολεν ἀγχίαλος;
ὦ παῖ Κρέοντος, ὡς ἀληθὲς ἦν ἄρα,
ἐσθλῶν ἀπ' ἀνδρῶν ἐσθλὰ γίγνεσθαι τέκνα,
κακῶν δ' ὅμοια τῇ φύσει τῇ τοῦ πατρός.


Euripides Troiades
Line post 1042

{Ελ.} μή, πρός σε γονάτων, τὴν νόσον τὴν τῶν θεῶν
προσθεὶς ἐμοὶ κτάνηις με, συγγίγνωσκε δέ.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by mwh »

These correspond more to the second of your proffered parsings of the IA passage, which would mean “the king’s Iphigeneia” as distinct from anyone else’s Iphigeneia. Which is why it would never occur to anyone to take it that way. Seems to me that by confining yourself to syntax you risk making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

As to the position of idete, the meter plays a role there. Incidentally, observe how the incorporation of the names leads to twice bridging the normal diaeresis.

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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

mwh wrote:These correspond more to the second of your proffered parsings of the IA passage, which would mean “the king’s Iphigeneia” as distinct from anyone else’s Iphigeneia. Which is why it would never occur to anyone to take it that way. Seems to me that by confining yourself to syntax you risk making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

As to the position of idete, the anapaestic meter plays a role there.
Thanks, I am looking for this in the NT but still a little fuzzy on exactly what I am looking for. Syntax as you pointed out is not the only thing to consider, particularly in Tragedy.

Matt. 4:21 καὶ προβὰς ἐκεῖθεν εἶδεν ἄλλους δύο ἀδελφούς, Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου καὶ Ἰωάννην τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ μετὰ Ζεβεδαίου τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν καταρτίζοντας τὰ δίκτυα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκάλεσεν αὐτούς.

John 6:33 (Codex Bezae) ὁ γὰρ ἄρτος ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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C. S. Bartholomew wrote: Matt. 4:21 καὶ προβὰς ἐκεῖθεν εἶδεν ἄλλους δύο ἀδελφούς, Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου καὶ Ἰωάννην τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ μετὰ Ζεβεδαίου τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν καταρτίζοντας τὰ δίκτυα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκάλεσεν αὐτούς.

John 6:33 (Codex Bezae) ὁ γὰρ ἄρτος ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ὁ καταβαίνων ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ.
A.T. Robertson (p780):
3. Repetition of Article with Genitive. The genitive may follow
the other substantive with a repeated article. Here the article
closely resembles the original demonstrative.
Examples:

1Cor. 1:18 Ὁ λόγος γὰρ ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ τοῖς μὲν ἀπολλυμένοις μωρία ἐστίν, τοῖς δὲ σῳζομένοις ἡμῖν δύναμις θεοῦ ἐστιν.

Titus 2:10 μὴ νοσφιζομένους, ἀλλὰ πᾶσαν πίστιν ἐνδεικνυμένους ἀγαθήν, ἵνα τὴν διδασκαλίαν τὴν τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ κοσμῶσιν ἐν πᾶσιν.

The Titus 2:10 example is complicated by what looks like a construct chain τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ.

So far I have only found discussions of this where genitive case is subordinate to a non-genitive article. I was originally investigating a more general notion, the article followed by an articular constituent in a different case causing it construe with another constituent in the case of the first article. In other words,

article (case x) article (case y) substantive (case y) :CONSTRUES with: constituent (case x)
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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In the first, ton tou Zebedaiou gives specification about Iakob, just as in the second o tou qeou gives specification about o artos. Zebdee’s Iakob (i.e. I. son of Z.), god’s bread (the bread of the god). An alternative way of expressing the second would be o tou qeou artos; if the genitive (or any other constituent) is not sandwiched between o and artos it needs another o in front of it to attach it specifically to o artos. You can generalize the rule. It’s pretty basic.

I’m not clear what you’re “looking for” either. Any grammar will have information on use (and non-use) of the article, which you can fit into any terminological or syntactical framework you like. There's nothing special about NT usage (except in Rev.). Hope this helps, anyway.

EDIT: This posting crossed with your last, which accordingly it takes no account of - but should adequately deal with.
Last edited by mwh on Thu Jul 03, 2014 7:44 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

The most common genitive examples are names of fathers etc. The article doesn't always appear with the first constituent as we see in

Soph. Ajax 101

Εἶεν· τί γὰρ δὴ παῖς ὁ τοῦ Λαερτίου;

Athena (RC Jebb)
I see. And the son of Laertes, how does his fortune with respect to you? Has he escaped you?

ATR page 780

The Article Only with Genitive. Here again the article is almost pure demonstrative.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

mwh wrote: An alternative way of expressing the second would be o tou qeou artos; if the genitive (or any other constituent) is not sandwiched between o and artos it needs another o in front of it to attach it specifically to o artos. You can generalize the rule. It’s pretty basic.
.
In the NT o tou qeou artos is much more common. Outside of the genitive case where a name is qualified by parent's name the double article making the constituent construe with something in different case is kind of unusual in NT. Not exactly rare, but certainly not the ordinary way of doing things. I was specifically looking at what Robertson (p780) calls the "demonstrative" use of the article with a constituent in a different case.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

Post by mwh »

Is all this supposed to be merely informational? You seem averse to asking questions. Anyway, yes, o tou qeou artos would be less marked, the default version; the separation/deferral of (o) tou qeou gives it weight (~ Robertson's "demonstrative"?, emphasis, prominence). Cf. a recent post on the Koine board, viewtopic.php?f=23&t=61213: o kalos poimhn would be less marked than is o poimhn o kalos (I say; others there appear not to agree). I don't really understand what all the fuss is about.

The Sophocles might mislead you, since tragedy normally dispenses with the article. Prose would require the article with pais (if it used the word at all).

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Re: Euripides IA 590

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mwh wrote:Is all this supposed to be merely informational? You seem averse to asking questions. Anyway, yes, o tou qeou artos would be less marked, the default version; the separation/deferral of (o) tou qeou gives it weight (~ Robertson's "demonstrative"?, emphasis, prominence). Cf. a recent post on the Koine board, viewtopic.php?f=23&t=61213: o kalos poimhn would be less marked than is o poimhn o kalos (I say; others there appear not to agree). I don't really understand what all the fuss is about.

The Sophocles might mislead you, since tragedy normally dispenses with the article. Prose would require the article with pais (if it used the word at all).
Think of it as stream of consciousness. I read some lines in Eurip IA, got me interested in a syntax pattern, did some exploring in the NT and grammars. I not adverse to anything. Just thinking out loud and wandering a little bit. I understand that jumping from Attic Tragedy to NT is not kosher. Different genre, dialect, culture.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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mwh wrote:. I don't really understand what all the fuss is about.
I used to hear that all the time from Carl Conrad (classics 50+ years). Put it down to different frameworks. I am syntax guy first a greek guy second. Syntax is always on my mind. If you look into the monographs on syntax you will find people endlessly harping on perfectly normal constructions. That's what syntax people do.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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Yes I know. For streams of consciousness, however, I will stick to Leopold Bloom.

An acquaintance of mine who's a very distinguished linguist openly professes that he hates syntax. I don't, but sometimes I feel enough is enough.

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Re: Euripides IA 590

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mwh wrote:Yes I know. For streams of consciousness, however, I will stick to Leopold Bloom.

An acquaintance of mine who's a very distinguished linguist openly professes that he hates syntax. I don't, but sometimes I feel enough is enough.
Well this is a learning forum and I am still learning greek syntax. What is old news to classics scholars with half a century of teaching behind them is still a mystery to many people. I find the use of the article in Classic and Koine a fascinating subject the depths of which I haven't begun to plummet. For native speakers of English the Greek article is very easy to misunderstand and among linguists it is not a dead subject. A few years ago there was a chapter on the article in a 835 page monograph by a Senior SIL consultant in the UK for understanding the Greek Article. One of his colleagues, Iver Larsen (SIL, East Africa, Denmark) after reading it agreed that the presentation of the problems related to the article offered new insight into a difficult exegetical/translation topic.

[1]Richard A. Hoyle, Scenarios, discourse and translation. SIL 2008, see 6.1. The meaning of the article in Greek, page 141ff.

http://www.sil.org/silepubs/Pubs/50670/ ... lation.pdf
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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C. S. Bartholomew wrote:
mwh wrote:. I don't really understand what all the fuss is about.
I used to hear that all the time from Carl Conrad (classics 50+ years). Put it down to different frameworks. I am syntax guy first a greek guy second. Syntax is always on my mind. If you look into the monographs on syntax you will find people endlessly harping on perfectly normal constructions. That's what syntax people do.
You need Helma Dik on Greek Tragic word order then. Definitely up your alley.
(Occasionally) Working on the following tutorials:

(P)Aristotle, Theophrastus and Peripatetic Greek
Intro Greek Poetry
Latin Historical Prose

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Re: Euripides IA 590

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Scribo wrote:
C. S. Bartholomew wrote:
mwh wrote:. I don't really understand what all the fuss is about.
I used to hear that all the time from Carl Conrad (classics 50+ years). Put it down to different frameworks. I am syntax guy first a greek guy second. Syntax is always on my mind. If you look into the monographs on syntax you will find people endlessly harping on perfectly normal constructions. That's what syntax people do.
You need Helma Dik on Greek Tragic word order then. Definitely up your alley.
Right you are. I broke my standing rule concerning monographs (never pay for them) only once and actually purchased a copy of Helma Dik on Greek Tragic Word Order. I have now read it umpteen times, read her early work on Herodotus several different times on loan from distant libraries. Randall Buth of Jerusalem is a Helma Dik quoting guy. He is very critical of some of his language colleagues in Jerusalem and elsewhere so having him approve of Helma Dik is amazing.

If someone in the lower 48 would like a pristine copy of Helma Diks Greek Tragic Word Order I might be willing to part with it. Need to get rid of books I am no longer using. Wondering if I should dump Guy Cooper, I have 4 vols. and he isn't the easiest person to read on syntax. There are better works in German but for those of us who's grandmothers forbade any of her descendants from learning German (she lived in German Town Ill during WW1) German works are out of our scope. Actually me German teacher in high school was the real clincher on me not learning the language.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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hi, interesting about dik's tragic word order - after having studied her earlier paper giving stats on word shapes in iambic tri (oh, i was going to link to my site http://www.freewebs.com/mhninaeide where i summarised this info, but my site has been deleted apparently, oh well) i got really excited when i saw dik's book on tragic word order in a bookstore in rome - i bought it and soon was very disappointed. the whole topic/focus approach seemed to be able to explain any word order whatsoever and so it didn't seem helpful to me at all. i'm probably too old-fashioned, i prefer dover's grk word order over the new books - it gave hard stats, and said this type of formation is common and this isn't, using criteria that everyone would apply consistently (nouns, verbs etc), but apparently this new pragmatics/topic-focus stuff is the way to go in explaining word order...

i really wonder though, if you put a made-up sentence in front of the new wave of word order specialists -- by taking a real sentence and switching around the order of the elements, without telling them, and then asking them to review it -- whether the new guys or the old guys would do a better job in explaining whether the word order is typical or not. i can't myself give a firm view on this because i haven't worked all the way through the new pragmatics/topic-focus stuff -- it's like when you start watching a movie and then switch it off after 10 minutes because you can't get into it -- and so i haven't given it a real chance really. i'd be open to being persuaded otherwise about this if people are strongly of the new view!

cheers, chad

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Re: Euripides IA 590

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cb wrote:hi, interesting about dik's tragic word order - after having studied her earlier paper giving stats on word shapes in iambic tri (oh, i was going to link to my site http://www.freewebs.com/mhninaeide where i summarised this info, but my site has been deleted apparently, oh well) i got really excited when i saw dik's book on tragic word order in a bookstore in rome - i bought it and soon was very disappointed. the whole topic/focus approach seemed to be able to explain any word order whatsoever and so it didn't seem helpful to me at all. i'm probably too old-fashioned, i prefer dover's grk word order over the new books - it gave hard stats, and said this type of formation is common and this isn't, using criteria that everyone would apply consistently (nouns, verbs etc), but apparently this new pragmatics/topic-focus stuff is the way to go in explaining word order...

i really wonder though, if you put a made-up sentence in front of the new wave of word order specialists -- by taking a real sentence and switching around the order of the elements, without telling them, and then asking them to review it -- whether the new guys or the old guys would do a better job in explaining whether the word order is typical or not. i can't myself give a firm view on this because i haven't worked all the way through the new pragmatics/topic-focus stuff -- it's like when you start watching a movie and then switch it off after 10 minutes because you can't get into it -- and so i haven't given it a real chance really. i'd be open to being persuaded otherwise about this if people are strongly of the new view!

cheers, chad

Chad,

Good post.

I have similar reservations about the topic, comment and focus. H. Dik's treatment of Tragedy seems to break down the closer you look at the particulars and study the examples. The framework "functonal grammar" has been around for ages. Wayne Leman (Better Bibles, SIL, retired) studied under Talamy Givon (University of Oregon) and he is my age. There are several schools of "functonal grammar" Helma Dik has developed an eclectic spin off with her own peculiar flavor from Simon Dik (no relation). I think Randall Buth leans toward Simon Dik but Buth is eclectic in the extreme like his colleague Stephan Levinsohn. Buth and Levinsohn taught work shops on these subjects for bible translators eons ago, they are experts in the narrow sense. Anyone who has tried to read and understand Levinsohn's Discourse Features (2nd ed 2000) knows that it is a ten year project. I read the first edition in late 90s and purchased the second edition immediately. This approach to discourse analysis is something that takes a long time to get used to. If your background is Standard Theory (early Chomsky) you need to kind of start over. I still think in terms of standard theory when working in syntax. A habit which is hard to break. In the mid 90s I was real excited about Functional Grammar. Not so much now. Linguists (applied) with a job to do (e.g., Buth, Levinsohn) are typically eclectic and travel back and forth between several frameworks.
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Re: Euripides IA 590

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The recent thread I meant to refer you to was viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61785. Beyond what I’ve said here and there, there really isn’t much more to the syntax of the article in ancient Greek (NT included). And as I said, you can fit it into any framework you like.

Your own formula,
“article (case x) article (case y) substantive (case y) :CONSTRUES with: constituent (case x)”,
is correct enough in itself but excessively narrow and imprecise. case x and case y can be the same case, and the sandwiched constituent may be an adverbial phrase (or a simple adverb). That’s made clear in my posts. (What's more, it's simply a subset alongside art.-adj.-noun., all case x.) Nothing any of the SIL people say affects it. They tend to be overly concerned with NT translation. Translation is an ancillary issue and one irrelevant to the syntax of any given language, as I’m sure you understand.

Perhaps more later on Chad’s post, with which I’m largely in sympathy. But probably not.

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