Books On Greek Prepositions

[mahasacham]

I have come to realize that prepositions are my weak point in my Ancient Greek studies. Does anyone have any recommendations of books dealing with Ancient Greek prepositions (preferably not under copyright and on google books/archive).

I found this one so far:
A treatise on the Greek prepositions, and on the cases of nouns with which they are used
https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZUCA ... ns&f=false

[Hylander]

You might do better working your way through a textbook on Greek composition, such as Dickey's new book, where you work with prepositions (as well as other aspects of Greek grammar) in context. The treatise you linked to provides a lot of information (I don't know how reliably) in a form that would be difficult to digest.

[rmedinap]

If what you are looking for is basic material for beginners, practically any good grammar and practice will do.

I would personally recommend to check pages 47-61 of Lindemann & Färber's Griechische Grammatik II, Heidelberg: 2010 [ISBN 978-3-8253-1371-5] if you speak German.

Or pages 365-387 of Smyth's Greek Grammar

If you are looking for special studies on the subject the two news seem to be:

Pietro Bortone. Greek Prepositions: From Antiquity to the Present. 2010 [ISBN 9780199556854]

Silvia Luraghi. On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases: The Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek. 2003 [ISBN 9781588114334]

[jeidsath]

I've been reviewing prepositions myself lately. On the basic level, pages 56-59 of Morwood's Oxford Classical Greek Grammar are great for review. Also the English -> Greek list of prepositions with cases in Sidgwick's Introduction to prose composition (pages 231-232). Kaegi's preposition section on page 123 presents more information than Morwood without getting into Smyth levels of detail.

Smyth too is very useful, of course, but the information is difficult because it has not been integrated. Still, none of the above really treat verb composition, except for Smyth, which I am beginning to think are at the heart of understanding prepositions.

F. A. Adams' book is wonderful, and I'd recommend it, but any reader should understand that there is as much fantasy as fact in it. Still, I think that he is on the right track for thinking about prepositions, although he lets his imagination get very wild. The central problem of the Greek preposition is that thought is more nimble than speech, and the Greek case plus preposition system doesn't fit well into English equivalents. When Morwood says that ἐπὶ gen., ἐπὶ dat., κατὰ acc., all mean "on," Adams is correct to object that something vital is missing.

The book that you've linked is on my reading list. The first few pages seem very sane.

Hylander's point about composition practice is probably right from a memorization standpoint. It's a good way to learn the tables by heart. But I've been dissatisfied with that approach particularly in regards to prepositions. I feel like the Greek idiom just doesn't come through.

[mahasacham]

Yes, jeidsath, I remember you mentioned recently you were reviewing prepositions and as I was skimming through Plat's Phaedrus, I started to realize that a lot of the time I get stuck on the meaning of a Greek sentence because of a preposition or a new and different definition of a word (which is what prepositions seem to do a lot; change their definition). Therefore, since there are fewer prepositions, I figured it cant hurt to start with those.

I am definitely gonna check these recommended books out. I really do need to dive into some composition. I think that is the next big move for me in my Greek studies. I have read a large amount of Plato, Xenophon, and other prose writers. So now it is time to compose some of my own prose. For now Poetry is far beyond me. In fact, the more poetical sections of Plato are always what throw me off.

[jeidsath]

On ἐπὶ with accusative versus dative, Smyth has this (but does not give examples for this note, unfortunately):

N.—In expressions of simple superposition ἐπί with the gen. denotes familiar relations and natural position; whereas ἐπί with the dat. gives clear and emphatic outlines to statements of the definite place of an object or action, is used in detailed pictures, and marks the object in the dative as distinct from the subject of the verbal action. ἐπί with the gen. is colourless and phraseological, and often makes, with the verb or the subject, a compound picture. Even in contrasting two objects ἐπί with gen. is used since no special point is made of position. With (unemphatic) pronouns of reference (αὐτοῦ) ἐπί with gen. is much more frequent than ἐπί with dat. The distinction between the two cases is often the result of feeling; and certain phrases become stereotyped, now with the gen., now with the dat.

Kühner is much more detailed, and seems to include justification for parts of the above. Unfortunately my German isn't good enough yet to read it easily. However here is the preposition section from his School Grammar translated to English, and it strikes me as better than Smyth on ἐπὶ: