ἔστι

[Lukas]

Χαίρετε!

I need to ask about a rule that is confusing me. In Unit 10, page 85, the author writes about the emphatic ἔστι, which means, "There is" or "There exists," He then writes that the form is also used if preceded by proclitics such as ουκ, και, and others. Now, if ἔστι is emphatic, it is placed at the beginning of the sentence. If ἔστι is not emphatic and precede by a proclitic, does it still go at the beginning of a sentence? The reason I ask is because of an exercise I had to write.

This is what I had to translate into Greek, "In the eyes of the majority pleasure is not the measure of virtue."

I wrote, "Τοις πλειστοις η ηδονη ουκ το μετρον της αρετης ἔστι."

The answer book wrote, "Τοις πλειστοις η ηδονη ουκ ἔστι. το μετρον της αρετης.

I do not know if the answer book moved ἔστι because it thought the word was emphatic or if I had to move ἔστι toward the beginning even if it is translated "is?"

[ἑκηβόλος]

Do the rules or examples for the emphatic ἔστι mention whether there is only one or possibly more (nominative) nouns involved? Another way to ask that is whether there can be both a subject and predicate with the emphatic ἔστι?

[Lukas]

The rule does not say.

[ἑκηβόλος]

If ἔστι is not emphatic and precede by a proclitic, does it still go at the beginning of a sentence?

No. Unemphatic ἐστι can go anywhere. Its accent is dependent on its position. Its position is not dependent on its accent. If it is emphatic it is always ἔστι and it can also move about in the sentence.

If it is unemphatic it is ἐστι except that it is ἔστι in some positions; absolute - at the beginning, relative - following a proclitic. By relative position I meant that he unit ουκ ἔστι can move about in the sentence. If it is separated from the ουκ by some intervening words, it is no longer following that proclitic.

I do not know if the answer book moved ἔστι because it thought the word was emphatic or if I had to move ἔστι toward the beginning even if it is translated "is?"

The answer book chose a position for unemphatic ἐστι, then thought about whether an accent should be written. The acute was added because it followed ουκ.

[ἑκηβόλος]

The rule does not say.

The authour is not supplying adequate explanation. If is unemphatic, it is translated "is" / "are" and it joins two nouns or noun phrases (singular or plural). If it is emphatic, it is translated "There is" / "There are" and it talks about the existence of one noun or noun phrase (singular or plural).

[The "there" here is not an adverb of place, it is a pseudo-subject. The phrase ην εκει πληθος πιθηκων, for example, has to be translated with two "there"s, ie "There was a crowd of monkeys there." ]

BTW. Do you understand the rules about when it is accented ἐστί?

[RandyGibbons]

Hi Lukas.

I wrote, "Τοις πλειστοις η ηδονη ουκ το μετρον της αρετης ἔστι."

One minor point: Before a word beginning with a consonant it is οὐ, not οὐκ.

The answer book wrote, "Τοις πλειστοις η ηδονη ουκ ἔστι. το μετρον της αρετης.

Actually, I don't think that's what the answer book wrote! Setting aside the period after ἔστι, which I'm sure is just a typo, this is one case where you really have to show us the accents. I suspect it reads Τοῖς πλείστοις ἡ ἡδονή οὔκ ἐστι τὸ μέτρον τῆς ἀρετῆς, but please confirm.

Word order: Non-emphatic ἐστι can go anywhere (technically; that isn't to say there aren't style considerations, which you'll only learn with experience).

Accents: As an enclitic, the verb εἰμι usually is unaccented, but there are exceptions. In your exercise sentence, the enclitic is preceded by a proclitic. Be sure to review the accent rules Mastronarde has given you for enclitics and proclitics. (I can assure you Mastronarde has provided "adequate explanation".)

See if you can type out and show us the answer sentence with the accents (did you set up a polytonic keyboard yet?), and review Mastronarde's rules for accents carefully (which, I'm assuming, are at the beginning of the book as with all other textbooks I'm familiar with?).

Randy

[jeidsath]

If you are having typing woes, also feel free to take a cell phone picture of the text in question, upload it to imgur.com and use the [img] tag to display it here.

[ἑκηβόλος]

Do the rules or examples for the emphatic ἔστι mention whether there is only one or possibly more (nominative) nouns involved?

The rule does not say.

The authour is not supplying adequate explanation.

(I can assure you Mastronarde has provided "adequate explanation".)

Great. I don't have the book. Perhaps you can direct Lukas to the explanation of the difference in syntactic construction between the emphatic and unemphatic forms.

From his wording of the original question it seems that the OP believed that an emphatic ἔστι could have both subject and predicate. I assumed that he had looked thoroughly, and concluded that there wasn't an explanation of that feature of the syntax there in the chaper.

[Lukas]

ευχαριστώ!

Currently I cannot type accents except for an acute.
Randy, yes the period was a typo.

[Lukas]

The sentence is #9

I realize from the discussion that I must have ου(κ) right before ἔστι.

ευχαριστώ!

[bedwere]

ευχαριστώ!

Currently I cannot type accents except for an acute.
Randy, yes the period was a typo.

My favorite site to type polytonic Greek: http://www.typegreek.com/

[RandyGibbons]

Thanks Lucas for posting the answer sentence. I was forgetting about Smyth rule 187b!

By the way, it pays to search in Textkit: See this.

[Callisper]

I'm not sure why people are talking about the accentuation of ἔστι when the OP has already been aware of the relevant rule from post #1 ('the form is also used if preceded by proclitics such as ουκ, και, and others').

Also, the characterization of this ἔστι as 'emphatic' is rather out of place. The cases in which this form is used can be rigorously classified: 1) at the beginning of a sentence (or of an absolute clause such as in brackets; and, sometimes, after a weaker sense-pause, e.g. semi-colon; and, depending on the metre & with some variance in editorial practice, at the beginning of a verse); 2) immediately following certain words (οὐκ, μή, εἰ, ὡς, ἀλλ(ά), τοῦτ(ο), καί), always; 3) followed by relative particles, when in the meaning of existence, as e.g. ἔστιν ὅς, ἔστιν οἵ, ἔστιν ὡς, ἔστιν ὅτε, ἔστιν ὅπου, ἔστιν ὅπως (but also e.g. ἔστιν ἐν οἶς, ἔστιν ἔνθα); 4) to denote existence or possibility.

It is not appropriate to introduce a subjective and irrelevant criterion of 'emphasis.'

All this and I'm not sure what the OP is actually asking or confused about ... the word-order / position of ἔστι here? That is, why isn't it at the end? Why is it adjacent to οὐκ? What accentuation would it have if not preceded by οὐκ? If you clarify your question I can try to focus my answer.

Actually, I don't think that's what the answer book wrote! Setting aside the period after ἔστι, which I'm sure is just a typo, this is one case where you really have to show us the accents. I suspect it reads Τοῖς πλείστοις ἡ ἡδονή οὔκ ἐστι τὸ μέτρον τῆς ἀρετῆς, but please confirm.

Note words (ἡδονή) are graved before proclitics. Other than that you've noticed it should be οὐκ ἔστι.

In spite of the few exceptions claimed in the thread you linked, the fact ἔστι is (if written at all) accented this way after οὐκ is an inviolable rule of Attic Greek (or at least editors think so - the manuscript practice may not be so consistent).

[Lukas]

Also, the characterization of this ἔστι as 'emphatic' is rather out of place. The cases in which this form is used can be rigorously classified: 1) at the beginning of a sentence (or of an absolute clause such as in brackets; and, sometimes, after a weaker sense-pause, e.g. semi-colon; and, depending on the metre & with some variance in editorial practice, at the beginning of a verse); 2) immediately following certain words (οὐκ, μή, εἰ, ὡς, ἀλλ(ά), τοῦτ(ο), καί), always; 3) followed by relative particles, when in the meaning of existence, as e.g. ἔστιν ὅς, ἔστιν οἵ, ἔστιν ὡς, ἔστιν ὅτε, ἔστιν ὅπου, ἔστιν ὅπως (but also e.g. ἔστιν ἐν οἶς, ἔστιν ἔνθα); 4) to denote existence or possibility.

It is not appropriate to introduce a subjective and irrelevant criterion of 'emphasis.'

All this and I'm not sure what the OP is actually asking or confused about ... the word-order / position of ἔστι here? That is, why isn't it at the end? Why is it adjacent to οὐκ? What accentuation would it have if not preceded by οὐκ? If you clarify your question I can try to focus my answer.

One of the questions I am wondering is if an unemphatic ἔστι has to be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase if preceded by a proclitic? Do I have room to move "οὐk ἔστι" around, or must it be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase? This is for an Unemphatic ἔστι.

[RandyGibbons]

Hi Lucas. You clarified your question for Callisper, and I'm sure he will respond. But here's mine:

[does] an unemphatic ἔστι [have] to be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase if preceded by a proclitic?

Emphatically, NO!

And it has nothing to do with whether or not it is preceded by a proclitic. Don't be misled by the particular example of ἔστι at the beginning of a sentence, what you (and I guess Mastonarde) are calling "emphatic ἔστι". THERE ARE NO RULES FOR WORD ORDER IN ANCIENT GREEK. Period. Full stop.

I could tell you that in fifth- and fourth-century prose the subject (S) tends to precede its verb (V) - this has been statistically demonstrated - whereas the statistical ratio OV:VO (where O is object) fluctuates more, and I could cite my authority. Word order is certainly not arbitrary, but in a highly inflected language it is normally determined by the writer for effect and not dictated by syntax. Others here could give you many examples of "usually", or create school exercises to illustrate what any experienced Greek reader would regard as absurd word order. But in my opinion, we wouldn't be doing you any favor as a beginning learner of Greek.

You're asking excellent questions, most of which I think we all asked ourselves as we were slowly getting used to the differences between a highly inflected language and our own. Please keep asking them. To repeat some advice I gave before, IMHO it is more important for you at this stage to develop good reading habits (read the sentence in the order the writer chose to put it in, and begin asking yourself what effect he was trying to achieve, given that usually he could have arranged it in several different ways). The purpose of Mastronarde's and other beginning textbooks' English-to-Greek composition exercises is not to teach you to produce a particular and "correct" word order.

[Lukas]

Ευχαριστώ πολύ!

[Callisper]

One of the questions I am wondering is if an unemphatic ἔστι has to be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase if preceded by a proclitic? Do I have room to move "οὐk ἔστι" around, or must it be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase? This is for an Unemphatic ἔστι.

Are you accenting properly? Please note it is integral to this discussion to accent ἐστι,ἔστι,ἐστί correctly in your posts. As I stated in my post, there is no 'emphatic' or 'unemphatic' ἔστι. As for whether "οὐk ἔστι" has to be at the beginning of a sentence or phrase, of course not, as the example you yourself screen-shotted from Mastronarde demonstrates.

As to what you should focus on - RandyGibbons says 'Word order is certainly not arbitrary, but [...] is normally determined by the writer for effect and not dictated by syntax' - this is not quite true, and there are plenty of absolutes in Greek. Then there are 'examples of "usually"' which approach rules in their consistency (Textkit's own mwh proposed one that I've not seen noted elsewhere: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=68840). RandyGibbons is certainly right that a beginner should worry about morphology and basic syntax mainly, not word-order. But I think this warning is perhaps overstated around here, and if you're already paying due attention to morphology and syntax, I don't see any harm in asking questions about word-order whenever they seem to crop up for you. You may come across some absolutes or pretty consistent rules in the process, which it wouldn't do you any harm to know.

His general note that word-order is free(ish) is pertinent, though, compared to say English. Better to wait until a word-order that strikes you as odd crops up, then ask about it, than try to understand why everything is in the position it's in.

Edit: do you perhaps mean to ask whether "οὐk ἔστι" must go at the beginning of the sentence/phrase if ἔστι has the sense of 'existence'? In fact my feeling is this would be pretty rare and you will very rarely see "οὐk ἔστι" meaning this (therefore its position is a moot point) (except when followed by a relative particle, a case which I already covered): and that an ancient Greek writer would have chosen a different verb to signify existence in this negation. (As always I welcome counter-examples.)

[seneca2008]

There are probably already too many posts on this thread but I think we need to look at what Mastronarde actually wrote.

3.  Emphatic ἔστι. When used emphatically — that is, stressing existence (there is or there exists) — the third person singular form is placed at the beginning of the sen-tence and is accented on P: ἔστι(ν). This form is also used when the immediately preceding word is the proclitic οὐκ, εἰ (if ), or ὡς (as, that), the conjunction καὶ (and) or ἀλλὰ (but), or the demonstrative τοῦτ' (this). Emphatic ἔστι may be used with an infinitive subject in the same sense as the compound ἔξεστι (it is possible to X).

As you can see M. calls “ἔστι” at the beginning of the sentence emphatic. He then perhaps unhelpfully explains how the verb when preceded by an enclitic has the same form as that used in the emphatic sense. Clearly if “ἐστί” is not at the beginning of the sentence either on its own or preceded by eg οὐκ it is not emphatic. So the OP was confused about the meaning and form.

Perhaps it’s not the easiest explanation I have seen but I thought it worth quoting so everyone can see exactly the source of the confusion.

[Lukas]

ευχαριστώ!

That is why I had a difficult time figuring out where to place the unemphatic. ἔστι.

[ἑκηβόλος]

Clearly if “ἐστί” is not at the beginning of the sentence either on its own or preceded by eg οὐκ it is not emphatic. So the OP was confused about the meaning and form.

LSJ uses the philosophically nuanced name "substantive verb" - ie a verb describing the essential rather than changeable properties - when ἐστί is used in the syntactic construction with just one single noun (or nominal group). In contrast to that, LSJ refers to ἐστί as copula when it is used in the syntactic construction with two nouns (or nominal groups). The basis of the distinction between what M calls emphatic (what LSJ calls substantive verb) and what what M calls unemphatic (what LSJ calls the copula) is the syntactic construction in which they are used.

M's definition is a little vague (and actually wrong) in its mention of the "beginning" (of a sentence). The "beginning" needs to be defined as including the position after (to the right of) conjunctives and it needs to note that placing an adverb (e.g. ετι) to the left of a verb at the beginning of a sentence does not displace a verb from being at the "beginning". Just looking at LSJ's examples, there are examples also where emphatic ἐστί / the substantive verb is clearly not at the beginning of a sentence. Here is an example where the emphatic ἐστί / substantive verb occurs as the 9th word of 10 in a sentence:

δέδορκεν, ἁ δὲ μεγαλόπολις 
ἄπολις ὄλωλεν οὐδ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἔστι Τροία.

In the first reply to the OP (the 2nd post) in this thread, I prompted him to consider the syntactic construction in which the ἐστί occurs. If there is an explicit or implied subject AND a predicate together with the verb ἐστί it is unemphatic ἐστί / the copula. If, however, there is no predicate - no attribution of the subject, but merely a statement that the subject exists - then it is the emphatic ἐστί / substantive verb. In my second reply (the 4th post of this thread) I said that emphatic ἐστί / the substantive verb could go anywhere in a sentence, meaning that one had to look for it based on something other than position. The lack of "adequate explanation" on the part of the author M in drafting his rule (that I mentioned in my 3rd reply) is that he does not ground his rule in the syntactic patterns.

Look at the syntactic patterns.

[Lukas]

Since I can use ἔστι for "there is / there exist," what do I use for "there was / there were." Would I use some past tense form of ἔστι?

[Barry Hofstetter]

Since I can use ἔστι for "there is / there exist," what do I use for "there was / there were." Would I use some past tense form of ἔστι?

The only past tense of εἰμί is the imperfect, and yes, it may be used in that way. If you wish to use the aorist, Greek uses other verb forms to express the concept. You will learn this as you progress. And it looks like you are nicely progressing, so you will get there.

[Lukas]

Ευχαριστώ!

The road is long.