21st Century Classical Greek -- impersonal gerundives

Thucydides Book I 3.2. has two phrases ending with impersonal gerundives, and this lets me give you a list of things to watch out for with impersonal gerundives.

δοκεῖ δέ μοι, οὐδὲ τοὔνομα τοῦτο ξύμπασά πω εἶχεν, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν πρὸ Ἕλληνος τοῦ Δευκαλίωνος καὶ πάνυ οὐδὲ εἶναι ἡ ἐπίκλησις αὕτη, κατὰ ἔθνη δὲ ἄλλα τε καὶ τὸ Πελασγικὸν ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν παρέχεσθαι,

Ἕλληνος δὲ καὶ τῶν παίδων αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ Φθιώτιδι ἰσχυσάντων, καὶ ἐπαγομένων αὐτοὺς ἐπ᾽ ὠφελίᾳ ἐς τὰς ἄλλας πόλεις, καθ᾽ ἑκάστους μὲν ἤδη τῇ ὁμιλίᾳ μᾶλλον καλεῖσθαι Ἕλληνας,

οὐ μέντοι πολλοῦ γε χρόνου [ἐδύνατο] καὶ ἅπασιν ἐκνικῆσαι.

The old grammars give a number of uses for impersonal gerundives.

1.                  To substitute for conjugated verbs as the name of an action.

2.                  Complement of verbs in contexts that mean purpose, intent, and other uncompleted actions, especially the imperfective conceptual i.g.

3.                  Complement of:

a.                    Dunamai – able

b.                  Dei – possible

c.                   Khri – necessary

d.                  Dei or khri -- obligatory

4.                  Instead of an imperative when an action is due and owing based on specified considerations. Avoids issuing an ultimatum.

5.                  Quoted speech and question in the same aspect as in the original question, sometimes using the imperfective conceptual for a promise.

6.                  In a result clause starting with hos[te]. Goodwin claims it expresses a tendency and not an actual result.

7.                  In purpose clauses. The i.g. may be negated using mi to express “so that X [out of the possible and possibly alternative actions] does not happen”.

Do not confuse (7) with a purpose clause introduced by some particle such as ina, hos, hopos or ofra, which the old grammars confusingly call “final” or “object” clauses. We’ll look for (7) clauses soon.

Two more issues I have to take exception with, claims made about quoted speech:

            With an, the progressive conceptual i.g. represents a progressive eventive i.g.

            With an, the imperfective eventive i.g. is a quote of something said in imperfective eventive uncertainty epistemic OR an i.e. indicative.

You can make claims like this when your verb system has fuzzy grammatical definitions, as well as saying things that the data contradicts, like “imperfect tense is for something interrupted by another action”.

The other way this claim arises is if you analyze the text incorrectly. I will show in a later lesson that claims made about purpose clauses fail when you analyze the sentence properly.

In our more objective verbal definitions based on aspect, you can’t convert one form to the use belonging to another form. And aspectual usage only seems to overlap. Imperfective may seem to involve repeated action, but that’s only because the effects of an action wear off or are reversed. The repetition of progressive aspect creates a habit or situation.

You can keep your eyes open for reported speech that has an plus an i.g. to test what I say. But on the face of it we have more evidence that the sources our existing grammars relied on, are fundamentally incorrect.