21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 9, the particle an

The grammars and lexicons want you to always treat an as if it is part of the apodosis to a conditional. This is not true, but it is what the authorities said and nobody ever challenged the authorities by doing good research.

An is a pivot. In conditionals with an indicative verb in the protasis, it pivots away from asserting that the protasis is true. That is, it appears in “conditionals contrary to fact.” In conditionals with an epistemic verb in the protasis, it pivots away from any assertion that the protasis is more likely than not to be true. 

An also appears in a number of contexts where there is no hint of a conditional. In Book II 93.3, we have three uses of an that let us explore what it means. The last example is definitely the apodosis of a conditional. Tell me what it means based on the modality of the verbs.

οὔτε γὰρ ναυτικὸν ἦν προφυλάσσον ἐν αὐτῷ οὐδὲν οὔτε προσδοκία οὐδεμία μὴ ἄν ποτε οἱ πολέμιοι ἐξαπιναίως οὕτως ἐπιπλεύσειαν, ἐπεὶ οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ τοῦ προφανοῦς τολμῆσαι ἂν καθ᾽ ἡσυχίαν, οὐδ᾽ εἰ διενοοῦντο, μὴ οὐκ ἂν προαισθέσθαι.

There is no hint of a conditional in the cause leading up to the first use of an. It’s a straight statement, “not at any time the enemies might have unexpectedly sailed up.”  What is an pivoting away from? The rest of the context is about what the Lakedaimonians are doing about the Athinaians and the an pivots away from the enemy to what the Athinaians are doing or thinking.

The most extreme example of an as a pivot keeps the reader, once again, from thinking that the wrong party is under consideration. In Book III 28.1:

..,ὥστε Ἀθηναίοις μὲν ἐξεῖναι βουλεῦσαι περὶ Μυτιληναίων ὁποῖον ἄν τι βούλωνται καὶ τὴν στρατιὰν ἐς τὴν πόλιν δέχεσθαι αὐτούς,

…such that for the Athinaians it was [due and owing] possible to consider anent the Mutilinaians what sort [of treatment] they wished* and they would [be obliged to] accept the army into their city….

* “Wished” is an oblique; they might decide on no action at all against the Mutilinaians, but it’s more likely that they would. However, the closest substantive is the Mutilinaians, and it’s clear that this cannot be the subject of boulontai. The next closest substantive is the Athinaians, and that’s where an pivots to.

However, the dekhesthai after that is in the straight line of the subsection, and at the start there is the phrase oi en tois pragmasin. There are two factions in Mutiline, rebels and the political leaders they are rebelling against. Chapter 28 starts out referring to the leaders. These are the ones who dekhesthai the army, to protect themselves from the rebels.

So now go back to your favorite author and find all the times he used an, and decide which of the three possibilities you have:

1.         A conditional with no ei in the protasis;

2.         A “might have”;

3.         A clue that whoever is carrying out the verb, it is not the closest substantive but further back in the subsection – and not the actual agent in the whole affair.

21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 8, syntax particles

I know this is way early but I was up fixing a piece of knitting and I decided to post this now and sleep in later.

I originally had these summaries in a different order but after doing conditionals I think it’s important to do the syntax particles.

The main syntax particles are men and de. They mark point and counterpoint, where you should think of counterpoint the way it works in music: a different idea which fills out the main idea. So, in Thucydides I 1.3:

[3] τὰ γὰρ πρὸ αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ ἔτι παλαίτερα σαφῶς μὲν εὑρεῖν διὰ χρόνου πλῆθος ἀδύνατα ἦν, ἐκ δὲ τεκμηρίων ὧν ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντί μοι πιστεῦσαι ξυμβαίνει οὐ μεγάλα νομίζω γενέσθαι οὔτε κατὰ τοὺς πολέμους οὔτε ἐς τὰ ἄλλα.

Both are what is called enclitic, they are never the first word in the clause where they appear. When two options are on offer, they can be used with ei as in I 53.4:

εἰ μὲν οὖν ἄλλοσέ ποι βούλεσθε πλεῖν, οὐ κωλύομεν:

εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ Κέρκυραν πλευσεῖσθε ἢ ἐς τῶν ἐκείνων τι χωρίων, οὐ περιοψόμεθα κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν.’

In this case we actually have ei…ei, “either/whether…or”, not really “if”.

It will take work to see if this next statement holds up against Greek authors, but in this sample both verbs are indicative. Remember in conditionals, when an is not there and the verb is indicative, we are looking at a statement without any implication about the result. I have found ei men with the indicative in Plato’s Theaetetus and one of Demosthenes’ Phillipics, as well as elsewhere in Peloponnesian War, giving this same nuance. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to see if ei men…ei de… shows up with oblique or epistemic.

In Book I, 2.4 we have gar which sort of substitutes for men, in this case, in a topic order sentence:

διὰ γὰρ ἀρετὴν γῆς αἵ τε δυνάμεις τισὶ μείζους ἐγγιγνόμεναι στάσεις ἐνεποίουν ἐξ ὧν ἐφθείροντο, καὶ ἅμα ὑπὸ ἀλλοφύλων μᾶλλον ἐπεβουλεύοντο.

Gar will follow on from some other statement; the gar clause is stronger than de, introducing an explanation for something just said as opposed to a reinforcing idea. Gar can also argue against the truth of the preceding statement.

Kai is not just “and” any more than vav in Biblical Hebrew only means “and” (in fact vav more often is a grammatical marker than a conjunction).  Kai…kai of course is “both…and”. As an enclitic syntax particle, kai introduces an add-on, reinforcing idea.

Its weaker cousin te can appear both alone and with kai, and there is the still weaker ge which introduces a modifying but not necessarily supporting concept.

When you are trying to figure out what the Greek is saying, pay attention to the syntax particles and the verbs in the clauses or phrases that they set off. I haven’t yet studied how they relate to oblique or epistemic and, as I keep saying, your favorite author may use them differently than Thucydides. 

21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 7, conditionals

Conditionals are statements with a protasis, the “if” clause, and apodosis, the “then” clause, describing the consequences of an action that may be contrary to fact or uncertain.

1.                  Many conditionals have the formula ei…an, “if…then”, but these are not the only particles used in conditionals.

2.                  The particle can be suppressed without eliminating that clause.

3.                  Either protasis or apodosis may be suppressed; what it would say can be deduced from the context.

4.                  The protasis is negated with mi, “if there is any situation in which X does not happen”, and the apodosis with ou “in every case fitting the protasis, Y does not happen.

There are three types.

1.         Indicative. The speaker makes a statement of certainty introduced with ei, “if”. When the speaker knows facts contrary to the truth of this statement, the apodosis begins with an. If the apodosis is not marked by an, the speaker implies nothing about fulfillment of the protasis, at least within the conditional ; this gives the conditional a sort of narrative tension that makes the audience interested in the context which may show whether it was carried out.

2.         Oblique. The speaker may use ean to introduce the protasis which expresses something probably true but for which there is no evidence. Because there is no evidence, an imperfective (default verb form) conceptual (action not known to have taken place) is used in the apodosis.

3.         Epistemic. The speaker uses ei with the epistemic in a protasis he does not want to imply is true because he has no evidence. The apodosis uses an plus the epistemic, naturally enough, because the speaker can’t sign up to any specific result if he can’t sign up to the truth of the “if” clause.

The old categories of conditionals were copied from Latin and don’t cover all the possibilities, as well as being confusing and the “rules” internally contradictory. The above condenses about 12 pages of Goodwin into 1 page.

In Book III 57.1 I found a conditional using the imperfective conceptual. I have repeatedly said that the IC is a promise. Does that work here?

εἰ δὲ περὶ ἡμῶν γνώσεσθε μὴ τὰ εἰκότα （…）, ὁρᾶτε ὅπως μὴ οὐκ ἀποδέξωνται ἀνδρῶν ἀγαθῶν ….

First note that there is no an in the apodosis, so there is no claim that the protasis will be carried out. The protasis is in base voice, so the decision (gnosesthe) would not be a deliberate act. It’s hard to conceive of promising to do something that is not going to be done deliberately. The point seems to be that in this context, the verb means “judge”, but it lets the judges off the hook as far as acting with prejudice.

The apodosis is progressive conceptual (orate, you’ll see…), the situation that will come about, that is, for good men like the Athinians it will [probably, an oblique] be unacceptable that the Plataeans be blotted out.

Mendel Beilis -- Gruzenberg's memoirs

If I really really want to read a specific book but I can't find it online the first time I think of it, every once in a while I go back out and search for it again. It has worked many times, and it worked again this weekend.

I have long wanted to read Gruzenberg's memoirs. There is an English translation but nobody has posted it yet. I did, at last, find the Russian version. 

I'm not too worried that the English version isn't available for free. You can understand why I'm not worried if you have read other parts of my blog, where I show that lots of urban legends about Jewish classics wouldn't exist if people read the primary documents instead of translations, commentaries, or interpretations.

The web has plenty of free Russian language learning material, and I also found my very first college Russian grammar available for purchase at various sites. (Ignore the one charging >$200, that's just stupid.) Once you learn it, much of the Beilis material is open to you. Let me know if you need links to the learning material.

Other links about the Beilis trial are here.

21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 6, negatives

1.                  Negation of verbs coordinates with aspect to produce several effects that translators have failed to capture. Jowett, in particular, applies his negatives to the wrong thing in sentences.

2.                  Grammatical  descriptions are, as usual, inexact. They also suffer from examples which eliminate too much context and sometimes are not cited to “live” examples.

3.                  What is being negated takes careful inspection of context due to the rounding of periods. This is partly what causes Jowett’s problems; he does not understand this rhetorical feature.

Grammars claim a strict association between ou and its derivatives, or mi and its derivatives, with morphology, which does not exist.

How to use negatives:

1.                  Negations precede the word they apply to.

2.                  An expression can have multiple negations. Since English can’t, translators have to do extra work or they leave a false impression.

3.                  Negations can be categorical (ou) or partitive (mi).

4.                  Negation of an oblique defines something as not probable.

Negation of verbs by aspect:

1.                  Imperfective eventive: negation of an action.  Negation of a conceptual would be a promise not to do something if conjugated.

2.                  Progressive conceptual: negation of a situation. It will take inspection of context to determine whether authors negate progressive eventives.

3.                  Perfective eventive: negation of a result was identified in lesson 77.  I have not seen a negated perfective conceptual in the first book of Thucydides.

Notice that negations don’t work the same way as impersonal gerundives; in perfective the eventive can be negated to achieve the right effect but the conceptual can’t, as far as my observations show. You Greek geeks need to tell me if you find negations I don’t list here.

21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 5, imperatives

Classical Greek has three types of order-giving.

1.         Indirect, using an auxiliary verb like keleuo.

2.         Indirect using an impersonal gerundive to indicate an action that is due and owing.

3.         Imperatives which are rare and may have a nuance that relates them to Biblical Hebrew.

In Biblical Hebrew, true imperatives indicate whether the person who uses them has authority to do so or not, but it does so in the context of a narrative. Read the story of Avraham buying Machpelah: Efron uses multiple imperatives, but none of them work out. He is not authorized to issue imperatives to Avraham.

Thucydides seems to use imperatives more to emphasize how wrong-headed somebody is. The best examples are the ultimata issued by the Korinthians, supposedly in support of the treaty that existed during the events of Book I, but contradicted by the fact that treaty members get to vote on actions as explained in the same book. I hope that you Greek geeks can offer up examples and citations from your favorite author with evidence that the imperatives were carried out. This would be a demonstration that the person issuing the ultimatum had authority over the people he issued it to.

Or, you could tell us about examples where the imperative was carried out. It’s entirely possible that keleuo in particular is used in all of these contexts. I am in Book III of Thucydides and haven’t seen examples of this yet.

Imperatives are all indicative and show aspect:

1.                  Imperfective: perform an action.

2.                  Progressive: get into a situation or habit.

3.                  Perfective: produce a result. Periphrastic and very rare.

The fact that imperatives refer to an action that has not yet been carried out creates a cognitive dissonance in the old tense system, particularly for aorist, perfect and pluperfect. In our aspectual system, with imperfective being the default verb form, the cognitive dissonance disappears.

In Thucydides II 81.1 we have keleuontes with an impersonal gerundive, “ordering him to X”. Use of an impersonal gerundive gets us two things: one is that the action is due and owing upon receipt of the order; the other is that possibly it can’t be carried out immediately or the person issuing the order has no authority, thus it is indefinite. LSJ does not say that keleuo must take an impersonal gerundive, but all its examples work out that way.

21st Century Classical Greek -- Summary 4, gerundives

Greek does not use a conjugated verb in every phrase or clause.

• --  Equational sentences can leave out the copula, a feature Greek has in common with other aspectual languages like Russian, Chinese, and the Semitic languages.
• ---When an author chooses not to be definite about an action, he uses a gerundive. The lack of definition may involve persons, places, and timing, but gerundives either describe or substantivize the action.

Every vector that applies to verbs applies to gerundives, except certainty; all gerundives are indicative modality.

Personal gerundives indicate person, number, and gender and agree with some antecedent. They act as adjectives, describing actions, or as substantives, usually with a definite article.

Personal gerundives have standard indications of voice:

1.                  -antes, -ontes, -untes for executive voice

2.                  -entes for passive voice

3.                  -men- for base voice

Impersonal gerundives have all the vectors of a verb except certainty or person/gender/number agreement. All impersonal gerundives are indicative modality.

There are four sets of endings for impersonal gerundives:

1.                  -sthai for all base voice i.g.s

2.                  -ein is the progressive conceptual i.g in executive voice. There is no progressive eventive i.g..

3.                  -sai is the imperfective conceptual in executive voice.

4.                  ­-ein is the imperfective eventive for executive voice.

5.                  -nai is the ending for the perfective conceptual executive voice. There seems to be no perfective eventive i.g..

Impersonal gerundives are used

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

2.                  Complement of:

a.                   Dunamai – able

b.                  Dei – possible

c.                   Khri – necessary

d.                  Dei or khri -- obligatory

3.                  Instead of an imperative when an action is due and owing based on specified considerations. Avoids issuing an ultimatum or giving a nuance of immediacy.

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

5.                  In a result clause starting with hos[te].

6.                  In purpose clauses. The i.g. will be the complement of another verb. It may have what Hurrian calls an instrumental/ablative, which is an -on case expression, and be negated using mi to express “so that X does not happen”.

7.                  As the complement of a conjugated verb or personal gerundive in an anti-passive. There may be a subject for the impersonal gerundive; it will be in whatever case is needed either for verbal nuance or to connect the anti-passive to an antecedent.

In Book II.80 of Thucydides I came across the following structure:

βουλόμενοι [object] καταστρέψασθαι

It’s obvious why you have a base voice for the personal gerundive; the planning wasn’t undertaken just to do planning. It was undertaken for the sake of something else. But that is also in base voice, not executive voice, and it has a lower level of definiteness, an impersonal gerundive. So while the people involved might have deliberately performed the action of the complement, they weren’t there yet, they were only in the planning stages, and that’s also why it’s an i.g. not a p.g. In fact the planned action did not succeed. This may look like a place where Thucydides should have used an epistemic, but that is for not signing up to the truth of something which later does turn out to be false.

In this case, Thucydides is completely certain about the planning and its intended goal, and he knows with complete certainty that it did not pan out. So does his audience. He doesn’t have to mince words with them by using the epistemic.