predicate genitive

David Lim
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by David Lim »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:How do you read the article οἱ, with οἱ ... ὀλίγοι ? and what about τινες placed between the article and the noun?
I consider "τινες" to be an indefinite determiner which modifies "ολιγοι", and then "οι" is a kind of determiner which modifies "τινες ολιγοι" to make it definite. At the bottom it is just "a few", which becomes "some few" and then "those some few". I can't say I know what Smyth means, but if he took it this way then it can make sense to refer to "της αυτης γνωμης" as like a predicate of "τινες ολιγοι", just as I could say that "αληθινος" is like a predicate of "ο" in "ο αληθινος". (Which one? The true one.) Anyway I know Mike doesn't agree that there is such a kind of implicit structures, but this is just my thinking. :)
δαυιδ λιμ
Stephen Carlson
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:Yes I understand the problem. It isn't easy to make this work as a predicate genitive. This is a common experience with Cooper's citations. A lot of them leave me wondering what on earth he is trying to demonstrate with this text. Happens all the time with Cooper.
Well, since Cooper is a revision of Kühner-Gerth and Smyth is also based on it, I though it would be helpful to see what K-G say. Under predicate genitives, they say this:
Kühner-Gerth 2.1 § 418, p. 373 wrote:(Ohne εἶναι Th. 3, 70 οἱ δέ τινες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ κατέφυγον).
Two things are clear from the quote in the way they read this:

First, they don't see ὀλίγοι as part of the noun phrase. So it must be in apposition, just like Carl said.

Second, they consider this a case of a predicate genitive without an expressed form of the verb to be. I'm guessing they read it as if οἱ δέ τινες ὄντες τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης τῷ Πειθίᾳ κατέφυγον.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:How do you read the article οἱ, with οἱ ... ὀλίγοι ? and what about τινες placed between the article and the noun?
In light of Carl, and K-G, you can forget that comment of mine.

Stephen
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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cwconrad
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by cwconrad »

I've been chewing on this matter and thinking just what Stephen now suggests: that a partticipial form of εἳναι must be conceived as making these predicate genitives; that would be somewhat akin to Stirling's earlier suggestion of a "deep structure." It's a matter, I think, of the often elliptical but definitely understood participle of εἶναι -- ὤν, ὄντες κτλ. That would account for those other instances in the Smyth group -- and, I guess, for those in Cooper's collection as well.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: predicate genitive

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I am posting this for the person from textkit who asked the question. (This response is stale, I should have posted it earlier, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.)
I am the person from textkit who was originally losing sleep over this. Thanks to all of you for taking up this matter. Marchant and Morris in their commentaries on Thucydides agree with Smyth that it is predicate. LSJ also possibly shed some light in their entry for τις.

Marchant:
τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης—sc. ὄντες.

Morris:
τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης: as in i. 113. 10; v. 46. 26. For the pred. gen., see G. 1094; H. 732; Kr. Spr. 47, 6, 10.—28.

LSJ:
b. in Philosophic writers, τις is added to the Art. to show that the Art. is used to denote a particular individual who is not specified in the general formula, although he would be in the particular case, ὁ τὶς ἄνθρωπος the individual man (whoever he may be), this or that man, opp. ἄνθρωπος (man in general), ὁ τὶς ἵππος, ἡ τὶς γραμματική, Arist.Cat.1b4, 8; τὸ τὶ μέγεθος, opp. ὅλως τὸ μέγεθος, Id.Pol.1283a4, cf. S.E.P.2.223; but in “ἑνὸς γὰρ τό γε τὶ φήσεις σημεῖον εἶναι” Pl.Sph.237d, the Art. is used as in Il. cc. s.v. ὁ, ἡ“, τό” B.1.5: later ὅ τις (or ὁ τὶς) much like ὁ δεῖνα, δεῦρο ὅ τις θεός, ὄφθητί μοι in a general formula of invocation, PMag.Par.1.236; αἴρω σε, ἥ τις βοτάνη ib.287; εἰς τήν τινα κρείαν (leg. χρείαν) ib.289.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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