Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Stephen Carlson
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Re: Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Stephen, look at the Greek we are dealing with here. Do you think it is good enough to warrant such a detailed analysis? You don't need to use vernier calipers to measure a rough-sawn log. The right tool for the job at hand.
I'm just discussing what the analytical form, εἶναι + aor. part., would mean. Though rare, it does exist and it has been studied. It even seems to fit the context. That's really the first step, assessing what the Greek text would mean to a Greek.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:That's really the first step, assessing what the Greek text would mean to a Greek.
Stephen Carlson wrote:It even seems to fit the context.
How does an English speaker understand, "I was ate my lunch"? One realises immediately that that the verb form has been formed inaccurately so one needs to look at the context not the form to find (in fact make an educated guess about) the meaning intended.

There is a difference between a native speaker who has full mastery of the language and uses a rare form for a special effect, and a more-than-semi-literate translator who makes a mistake. IFF that had occured in the context of smooth piece of writing, someone capable in Greek might slow down and consider why an authour would have used such a rare form, and what effect they might have been trying to get at. Here however, they would probably think about it and "correct" it to what it sould have been. And the correction would be on the basis of context.
mzumstein wrote:As far as the Slavonic text is concerned, the translators seem to have rendered both the Greek BE+part.perf and the BE+part.aor structures in the same way:
According to the OSC translation evidence, the mediaeval translator at least had mentally assumed that ἦσαν ἀνατραπέντες was supposed to be ἦσαν ἀνατετραμμένοι then translated it.

As for possible reasons for the error; the IV and V principle parts are not used for this verb in the NT or LXX, but the writer really wanted to use the periphrastic form.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:That's really the first step, assessing what the Greek text would mean to a Greek.
I would like to suggest that we need also to consider; how someone competent in Greek would mentally adjust this passage to be able to make sense of it then translate it.
Stephen Carlson wrote:It even seems to fit the context.
If the translator was giving themself that level of error correction when translating, then my earlier comments:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Considering the difference in meaning between the отъвраштени (Can I assume that is from отъвести - "lead away") of Codex Suprasliensis and the ἀνατραπέντες (from ἀνατρέπω) that is interlined with it, you might like to consider whether it is possible that the OCS was translated from a variant Vorlage using the word ἀποτραπέντες (from ἀποτρέπω "turn away").
that assume a written ἀποτραπέντες may not be a correct assumption. It could just have been that the translator thought about what the origninal translator had meant to say, but was unable to express clearly because of their bad Greek, and mentally corrected the text to ἦσαν ἀποτετραμμένοι and translated бѣа҅хѫ о҅тъвраштени from what they thought should have been there.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Hi Stephen. I think you're begging the question that it's bad Greek. I don't agree with that assumption. If anything, the Greek is fairly late, post-Koine, and that may be what's throwing you off.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Analytical form in the Vita (Passio) Ionae et Barachisii

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:I think you're begging the question that it's bad Greek. I don't agree with that assumption.

Assumption? It is not an assumption it is an observation. After reading the account through, I would say that the sections of bad (foreign sounding) Greek occur only in the speeches of the Chief-magicians (or the other accusers) to caricature them as being either (a) not Christian (Greek speakers) or (b) like buffoons. It seems that one of the ways that that bad Greek is marked is by extra ὁτι's, bad collocations, wrong use of synonyms or over elaborate formulaic utterances. These may have been points of language that the editor / authour of the account thought that non-Greek (not Christian Roman) speakers used when they spoke Greek.
Stephen Carlson wrote:If anything, the Greek is fairly late, post-Koine, and that may be what's throwing you off.
Lol. I'm not being "thrown off". I have read as widely in Modern Greek as I have in Classical Greek, and both of those severally are more than I have read in the Koine. I've also read right through this account.

I agree that it is post Koine. Aside from this and the other speeches by the archmagician, the Greek is reasonably good. Perfect participles seem to only be used as adjectives - while aroist and perfect participles seem to be used syntactically. Also, the only perfect verbal form that I can find is at 134r, line 24. From that I assume that the writer recognised that participles were used in the Koine style that he was trying to write in, but was not themself used to using the perfect. The other point of the ἑαυτόν for ἐμαυτόν at 135v, line 18. Perhaps he is thinking of a quote.

If I was to follow your line that the Greek was not bad, but was just late and the ἦσαν ἀνατραπέντες was a valid form at that period (and it just so happened that the person who was using that form was a person that we were supposed to boo and hiss at because they are the bad guys in the story - whereas our 2 heroes spoke good Greek like the narrator), then we could say that the periphrastic form was formed from the aorist because the translator/ editor didn't have an actively creative perfect to form things from.
Stephen Carlson wrote:I think you're begging the question that it's bad Greek
I think that the question is not whether it is bad Greek or not, but why?

We might assume that Persian martyrs Jonas and Barachisil were actually speaking the same language at the time the account was written. Here, however, they are using Greek at the same standard as the narrator. So, perhaps either their speeches were touched up from the original translation while the persian's (even though Jonas and Barachisil were Persians), or that the translator made the Archmagicians sound like some non-Greek speaking traders or something that they had encountered.

You and I have rather different ways of arriving at knowledge and the type of knowledge that we are looking for is different. If you could not cut this off because you do not agree with it, I would appreciate that greatly.
Stephen Carlson wrote:Bentein's study of Greek periphrasis
Does this work that you are refering to claim to cover Byzantine Greek?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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