two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post Reply
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

One subject, two finite verbs back to back, no conjunction and no subordination. A single sentence? Does this work? Shouldn't we rather assume that a conjunction was withheld to facilitate meter or some other reason? If we are simply talking about a compound sentence there is no problem whatsoever.

It has been recently suggested by a papyroligist that the following from Soph. Ajax might be a single sentence:
Soph. Ajax 59-60
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.


And as the man wandered in the madness that afflicted him, I urged him on and drove him into a cruel trap.

Lloyd-Jones 1994
#1 "And as the man ranged to and fro, I urged him with maddening frenzy, and drave him into the evil net."
construing μανιάσιν νόσοις with φοιτῶντα
or
#2 "As he bounded to and fro in frenzy, I urged him and drave him ... "

In the latter case the expression is proleptic.

‎Lewis Campbell - 1881 (who works from the same text as Lloyd-Jones)
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

This is simply asyndeton, right?
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:This is simply asyndeton, right?
Yes, that's probably what it is but I find it unsettling to call it one sentence. Were probably back to the question Micheal Palmer answered for me back in late 90s. What is a sentence? If we supply a conjunction between the two verbs then it is two sentences where participant reference is reduced to verb inflection in the second sentence. All things very normal and routine. But calling it one sentence implies that something non-routine is going on and I can't fathom what that would be. A compound sentence is two sentences with a conjunction or in this case without one. But it isn't one sentence with two finite verbs.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by cwconrad »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:This is simply asyndeton, right?
Yes, that's probably what it is but I find it unsettling to call it one sentence. Were probably back to the question Micheal Palmer answered for me back in late 90s. What is a sentence? If we supply a conjunction between the two verbs then it is two sentences where participant reference is reduced to verb inflection in the second sentence. All things very normal and routine. But calling it one sentence implies that something non-routine is going on and I can't fathom what that would be. A compound sentence is two sentences with a conjunction or in this case without one. But it isn't one sentence with two finite verbs.
Soph. Ajax 59-60
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.
I think we quite regularly have problems with what Greek rhetoricians called a περίοδος, which is not quite (if at all) what English-speakers mean by "sentence." I'm much more concerned with the layout of the opening verses of Ephesians than I am with this bit of Sophocles, which is perfectly intelligible. Its rhetoric reminds me of KJV's
Amos 5:21   I hate, I despise your feasts
μεμίσηκα ἀπῶσμαι ἑορτὰς ὑμῶν.
On the other hand, it might be said that φοιτῶντ(α) ... μανιάσιν νόσοις constitutes a subordinate clause; we'd certainly want to English it with "a man who ... " or "a man while he ... ", wouldn't we?
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:This is simply asyndeton, right?
Yes, that's probably what it is but I find it unsettling to call it one sentence. Were probably back to the question Micheal Palmer answered for me back in late 90s. What is a sentence? If we supply a conjunction between the two verbs then it is two sentences where participant reference is reduced to verb inflection in the second sentence. All things very normal and routine. But calling it one sentence implies that something non-routine is going on and I can't fathom what that would be. A compound sentence is two sentences with a conjunction or in this case without one. But it isn't one sentence with two finite verbs.
It's a well recognized literary device in Greek, and in Latin, and in English, et al. Maybe it's one of those things that causes trouble only if you think about it too much... :D
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Soph. Ajax 59-60
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.

Barry,

asyndeton wasn't and isn't a problem.
Smyth
2165. Two or more sentences (or words) independent in form and thought, but juxtaposed, i.e. coördinated without any connective, are asyndetic (from ἀσύνδετον not bound together), and such absence of connectives is called asyndeton.
Applying relevance theory (RT) to the papyrologist's claim that we have here one sentence. I was assuming that he was presenting an exegetical proposition which he considered worth mentioning and worth the processing effort to read his sentence. If all we are talking about is asyndeton (a missing conjunction) then there is nothing much to talk about. On the other hand asyndeton had already been floated in that thread so I applied RT to his post and went looking for some added meaning which might not be there. I realize that all this assumes access to the context of his remark which I didn't supply.

Setting aside the missing conjunction, the citation from Ajax has no object of the verb in the second sentence which it inherits from the first sentence. I wondering if this feature of our sample text might suggest what Smyth calls an expanded simple sentence.
923. Expansion of the Subject.—The subject may be expanded: A. By amplification: Ξενία_ς καὶ Πα_σίων ἀπέπλευσαν Xenias and Pasion sailed away. B. By qualification: 1. By an attributive adjective, ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἀνήρ the good man, an attributive substantive denoting occupation, condition , or age, ἀνὴρ στρατηγός a captain (986), an adjective pronoun or numeral: ἡμέτερος φίλος a friend of ours, δύο παῖδες two children. 2. By the genitive of a noun or substantive pronoun (adnominal or attributive genitive): στέφανος χρυ_σοῦ a crown of gold, ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν our father. 3. By a prepositional phrase: ὁδὸς κατὰ τοῦ γηλόφου a way down the hill. 4. By an adverb: οἱ νῦν ἄνθρωποι the men of the present day. 5. By an appositive (916). A substantive in any case may be qualified like the subject.

924. Expansion of the Predicate.—The predicate may be expanded: A. By amplification: οἱ λοχα_γοὶ ἀπῆλθον καὶ ἐποίουν οὕτω the captains departed and did so. B. By qualification: 1. By the oblique case of a noun, a substantive pronoun, or a numeral. This is called the object (919, 920). Thus: ὁρῶ τὸν ἄνδρα I see the man, φωνῆς ἀκούω I hear a voice, εἵπετο τῷ ἡγεμόνι he followed the guide, ἀγαπᾷ ἡμᾶς he loves us, ἐνί_κησε τὴν μάχην he won the battle (cognate accusative, 1567), ἔδωκα δέκα I gave ten. The oblique case may be followed by an adnominal genitive or a dative: ὁρῶ πολλοὺς τῶν πολι_τῶν I see many of the citizens. 2. By a preposition with its appropriate case: ἦλθον ἐπὶ τὰ_ς σκηνά_ς they went to their tents. 3. By an infinitive: ἐθέλει ἀπελθεῖν he wishes to depart. 4. By a participle: ἄρξομαι λέγων I will begin my speech. 5. By an adverb or adverbial expression: εὖ ἴστω let him know well, τῆς νυκτὸς ἦλθε he came during the night, ἀπῆλθε τριταῖος he departed on the third day (1042). On complements to the predicate, see 909.
I have reservations about applying expanded simple sentence to our sample text from Ajax. What we have are two related but distinct propositions which share the same subject and object. The object is supplied by inference in the second.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote:
Soph. Ajax 59-60
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.
I think we quite regularly have problems with what Greek rhetoricians called a περίοδος, which is not quite (if at all) what English-speakers mean by "sentence." I'm much more concerned with the layout of the opening verses of Ephesians than I am with this bit of Sophocles, which is perfectly intelligible. Its rhetoric reminds me of KJV's
Amos 5:21   I hate, I despise your feasts
μεμίσηκα ἀπῶσμαι ἑορτὰς ὑμῶν.
On the other hand, it might be said that φοιτῶντ(α) ... μανιάσιν νόσοις constitutes a subordinate clause; we'd certainly want to English it with "a man who ... " or "a man while he ... ", wouldn't we?
Carl,
I agree that this bit of Sophocles is perfectly intelligible. Your second comment raises another question. If we assume with several commentators that μανιάσιν νόσοις should be construed with φοιτῶντ(α) then I would would suggest that φοιτῶντ(α) ... μανιάσιν νόσοις functions as a setting constituent (see blue in Lloyd-Jones' translation) following the topic ἐγὼ. The fronting of ἐγὼ before the setting constituent suggests that this clause is related to the context on the basis of a switch from one participant-agent to another (Levinsohn 2000, p14), in other words Ajax was the agent in the previous sentence and now Athena.

ΑΘΗΝΑ
ἐγώ σφ᾿ ἀπείργω, δυσφόρους ἐπ᾿ ὄμμασι
γνώμας βαλοῦσα, τῆς ἀνηκέστου χαρᾶς,
καὶ πρός τε ποίμνας ἐκτρέπω σύμμεικτά τε
λείας ἄδαστα βουκόλων φρουρήματα.
ἔνθ᾿ ἐσπεσὼν ἔκειρε πολύκερων φόνον
κύκλῳ ῥαχίζων, κἀδόκει μὲν ἔσθ᾿ ὅτε
δισσοὺς Ἀτρείδας αὐτόχειρ κτείνειν ἔχων,
ὅτ᾿ ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλον ἐμπίτνων στρατηλατῶν.
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.

Athena
It was I that held him back from his irresistible delight, casting upon his eyes mistaken notions, and I diverted him against the herds and the various beasts guarded by the herdsmen and not yet distributed. Here he fell up on them and hacked the horned beasts to death, cleaving their spines all around him; and at one time he thought it was the two Atreidae whom he held and was killing with his own hand, at another that he was attacking now this chief, now that. And as the man wandered in the madness that afflicted him, I [Athena] urged him on and drove him into a cruel trap.

LCL Lloyd-Jones Harvard 1994 (highlighting added)
C. Stirling Bartholomew
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: two finite verbs in single sentence w/o subordination

Post by cwconrad »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
cwconrad wrote:
Soph. Ajax 59-60
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.
I think we quite regularly have problems with what Greek rhetoricians called a περίοδος, which is not quite (if at all) what English-speakers mean by "sentence." I'm much more concerned with the layout of the opening verses of Ephesians than I am with this bit of Sophocles, which is perfectly intelligible. Its rhetoric reminds me of KJV's
Amos 5:21   I hate, I despise your feasts
μεμίσηκα ἀπῶσμαι ἑορτὰς ὑμῶν.
On the other hand, it might be said that φοιτῶντ(α) ... μανιάσιν νόσοις constitutes a subordinate clause; we'd certainly want to English it with "a man who ... " or "a man while he ... ", wouldn't we?
Carl,
I agree that this bit of Sophocles is perfectly intelligible. Your second comment raises another question. If we assume with several commentators that μανιάσιν νόσοις should be construed with φοιτῶντ(α) then I would would suggest that φοιτῶντ(α) ... μανιάσιν νόσοις functions as a setting constituent (see blue in Lloyd-Jones' translation) following the topic ἐγὼ. The fronting of ἐγὼ before the setting constituent suggests that this clause is related to the context on the basis of a switch from one participant-agent to another (Levinsohn 2000, p14), in other words Ajax was the agent in the previous sentence and now Athena.

ΑΘΗΝΑ
ἐγώ σφ᾿ ἀπείργω, δυσφόρους ἐπ᾿ ὄμμασι
γνώμας βαλοῦσα, τῆς ἀνηκέστου χαρᾶς,
καὶ πρός τε ποίμνας ἐκτρέπω σύμμεικτά τε
λείας ἄδαστα βουκόλων φρουρήματα.
ἔνθ᾿ ἐσπεσὼν ἔκειρε πολύκερων φόνον
κύκλῳ ῥαχίζων, κἀδόκει μὲν ἔσθ᾿ ὅτε
δισσοὺς Ἀτρείδας αὐτόχειρ κτείνειν ἔχων,
ὅτ᾿ ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλον ἐμπίτνων στρατηλατῶν.
ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα μανιάσιν νόσοις
ὤτρυνον, εἰσέβαλλον εἰς ἕρκη κακά.

Athena
It was I that held him back from his irresistible delight, casting upon his eyes mistaken notions, and I diverted him against the herds and the various beasts guarded by the herdsmen and not yet distributed. Here he fell up on them and hacked the horned beasts to death, cleaving their spines all around him; and at one time he thought it was the two Atreidae whom he held and was killing with his own hand, at another that he was attacking now this chief, now that. And as the man wandered in the madness that afflicted him, I [Athena] urged him on and drove him into a cruel trap.

LCL Lloyd-Jones Harvard 1994 (highlighting added)
Clay, with some mental effort I think I've made sense of what you mean by "setting constituent" in terms of discourse analysis; I'm just not sure that it really enhances one's understanding of the sequence of thought in this text. The movement of the narrative from Athena's description of her own action with respect to the raving Ajax (ἐγώ σφ᾿ ἀπείργω) to her account of Ajax's acts (ἔνθ᾿ ἐσπεσὼν ἔκειρε) and back again to her own manipulations of him (ἐγὼ δὲ φοιτῶντ᾿ ἄνδρα ...) is clearly discernible, whatever terms we may prefer to use to describe the narrative strategy. With regard to translation strategy, however, the Sophoclean Greek of the two lines in question is converted into a subordinate clause that's linked to the two verbs of the main clause, each of which has "him" as an object linked to the "he" of "as the man wandered ... ". It is of course true that English really cannot manage the degree of ellipsis that is common in literary Greek, but I still hesitate to describe the Greek of these two iambic trimeters as "two finite verbs in a single sentence without subordination. Perhaps it is a matter of how one analyzes the text, but I think that the Greek participle φοιντῶντ(α) is sufficiently adverbial here that we can say there is some subordination after all: "I drove the man, even as he raged, into an even deeper rage."
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Post Reply

Return to “Syntax and Grammar”