Another reading extract

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Bert
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Another reading extract

Post by Bert »

οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἔχουσιν ἕκαστος δύο ὀφθαλμώ, καὶ δέκα δακτύλους, ἔχουσι δὲ φωνὴν καὶ ακοήν καὶ νοῦν.
Initially I read this line fairly comfortably, but I was puzzled by the number of ἕκαστος.
I translated it as follows; The men have two eyes each, and ten fingers, and they have a voice and hearing and a mind.
In this translation, 'each' belongs to 'men', so it should agree with it in number, but it doesn't.
where did I go wrong?
Ps. Shouldn't the accent on ἀκοήν be a grave?

annis
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Re: Another reading extract

Post by annis »

Bert wrote:Initially I read this line fairly comfortably, but I was puzzled by the number of ἕκαστος.
I translated it as follows; The men have two eyes each, and ten fingers, and they have a voice and hearing and a mind.
In this translation, 'each' belongs to 'men', so it should agree with it in number, but it doesn't.
This is a quirk of ἕκαστος, that it may agree with a plural subject - well, "agree" isn't quite the right word, but it may occur in apposition to a plural subject, and will not usually change the number of the verb. [Smyth sec. 952]
Ps. Shouldn't the accent on ἀκοήν be a grave?
Yep.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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