'The book is on the table.'

[Psilord79]

Hello, everyone, first message here.

I come from a language-related community called Unilang, and one of the things members there like doing is compiling lists of translations (on different topics) in different languages. Well, one of the sentences that showed up once was the basic 'The book is on the table.' (as another member there defined it, [...] this expression is a kind of "Hello World!" for natural languages [...].). We already had the Modern Greek translation:

[size=134]το βιβλίο είναι πάνω στο τραπέζι.[/size]

But I wondered what it'd be like in Classical Greek, too, and asked for a Greek member if he'd be able to come up with something. This is what he got:

[size=134]τὸ βιβλίον ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης ἑστιν.[/size]

He himself said it should be checked, though.

Well, I myself am actually a Modern Greek student, and I know only very few points about Classical (or even Koine) grammar; however, this is a quote from my reply to him regarding the sentence, based on what I know (or think I do):

My grammar book says that, since [size=134]ἑστι[/size]([size=134]ν[/size]) (I love this concept of nu movable, hehe) is an enclitic, it'd usually get no stress indeed; however, it says that enclitics after a paroxytone retain their original stress, so that you won't have three unstressed syllables after the final stress. Based on that, I'd believe it to be [size=134]ἑστί[/size]([size=134]ν[/size]) then. However, my grammar book also adds that [size=134]ἑστί[/size]([size=134]ν[/size]), when used enclitically and when signifying existence (or possibility), becomes [size=134]ἕστι[/size]([size=134]ν[/size]). So, what do you think—[size=134]ἑστιν[/size], [size=134]ἑστίν[/size] or [size=134]ἕστιν[/size] after all?

So, could anyone please share some views on this topic (even if to suggest a totally different translation or something)?

Thank you in advance!

Oh, and in case someone wonders, the list with the translations can be found here.

[Skylax]

So, what do you think—[size=134]ἑστιν[/size], [size=134]ἑστίν[/size] or [size=134]ἕστιν[/size] after all?

It should be ἐστίν, with a soft breathing, an acute accent on the iota (as you said) and a nu movable (as you like).

[Psilord79]

It should be ἐστίν, with a soft breathing, an acute accent on the iota (as you said) and a nu movable (as you like).

Ah, sorry about the wrong breathing—I'm often mixing things up when encoding it for SPIonic.

*writes [size=134]ἐστίν[/size] 1000 times on the blackboard*

And thanks for the confirmation.

[Kopio]

If you wanted you could even leave out the ἐστίν, as it is elided quite often....that would really mess with them!!

I remember being a first year greek student and looking for a verb and not finding it......I thought, "Hey what the heck?" Of course, the down side would be that you don't have that spiffy mouvable nu, but remember, no nu-s is good nu-s! (sorry, couldn't help myself)