acc. & inf.

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Lavrentivs
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acc. & inf.

Post by Lavrentivs »

Can or must Crito 43 b 10 sq. be read as acc. & inf.?

πλημμελὲς εἴη ἀγανακτεῖν τηλικοῦτον ὄντα

Qimmik
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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Qimmik »

It's acc. + inf., but not indirect speech.

It would be inappropriate (literally, "out of tune") [for me] at this age to be distressed if I have to die now.

Lavrentivs
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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Lavrentivs »

Somehow I thought εἰμί could not take acc. & inf., and that this was rather an articular infinitive w/o article, the acc. being rather the subject of the artic. inf.

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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Qimmik »


Lavrentivs
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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Lavrentivs »

Sorry if I'm being slow, but I don't see how my ex. can be a quasi-impersonal: wouldn't εἰμί have to be a transitive verb? whence the acc.? and even if it were, how do we get from that to acc. & inf.?

It doesn't seem to me to be parallel to the constructions with δεῖ: ‘to stay binds me’ works because ‘me’ is the direct object of ‘binds’.

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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Qimmik »

πλημμελὲς εἴη is similar to οὐ προσήκοι.

"I don't see how my ex. can be a quasi-impersonal: wouldn't εἰμί have to be a transitive verb" No. In the example from the Crito, the infinitive ἀγανακτεῖν is the subject of πλημμελὲς εἴη. The understood but unstated subject of ἀγανακτεῖν is accusative με, and τηλικοῦτον ὄντα agrees with με.

"Me (με) being disturbed (ἀγανακτεῖν) being at this age (τηλικοῦτον ὄντα) would be inappropriate (πλημμελὲς εἴη)."

Lavrentivs
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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Lavrentivs »

Forgive me, but I find this difficult to believe. In a quasi-impersonal the infinitive subject does not seem to me to require a further subject.

Perhaps you mean that με is the ‘logical subject’. Still, the reason it would be a quasi-impersonal, as distinct from a true impersonal, is that there is another way to understand the construction. ‘It is necessary that I go’ can be construed as ‘To go binds me’. In the latter, me is not properly the subject, but the object of a binding. But there can be no object of εἰμί.

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Re: acc. & inf.

Post by Qimmik »

"Forgive me, but I find this difficult to believe. In a quasi-impersonal the infinitive subject does not seem to me to require a further subject."

Well, don't believe it, then. But how do you explain τηλικοῦτον ὄντα? Why is τηλικοῦτον ὄντα accusative? It can't be the direct object of ἀγανακτεῖν, because ἀγανακτεῖν is intransitive.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... anakte%2Fw

If Plato had inserted a personal pronoun, it would probably have been μοι, as what Smyth calls the "dative of relation" (sec. 1496), with the impersonal expression πλημμελὲς εἴη. But the person who would be vexed is Socrates, i.e., me, the implied accusative subject of ἀγανακτεῖν. And that's why τηλικοῦτον ὄντα is accusative--because it agrees with the implied accusative subject of the infinitive ἀγανακτεῖν.

I think you're confused by Smyth's description of δεῖ as "to go binds me." This isn't δεῖ. Smyth lists other "quasi-impersonal" verbs such as πρέπει, προσήκει.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0007

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