Aristotle

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spiphany
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Aristotle

Post by spiphany »

I'm having trouble with a passage from Aristotle -- this is from the section in the Physica Book 2 where he talks about the four "be"-causes. The underlined bits are where I'm confused.

ἕνα μὲν οὖν τ?όπον αἴτιον λέγεται τὸ ?ξ οὗ γίγνεταί τι ?νυπά?χοντος, οἷον ? χαλκὸς τοῦ ἀνδ?ιάντος καὶ ? ἄ?γυ?ος τῆς φιάλης καὶ τὰ τούτων γένη

What is the participle ?νυπά?χοντος doing here? One translation I have gives: "that from which, as a constituent present in it, a thing comes to be"; that is, taking it as agreeing with οὗ. But the construction -- relative pronoun with what I guess is a participle being used as a predicate noun -- seems really odd to me for some reason.

ἔτι ὡς τὸ τέλος· τοῦτο δ’ ?στὶν τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, οἷον τοῦ πε?ιπατεῖν ἡ ὑγίεια· διὰ τί γὰ? πε?ιπατεῖ; φαμέν «ἵνα ὑγιαίνῃ», καὶ εἰπόντες οὕτως οἰόμεθα ἀποδεδωκέναι τὸ αἴτιον. καὶ ὅσα δὴ κινήσαντος ἄλλου μεταξὺ γίγνεται τοῠ τέλους, οἷον τῆς ὑγιείας ἡ ἰσχνασία ἢ ἡ κάθα?σις ἢ τὰ φά?μακα ἢ τὰ ὄ?γανα· πάντα γὰ? ταῦτα τοῦ τέλους ἕνεκά ?στιν, διαφέ?ει δὲ ἀλλήλων ὡς ὄντα τὰ μὲν ἔ?γα τὰ δ’ ὄ?γανα.

The genitives are tripping me up again. What goes with what? The translation I have isn't much help this time in construing the Greek: "The same is true of all the intermediate steps that are for the end, where something else has initiated the motion."
κινήσαντος ἄλλου I guess would be a genitive absolute, but what about τοῠ τέλους? Why is that genitive? And where does μεταξὺ fit in?
IPHIGENIE: Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS: Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE: Das ist's, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.
(Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris)

modus.irrealis
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Re: Aristotle

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spiphany
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Re: Aristotle

Post by spiphany »


IPHIGENIE: Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS: Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE: Das ist's, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.
(Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris)

modus.irrealis
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Re: Aristotle

Post by modus.irrealis »

spiphany wrote:What confused me is the word order -- it's hanging out at the end of the clause by itself, not with the word it's modifying; i.e. in predicative position (circumstantial participle, I guess). But why not put it before γίγνεται so the relationship is clear? (And so as not to mislead poor Greek students who try to construe it as something independent...)
Yeah, participles do seem to be very free compared to their English equivalents, but sometimes I just think of them as "representing" independent sentences, with only the gender and case telling you what the subject of that independent sentence is. I mean, in this case it wouldn't be strange in English, in terms of the order, to say

"that from which something comes to pass, because it is present"

which is the order of the Greek, but the Greek participle has the advantage of letting you know that the "it" refers back to the "which" rather than the "something." But I don't know if thinking of it in that way will help anyone else.
Really? Is it permitted to use a genitive that way? But I think I begin to see...since γίγνομαι, like εἰμί is a verb of being, it's really not much different than if it were a normal possessive genitive or whatever with the subject ("things of the end"), making it part of the predicate just indicates the passage into that relationship.
If you have Smyth's Grammar, you can also check out sections 1303-5, which covers this and has a bunch of examples, but the way you describe it is the way I understand it.
That's about what I had concluded, but I couldn't make sense of the English somehow. Thanks.
No problem.

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