Middle Liddell denotation for οὕτω

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vir litterarum
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Middle Liddell denotation for οὕτω

Post by vir litterarum »

III. with an adj. or adv. so, so much, so very, καλὸς οὕτω Il.; π?υμνόθεν οὕτως so entirely, Aesch.

Why do Liddell and Scott state that this usage of οὕτω must be accompanied by an adjective or adverb when many times it is used with only a verb?

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Re: Middle Liddell denotation for οὕτω

Post by annis »


William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Re: Middle Liddell denotation for οὕτω

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vir litterarum
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Post by vir litterarum »

ο?κ ἔσθ᾽ ὅτι μᾶλλον, ὦ ἄνδ?ες Ἀθηναῖοι, π?έπει οὕτως ὡς τὸν τοιοῦτον ἄνδ?α ?ν π?υτανείῳ σιτεῖσθαι, πολύ γε μᾶλλον ἢ εἴ τις ὑμῶν ἵππῳ ἢ συνω?ίδι ἢ ζεύγει νενίκηκεν Ὀλυμπίασιν:
P.A. 36d

"there is nothing so fitting as for such a man to dine in the city hall"

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Post by IreneY »

what about μἂλλον then? where does it fit in?

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Post by vir litterarum »

Helm says "'ws' goes with 'outws' and with 'mallon' (in place of h...

Dyer calls its a colloquial combination of two idioms.

It seems to me in any case that "outws" refers to degree not to manner. "... is fitting to such a degree." Since there is neither an adjective nor an adverb in this instance, I was wondering how it conformed with Liddell's denotation.

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vir litterarum
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Post by vir litterarum »

So how would "outws" be translated in this passage?

Hypothetically, if one wanted to say "I cannot eat eggs becauseI hate them so much," would it be incorrect to use "outws" in this sentence?

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Post by vir litterarum »

So in this passage "outws" is extraneous and would not be translated because "ws" is standing for "h" and thus correlates to "mallon"?

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Post by Helma »



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Post by vir litterarum »

So how does the inclusion of "outws" affect the translation? Why would Plato use this construction as opposed to just "mallon...h"?

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Post by Helma »

vir litterarum wrote:So how does the inclusion of "outws" affect the translation? Why would Plato use this construction as opposed to just "mallon...h"?
So that's where the real work (aka, original research) starts. To answer the question, you'd have to collect all instances of this construction (by first searching for outws near ws, and then checking all those instances for the presence of comparatives) and see if they share characteristics that are *not* present in the more frequent construction - or share those characteristics to a greater extent.

Answers to such questions may or may not affect your English translation. Languages don't map one-to-one but many-to-many. Distinctions that Greek makes may not be represented in English, and vice versa.

Many, many questions that can be asked about Greek have no answers, *yet*. What you'll see in grammars is statements, like the one in KG cited above, to the effect that construction A and construction B both occur -- now, what determines their distribution?

Up to you to do your bit when you find questions that interest you!

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Post by vir litterarum »

I just want to make sure that my comprehension of Plato's work is as precise as possible since on other occasions my misinterpretation of a single particle has totally skewed my understanding of the author's intent.

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Post by Helma »

PS:
I checked Slings's commentary (De Strycker and Slings) and he cuts outws!
He thinks the distance between mallon and outws is too small, and he assumes it's an intrusive gloss.

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Post by vir litterarum »

What does he mean when he says the distance between "mallon" and "outws" is too small?

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Post by Helma »

vir litterarum wrote:What does he mean when he says the distance between "mallon" and "outws" is too small?
Nothing earth shattering:-) He regards the use of outws after mallon as contaminatio (mixing of two constructions), and apparently found no good parallels for this with mallon and outws so few words apart as they are here. You can imagine that a shift from one construction to another is more likely as a sentence gets longer.

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Post by IreneY »

Ah! Plain English :) Yes, that's how I "read" it too. An intentional or unintentional unnecessary addition. We can do away with either I think (haven't re-read the sentence lately) without any change whatsoever in the meaning.

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Post by Kasper »

Sorry to go off topic, but - what are the chances of Mr Plato simply having made an error in his writing? Is it not possible that he simply used a construction that he didn't spend hours pondering and just wrote it down 'less than perfectly', rather than us concluding that we don't yet understand the construction?
“Cum ego verbo utar,” Humpty Dumpty dixit voce contempta, “indicat illud quod optem – nec plus nec minus.”
“Est tamen rogatio” dixit Alice, “an efficere verba tot res indicare possis.”
“Rogatio est, “Humpty Dumpty responsit, “quae fiat magister – id cunctum est.”

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Post by IreneY »

You are not off topic. In fact that's what I think happened (unless he did it intentionally for reasons unknown).

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Post by vir litterarum »

He uses almost the same construction in 30b, and Dyer does call it a colloquial construction, so I would not call it an error. It is probably an idiom readily understood by his audience and used in everyday conversation though not in formal writing.

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Post by IreneY »

Well I'm not saying that Dyer is wrong but where exactly does he bases his conclusion? Does he give examples of it been used in other texts for instance (anything by Aristophanes would be a premium example)?

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Post by Helma »

IreneY wrote:You are not off topic. In fact that's what I think happened (unless he did it intentionally for reasons unknown).
All kinds of possibilities, besides the vagaries of textual transmission. But the main factor you have to be aware of is that Plato worked extremely hard to make his texts sound like casual conversation -- Analysis of particle frequency, for instance, show that he likely uses more, not fewer, than the norm. Something had to make up for the loss of intonation information:-)

You can compare it to email, and how we use smilies and (I at least) particles that I hardly use in my spoken English. Such as, 'Ah well', 'Never mind' etcetera when I am changing the subject. I don't need those as much when I'm in an actual face-to-face conversation, and I certainly don't use them in formal discursive prose either. They're an artifact of quasi-dialogue.

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