adjective or adverb

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Bert
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adjective or adverb

Post by Bert »

words like πανῆμα? πανημέ?ιος have endings like they are adjectives but they seem to me to be adverbs. Is this just a matter of Greek versus English usage? Would the Greeks say; An all day rain, where we say; It rains all day?
How about in Iliad 1:172
οἱ δὲ πανημέ?ιοι μολπῇ θεὸν ἱλάσκοντο why the plural masculine endings? Were they appeasing the god all day long with song or are the all-day-longers appeasing the god with song?

vir litterarum
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Post by vir litterarum »

See Smyth 1042 and 1043

Bert
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Post by Bert »

Thank you. The adjective is regarded as a quality of the subject. So it is more or less: The all-day-longers were appeasing the god with song.

aso
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Post by aso »

maybe (since we're in homer) οἱ is just a pronoun, and πανημέ?ιος is a predicate adjective: "and they were gratifying the gods with song all day long" (and we don't have to say "all-day-longers"). in other words, the quality of being "all day" inheres in the people designated by οἱ, even though we're more likely to think of it inhering in the action (or maybe πανημε?ίῳ μολπῇ would sound more natural to us).

Bert
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Helma
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Bert
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Post by Bert »

Yea, that's helpfull. Thanks.

vir litterarum
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Post by vir litterarum »

Go on Google books and look up page 133 of James Hadley's Greek Grammar. There is an excellent explanation of this particular issue

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