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Pharr dissyllabic enclitic and accenting

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:08 pm
by perispomenon
Pharr states the following in paragraph 556:

?στί(ν) is written with an accent on the first syllable (ἔστι) when :
1) It comes at the beginning of a sentence or of a verse of poetry :
2) It denotes possibility or existence.
3) It is preceded by ο?κ, εἰ, καί, ὡς, μή, ἀλλ', or τοῦτ'.

But in paragraph 216 sentence 4 writes:

Χ?υσηίς οὔκ ?στι χε?είων Κλυταιμήστ?ης

And in 311, sentence 3:

Ἀγαμέμνων οὔκ ?στιν οἰνοβα?ής

This puzzles me. Am I overlooking the application of another rule? Also, that accenting of Χ?υσηίς is not what I would expect (I would have used the grave accent).

Can someone shed some light on this?

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:16 am
by Bert
I think you caught some mistakes in Pharr.
It looks like he treats ouk as an enclitic.
(Accenting is not my strong point though.

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:21 am
by jk0592
Munro (D. B. Monro, A grammar of the Homeric dialect, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1891) says that, in Paragraph 87,
“The general rule is that the accent is thrown back as far as possible; and the chief departures from this rule are found in the infinitives and Participles, which are in reality Nouns. In the forms of the Verb properly so called the following exceptions have to be noted:–
εἰμί and φημί . The 2 Sing. Imper. φα-θί is oxytone.
The disyllabic forms of the Pres. Indicative, εἰμί, ?σσί, φημί, φησί, &c., are enclictic, and, when they do not lose the accent altogether, are oxytone; but ἔστι is accented in the ordinary way when it occurs at the beginning of a sentence, or after certain words (ο?κ, καί, ὡς).?

Hoping that this is of some help to you...

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:40 am
by perispomenon


Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:17 pm
by Bert


Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:57 pm
by Bert
Well, I tried Google too. I found several instances of ο?κ ἔστι but none of οὔκ ?στι yet.

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:09 pm
by perispomenon
I used this query:

http://www.google.com/search?client=saf ... 8&oe=UTF-8

Gave me 92 hits.

The combination that follows the rule (ο?κ ἔστι) gives me 24.700 hits.

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:58 pm
by jk0592
Here is an example, that is found in Iliad Ἰλιὰς Γ, 45

εἶδος ἔπ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ο?κ ἔστι βίη φ?εσὶν ο?δέ τις ἀλκή.

It shows that the rules given by both Munro and Pharr are followed. I would conclude that the two Pharr examples are typos.

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 5:40 pm
by perispomenon
I am inclined to agree. Although, typo's? Oversights more likely.

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:03 pm
by jk0592
I think it is easy for both a printer and the author reviewing preprints, to miss accents in books such as these.
This would be compounded when combined with breathing.

I am inclined to think typo...

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:02 pm
by edonnelly
Well, either way it seems curious that, if it is an error, it could go unnoticed and uncorrected for 65 years (the same sentence appears in both the 1920 and 1985/revised editions).

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:26 pm
by perispomenon
edonnelly wrote:Well, either way it seems curious that, if it is an error, it could go unnoticed and uncorrected for 65 years (the same sentence appears in both the 1920 and 1985/revised editions).
Yup, you are right. That's why I was/am inclined to think that it was me, missing some obvious rule.

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:04 pm
by Bert
Especially considering that you had no problem googling many other instances.

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:28 pm
by jk0592
I can imagine Pharr giving his classes with his book, giving errata notices to students, and may even have challenged students to find errors.

The errors, such as those you pointed out, may not easily come to notice since they occur in exercises not related to accenting rules. The emphasis of both paragraphs is to work with -mi verbs.

I am just trying to excuse Pharr; I am sure he did his very best. When I was a student, we did have books with typos...

Maybe we should hunt for typos/errors and set up a Pharr errata for all textkit users.

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:45 am
by Arvid
edonnelly wrote:Well, either way it seems curious that, if it is an error, it could go unnoticed and uncorrected for 65 years (the same sentence appears in both the 1920 and 1985/revised editions).
All I remember about the 1985 revised edition, from thumbing through it in bookstores (a long time ago) was that its main concern seemed to be eliminating most of Pharr's historical notes, and not correcting any errors or typos. So you could say they've stood for 87 years, instead of 65. Does the statute of limitations now make them correct?

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:34 am
by edonnelly
Arvid wrote:All I remember about the 1985 revised edition, from thumbing through it in bookstores (a long time ago) was that its main concern seemed to be eliminating most of Pharr's historical notes, and not correcting any errors or typos.
You could tell by thumbing through it in a bookstore that they hadn't corrected any errors or typos?