Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

Practice and review question #3; there is no context for the demonstrative or pronoun. Either my translation is incorrect, or I have a question on the practice sentence:

ταῦτα ἐγράφοντο ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τοῦ νόμου, ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ ἐδύνασθε βλέπειν αὐτά.
My translation: These were being written into the book of the law, but you were (pl.) were not able to see them.

If my translation is correct, isn't it more common to see neuter plurals assume third-person sing. conjugations? Based on previous exercises and grammar notes, I would have expected:
ταῦτα ἐγράφετο ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τοῦ νόμου, ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ ἐδύνασθε βλέπειν αὐτά.

Thanks!

Yes verb in sing. would be more usual but when the neut.pl. is viewed as more as a number of individual items the verb too is plural.

OK, thanks for the clarification!
Croy has a whole paragraph on pl. neuters in 3rd person sing. It even has an index entry. You would think he could have thrown in that bit of info. Oh well--I've written it into my textbook.

(I just used Smyth for the first time the other day to find out more on partitive genitives. Found out Mastronarde basically used Smyth's words. I understood your description above very well, but for the sake of practice, I think I'll try to see if I can find this in this in Smyth. It may cut down on my questions on the forum....or, well, it may increase them.)

I'm sure it will be in Smyth. Good hunting!

Smyth 959. Anyone who aspires to go beyond the most elementary level should have a hard copy of Smyth--the version published by Harvard University Press, not the paperback knock-offs which generally print an earlier edition. The online version is very difficult to use. It is very comprehensive, almost always infallibly reliable (and I only qualify that to avoid the anger of the gods), and well laid out, and it will last a lifetime, as it has for me.

Qimmik wrote:Smyth 959. Anyone who aspires to go beyond the most elementary level should have a hard copy of Smyth--the version published by Harvard University Press

I totally agree. Would gladly exchange BDF, N. Turner, ATR, Moulton, Moule, Zerwick and at least ten others for one hard copy of Smyth. It is the go-to-first grammar.

Postscript: I decided to hold on to Guy Cooper. Nobody has offered to take him off my hands and after looking through the 250+ pages on Greek Article I decided he was worth keeping.

thank you for smyth #. i did find it myself--in future i will edit to make the post more useful for future readers.

thank you very much for pointing out the difference between Harvard UP Smyth and other editions. I know how I work--I would have gone cheap (which means not a uni press)! Before the season's out, it seems probable I'll find myself purchasing Smyth, an intermediate L-S lexicon, and perhaps a heavily annotated version of Crito or Euthyphro.
the smyth and intermediate lexicon will be meant to last.