question about Greek conjunctions

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drjbh
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question about Greek conjunctions

Post by drjbh »

I am working on a figures of speech book to be used in Biblical studies and need to better understand how conjunctions work. I've read Dana and Mantey and have looked through other grammars, but have not found what I am looking for. Basically, my question is: in Greek, do the rules of grammar apply regarding words or phrases in a series as they do in English? In other words, in English, normal rules of grammar would say that we use a conjunction between the last two words in a series. For example: "Go to the store to get bread, cheese, milk, and eggs." But using the figure of speech polysyndeton, we would say "Go to the store to get bread and cheese and milk and eggs." Do the same rules of grammar regarding words in a series apply to the Greek? Is it a departure from the norm to read words in a series separated out by conjunctions? I am thinking primarily of the word kai. Thanks.

cb
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Re: question about Greek conjunctions

Post by cb »

hi, you don't do it the english way, see smyth s2878:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/phi ... Monographs

cheers, chad

Markos
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Re: question about Greek conjunctions

Post by Markos »

...in Greek, do the rules of grammar apply regarding words or phrases in a series as they do in English? In other words, in English, normal rules of grammar would say that we use a conjunction between the last two words in a series. For example: "Go to the store to get bread, cheese, milk, and eggs."
No, I don't think they do. My sense is that this

ἐλθὼν μὲν οὖν πρὸς τὴν ἀγοράν, ἀγόρασον δὴ τὸν ἄρτον, τὸν τυρόν, τὸ γάλα, καὶ τὰ ᾠά.

would not be normal Greek, and that you have something more like this

ἐλθὼν μὲν οὖν πρὸς τὴν ἀγοράν, ἀγόρασον δὴ τὸν μὲν ἄρτον, τὸν δὲ τυρόν, τὸ δὲ γάλα, τὰ δὲ ᾠά.

or this

ἐλθὼν μὲν οὖν πρὸς τὴν ἀγοράν, ἀγόρασον δὴ καὶ τὸν ἄρτον καὶ τὸν τυρὸν καὶ τὸ γάλα καὶ τὰ ᾠά.

There are, of course, many other ways to say this in Greek.

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