LSJ punctuation blues

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
Post Reply
User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

I know I asked this before and got a very muted response, but I don't understand what the difference is between a colon, semi-colon, and a (em)dash is in LSJ. For example, in the following definition we get what I believe are two perfects, one indicative, the other subjunctive, but they are separated by a semi-colon. Why is that? Can anybody explain how we are to understand these punctuation marks? There are really four because there is also the combo colon-dash. Argh.


κλάζω, fut.
A. “κλάγξω” A.Pers.948 (lyr.): aor.1 “ἔκλαγξα” Il.1.46, A. Ag.201 (lyr.): aor.2 “ἔκλα^γον” h.Pan.14, B.16.127, Theoc.17.71, etc.: pf. “κέκλαγγα” X.Cyn.3.9, 6.23; subj. “κεκλάγγω” Ar.V.929; Dor. “κέκλα_γα” Alcm.7; part. κεκληγώς, pl. “κεκλήγοντες” Il.17.756, -ῶτες v.l.ib. 16.430, “κεκλαγώς” Plu.Tim.26:—Pass., fut.“κεκλάγξομαι” Ar.V.930:— make a sharp piercing sound:
1. of birds, scream, οὐκ ἴδον . . , ἀλλὰ κλάγξαντος (sc. ἐρῳδιοῦ)“ ἄκουσαν” Il.10.276; of starlings and daws, “οὖλον κεκλήγοντες” 17.756, etc.; “γεράνου φωνὴν ἐνιαύσια κεκληγυίης” Hes.Op.449; of the eagle, Il.12.207, S.Ant.112 (lyr.), cf. OT 966, etc.
2. of dogs, bark, bay, “οἱ μὲν κεκλήγοντες ἐπέδραμον” Od. 14.30, cf. Ar.V.929, X.ll.cc., etc.
3. of things, as of arrows in the quiver, clash, rattle, “ἔκλαγξαν δ ἄρ᾽ ὀϊστοί” Il.1.46; of the wind, whistle, “αἶψα γὰρ ἦλθε κεκληγὼς Ζέφυρος” Od.12.408; of wheels, creak, A. Th.205 (lyr.): c.acc. cogn., κλάζουσι κώδωνες φόβον ring forth terror, ib.386; τί νέον ἔκλαγε σάλπιγξ . . ἀοιδάν; B.17.3; of the sea, roar, “ἔκλαγεν δὲ πόντος” Id.16.127; of the musician, “κιθάρᾳ κλάζεις παιᾶνας μέλπων” E.Ion905 (lyr.); of Pan on his pipes, h.Pan.14; κλάζεις μέλισμα λύρας (of the τέττιξ) AP7.196 (Mel.).
4. of men, shout, scream, “ὀξέα κεκληγώς” Il.2.222, 17.88: c. acc. cogn., shout aloud, ring forth, “κλάζοντες Ἄρη” A.Ag.48 (anap.); “γόον” Id.Pers.948 (lyr.); Ζεὺς ἔκλαγξε βροντάν pealed forth thunder, Pi.P.4.23; also “ἔκλαγξε κέαρ ὀλοαῖσι στοναχαῖς” Id.Pae.8.20.
5. less freq. of articulate sound, ἄλλο μῆχαρ . . μάντις ἔκλαγξεν shrieked forth another remedy, A.Ag.201 (lyr.); Ζῆνα . . ἐπινίκια κλάζων sounding loudly the song of victory in honour of Z., ib.174 (lyr.).

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

I won't say that I have a definitive answer, but I am willing to take a stab at one. First, I assume that your sample entry comes from the Perseus site. I went back to my paper copy of the Great Scott LSJ and discovered that the initial "A." is not part of the text. That is, the initial section reads as follows in the actual book:

κλάζω, fut. κλάγξω A.Pers.948 (lyr.): aor.1 ἔκλαγξα Il.1.46, A. Ag.201 (lyr.): aor.2 ἔκλᾰγον h.Pan.14, B.16.127, Theoc.17.71, etc.: pf. κέκλαγγα X.Cyn.3.9, 6.23; subj. κεκλάγγω Ar.V.929; Dor. κέκλᾱγα Alcm.7; part. κεκληγώς, pl. κεκλήγοντες Il.17.756, -ῶτες v.l.ib. 16.430, κεκλαγώς Plu.Tim.26:—Pass., fut. κεκλάγξομαι Ar.V.930:— make a sharp piercing sound:

(Compared to the Perseus version, there are no quote marks around the Greek forms, and I used a macron or breve over affected vowels instead of the marks used in the Perseus adaptation.)

Interestingly enough, if I choose the Middle Liddell entry, the Perseus version does not retain the list of attested forms. The first part of the entry in my paper copy of the Middle Liddell reads as follows:

ΚΛΑ´ΖΩ, f. κλάγξω: aor. 1 ἔκλαγξα: aor. 2 ἔκλᾰγον: pf. κέκλαγγα, subj. κεκλάγγω, Ep. part. κεκληγώς, pl. κεκληγῶτες:—Pass., f. κεκλάγξομαι:— make a sharp piercing sound, of birds, to scream, screech ....

(The lemmata is capitalized to indicate a root or primitive form, according to the introduction. The punctuation marks are similar, but not precisely identical.)

So, as a guess about the punctuation marks, I suggest that the colon separates forms derived from different tense stems, the semi-colon separates forms within a colon-separated block, and the colon-dash separates forms in the various voices for verb entries (:—Med. or :—Pass. being the variants.). Within each block, a comma separates the citations of the extant forms, which are meant to be in chronological order.

I also see :—Dim. (diminutive) in some substantive entries (although Dim. also occurs, without the punctuation.)

The introductory material in the books does not explain any of these markings, and there do seem to be occasional variations about when a colon is used, as opposed to a semi-colon, but on the whole, I think my observations are at least a step in the right direction.
For example, in the following definition we get what I believe are two perfects, one indicative, the other subjunctive, but they are separated by a semi-colon. Why is that?
If my hunches are correct, the colon isolates forms based on the perfect stem, so you are correct that both entries are perfects. The semi-colon merely separates different forms derived from that stem so mood is a key variable that results in a different set of entries within the colon-separated block. Had there been several citations for each form, they would have been separated by a comma within the semi-colon separated block. I don't believe that there is any additional significance to the punctuation marks other than to divide an article up into a hierarchy of sections, each organized according to voice and tense stem (at least for verb entries.)

All other thoughts and comments welcome.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

Very good. Very promising. OK, let me follow up. What is going on with Pass. here? I am not sure how there can be Pass. since the verb seems pretty intransitive. I looked at the Aristophanes. Actually there are two mp instances of the verb in the same sentence.

ἵνα μὴ κεκλάγγω διὰ κενῆς ἄλλως ἐγώ: 930ἐὰν δὲ μή, τὸ λοιπὸν οὐ κεκλάγξομαι.

Let me not have barked in vain, [930] else I shall never bark again.

So what is passive about this?

And a separate question: The example from Aristophanes is a perfect. So is it just a coincidence that this Pass. form is perfect? We just got talking about active perfect forms, then had a colon-dash break and now we are still talking about perfects. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel sometimes like semi-colons have priority over colons. And furthermore, what about all the other possible Pass. forms? Aren't there any presents or aorists? Why do we jump straight to perfects? Are the other forms not to be found? And why do the call the example from Aristophanes fut., when it is future perfect, and as such, from a stem point of view, more of a perfect than a future?

You are on a roll! Don't let me down. :)

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

pster wrote:Very good. Very promising. OK, let me follow up. What is going on with Pass. here? I am not sure how there can be Pass. since the verb seems pretty intransitive. I looked at the Aristophanes. Actually there are two mp instances of the verb in the same sentence.

ἵνα μὴ κεκλάγγω διὰ κενῆς ἄλλως ἐγώ: 930ἐὰν δὲ μή, τὸ λοιπὸν οὐ κεκλάγξομαι.

Let me not have barked in vain, [930] else I shall never bark again.

So what is passive about this?
Being rather aggressive about this passive aren't we? :lol: Those wasps definitely have a sharp sting!

Since I am already out on a limb, I might as well crawl a bit further along towards the end. I will advance the conjecture that we have here an instance where form and function don't align in the usual way. There are many verbs which have forms that appear middle/passive but which have active semantics. This is the very definition of verbs called “deponent” (from the Latin for putting aside.) There are also a great number of verbs in which the present and aorist stems are active in form but the future is middle/passive in form. And then there are perfects which, in effect, have a present meaning. (At least, that is how they are defined for us but I wonder, how would a native speaker have interpreted such things?) A very common example is οἶδα, perfect of εἴδω (or εἴδομαι). Note that the reduplicated syllable originally contained a digamma - ϜεϜοιδα. In such a case, the future perfect essentially has ordinary future semantics.

There are also verbs in which middle/passive forms exist side-by-side with active forms, but they both have active meanings. Sometimes the perfect form behaves like an intensified version of the present. Sometimes the lexica help us out by specifying these things. sometimes they don't. I'm going to say this this is a case of “sometimes they don't”. :wink: I mean, given that a perfect ordinarily indicates a completed action with a state that continues into the present, how can that apply to the basic sense of “make a sharp piercing sound” ? If the making of the sound has been completed, there is nothing to continue into the present. So, the perfect would seem to have to mean the the sound is still being made, and hence has a meaning quite similar to the ordinary present tense forms.

I'm sure that I am not telling you anything that you don't already know, but I am saying that sometimes the lexicon of Messrs. Liddell, Scott and Jones doesn't offer up the full truth.

And a separate question: The example from Aristophanes is a perfect. So is it just a coincidence that this Pass. form is perfect? We just got talking about active perfect forms, then had a colon-dash break and now we are still talking about perfects. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel sometimes like semi-colons have priority over colons. And furthermore, what about all the other possible Pass. forms? Aren't there any presents or aorists? Why do we jump straight to perfects? Are the other forms not to be found? And why do they call the example from Aristophanes fut., when it is future perfect, and as such, from a stem point of view, more of a perfect than a future?
I will say that yes, it is just a coincidence. This lexicon generally limits its citations to extant forms so if the text corpus they used did not contain other forms they would not list them in the article for a given word. It also seems that the various authors worked backwards from the attested forms to derive the meaning from the context, rather than the other way round. Of course, they were constrained to use the linguistic models current during the time that the lexicon was being compiled.

Have you looked at The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek (third edition, 2002) by Albert Rijksbaron? (The author is Dutch, but the book is in English.) It is based on Functional Grammar, a more modern framework than that used by the classical grammarians. It has some interesting observations about the sort of things you bring up. It is also relatively short (about 200 pages) and not too costly. Another recent work I can recommend is Le Verb Grec Ancien Éléments de morphologie et de syntaxe historiques by Yves Duhoux (2nd edition, 2000, Peeters, Louvain-la-neuve) which looks at all of the information conveyed by a given verb form and has some nice graphs showing how they are distributed across the various forms. It is in French, so you will need at least a reading knowledge of that language in order to grapple with it.
You are on a roll! Don't let me down. :)
I leave it to you to determine how well I did (or didn't do) :)

Cheers.

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

The Textkit site was being difficult about posting, so I ended up with two copies of my post. I have modified the second copy to be this brief apology for double posting. Sorry about that!

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

Very good. Very promising. This is very exciting! OK, just a few more questions.

1) Why is it Pass. and not Med.?

2) I am looking at the entry for καταβοάω.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... w0#lexicon
How are we to understand the missing numbers and letters in the outline? Is it just their convention that A. is understood to stand for A. I. 1.? The first element of a subsection doesn't need to be separated from the supersection? I guess that is it.

3) Also, they use question marks, dashes, and circumflexes in the actual headwords. What do they mean?
E.g., προσα^γωγ-ός
I don't have a question mark one handy, but there are plenty of them.

I am going through verbs now and checking your hypothesis for consistency. ;)

Thanks a lot for the insight.

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

pster wrote:Very good. Very promising. This is very exciting! OK, just a few more questions.

1) Why is it Pass. and not Med.?
I assume you are referring to κεκλάγξομαι? Personally, if I had been compiling the lexicon I would have been wary of documenting a passive form unless I had seen at least one instance where there was an agent construct (ὑπό + gen.). And, I would be very suspicious of declaring a passive of an intransitive verb. I'm going to reiterate my idea that here we have a perfect with present meaning, and so the future perfect form carries an ordinary future sense. Further, like so many verbs related to the senses, perception, etc. the future has a middle/passive form but active meaning.

Here is an interesting passage from A Companion to Homer, edited by Wace and Stubbings, 1962. Chapter 4, The Language of Homer is by L. R. Palmer and is nearly 100 pages long. At the bottom of page 145 he writes:
L. R. Palmer wrote:There remains to be mentioned one peculiarity of the Homeric language—the tendency of verbs expressing perception to take on the middle form, e.g., ὁρῶμαι, ἀκούομαι. Such a usage underlines the interest of the subject in the action, and it may be related with a still more widespread phenomenon of the Greek verbal system—the tendency for the future tenses to appear in the middle voice. This is doubtless due to the fact that future formation have developed from expressions of will and wish, where it was natural for the interest of the subject to be stressed.
He also mentions that there were a number of instances of reduplicated futures, which were independent of the reduplicated aorists and perfects. (p. 123) Now, it's quite a jump from Homer to Aristophanes but I bet that some of these old tendencies were very much still in use at the later date.

So why did LSJ identify the form as passive? (Note that it doesn't use the special future perfect passive endings which probably accounts for its identification as future, rather than future perfect.) The truth is, I'm not really sure. The cited passage is obviously an active usage, or perhaps a middle with a reflexive sense. This might just have been their conventional way of labeling such forms. I guess that I'll have to compare this article with enough other verb articles to see if a stable pattern emerges.
pster wrote:2) I am looking at the entry for καταβοάω.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... w0#lexicon
How are we to understand the missing numbers and letters in the outline? Is it just their convention that A. is understood to stand for A. I. 1.? The first element of a subsection doesn't need to be separated from the supersection? I guess that is it.
When I look at the paper edition, there is no initial A. in any of the entries. That is an artifact of the Perseus project's digital conversion of the book. Also, half the article after the 2. is missing. (I tried viewing it with two different browsers and with various settings, but it always ended with "2. Pass., to be loudly entreated, Nic.Dam.4J.". There are several more citations and a II. and III. section missing.

Since none of the articles has an initial 1. or I. (or even A.) it seems likely that such labels were omitted as being superfluous. Obviously, every article has to begin with a 1. or I. and since many articles don't require additional subsections, they simply omitted them all. Your conjecture seems spot on. As for the precise distinction between a 2. or II., for example, I can't always tell. Sometimes they are trying to show sense variations, sometimes they are trying to show variations of syntax (verbs accompanied by different cases for the objects, or prepositional phrases, or infinitives, or participles, etc.) Sometimes they are trying to show variant meanings associated with the various voices and/or moods. In short, it would have been a great help if they had included a definition of the structure of their articles.
pster wrote:3) Also, they use question marks, dashes, and circumflexes in the actual headwords. What do they mean?
E.g., προσα^γωγ-ός
I don't have a question mark one handy, but there are plenty of them.
In the paper version, that is not a full headword at all but is buried in a dense thicket of citations and varying senses under προσᾰγωγ-εῖον, which is a carpenter's square!.

The circumflex is Perseus's way of representing a breve (the upward curving arc indicating a short vowel), as you can see in the way I entered the headword. Not all fonts include the breve, especially not precombined with Greek letters. The same thing happens with the macron (the straight line indicating a long vowel) so Perseus uses an underscore to indicate one. (e.g., Dor. κέκλα_γα from the κλάζω article). I believe the dashes in the headword, as in your example, show where the word can be divided for the purposes of morphological formations. So, in the paper version, there is a wide gap followed by -ός, όν, attractive, persuasive,. The bold type indicates a headword which the reader is obviously meant to construct from the main headword up to the dash followed by the indicated ending. The folks at Perseus opted to unroll this form of compression and create a separate headword. I don't recall seeing a question mark in an entry (and the paper version certainly doesn't have any) but when you come across one, post it here where we can puzzle through it together.

Up through about Unicode 4.0 (I think) there were no glyphs defined that had a breve or macron combined with an accent or breathing mark. If you look at Mastronarde's book, he was forced to show the length of such vowels by writing it with just the breve or macron in square brackets after the word in the vocabulary lists. Just to pick one at random, Unit sixteen has "κωλύω [ῠ] hinder, prevent (+ acc. + inf.)". Mastronarde was part of the group working on defining the Greek symbol part of the Unicode standard and getting fonts created with the necessary glyphs.

pster wrote:I am going through verbs now and checking your hypothesis for consistency. ;)

Thanks a lot for the insight.
You're most welcome. But, oh boy, my goose is cooked now! FWIW, I have struggled myself with these same questions and have generally come to have a love-hate relationship with LSJ. One has to take note of the fact that it was begin in the 1840s but based on older work, went through more than one period of dormancy, had about four principal editors and several assistants, collected all those citations on paper slips, in a manner similar to the OED, and in the end, the last principal editor still did not live to see its completion very nearly one hundred years after it was begun. (This is all in the preface in the paper edition.)

Personally, I would love to know more about how they went about working out the meanings. Cognates are not always reliable and usually don't offer much help with nuances. There are some glossaries written in antiquity, and the various works of the ancient grammarians, but I'll bet that a lot of the senses are carefully guessed at based on context and they choose an English word that 'works' in a translation of a given passage. I see the same thing in Cunliffe's Homeric lexicon. Maybe I should start a new thread on this topic. It's not really restricted to producing a bilingual lexicon or dictionary of Ancient Greek, but applies to just about any form of lexicography. I starting looking for any good books on the subject but haven't really seen anything that I like so far.

Well, enough blathering for now.

Cheers.
Last edited by Polyidos on Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

Here are a couple with a question mark:

ναυβα?́τ-ης , ου, ὁ, (βαίνω)
A. seafarer, seaman, Hdt.1.143, A.Pers.1011 (lyr.), S.Ph.301, 540, Th.1.121, Rev.Bibl.14.290 (Megiste), etc.
II. as Adj., “ν. στρατός” A.Ag.987 (lyr.); ὁπλισμοί ib.405 (lyr.); “ν. στόλος” S.Ph.270; “ν. λεώς” E.IA294 (lyr.); ν. ἀνήρ collective for ναυβάται, A.Pers.375.

αἰχμα?́λ-ωτος , ον,
A. taken by the spear, captive, prisoner, Pi.Fr.223, Hdt.6.79, 134; freq. of women, A.Ag.1440, S.Tr.417:— αἰχμάλωτοι prisoners of war, And.4.22, Th.3.70; αἰ. λαμβάνειν, ἄγειν take prisoner, X.Cyr.3.1.37, 4.4.1; αἰ. γίγνεσθαι to be taken, ib.3.1.7; of things, “αἰ. χρήματα” A.Eu.400, cf. Ag.334, D.19.139; “νῆες” X.HG 2.3.8, IG2.789; τὰ αἰ. booty, X.HG4.1.26, An.4.1.13; αἰχμάλωτον, τό, = ἀνδράποδον, D.S.13.57.
II. = αἰχμαλωτικός, δουλοσύνη αἰ. such as awaits a captive, Hdt.9.76; “εὐνά” A.Th.364 (lyr.); “τύχη” D.S.27.6, Lib.Or.59.157.
III. αἰχμάλωτος, ὁ, name of plasters, Aët. 15.20.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s-contents

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon

NateD26
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:14 am
Contact:

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by NateD26 »

pster wrote:Here are a couple with a question mark:

ναυβα?́τ-ης , ου, ὁ, (βαίνω)
A. seafarer, seaman, Hdt.1.143, A.Pers.1011 (lyr.), S.Ph.301, 540, Th.1.121, Rev.Bibl.14.290 (Megiste), etc.
II. as Adj., “ν. στρατός” A.Ag.987 (lyr.); ὁπλισμοί ib.405 (lyr.); “ν. στόλος” S.Ph.270; “ν. λεώς” E.IA294 (lyr.); ν. ἀνήρ collective for ναυβάται, A.Pers.375.

αἰχμα?́λ-ωτος , ον,
A. taken by the spear, captive, prisoner, Pi.Fr.223, Hdt.6.79, 134; freq. of women, A.Ag.1440, S.Tr.417:— αἰχμάλωτοι prisoners of war, And.4.22, Th.3.70; αἰ. λαμβάνειν, ἄγειν take prisoner, X.Cyr.3.1.37, 4.4.1; αἰ. γίγνεσθαι to be taken, ib.3.1.7; of things, “αἰ. χρήματα” A.Eu.400, cf. Ag.334, D.19.139; “νῆες” X.HG 2.3.8, IG2.789; τὰ αἰ. booty, X.HG4.1.26, An.4.1.13; αἰχμάλωτον, τό, = ἀνδράποδον, D.S.13.57.
II. = αἰχμαλωτικός, δουλοσύνη αἰ. such as awaits a captive, Hdt.9.76; “εὐνά” A.Th.364 (lyr.); “τύχη” D.S.27.6, Lib.Or.59.157.
III. αἰχμάλωτος, ὁ, name of plasters, Aët. 15.20.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... s-contents

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon
The ? here is a jumble of acute accent with a short vowel mark (possibly the fault of
poor OCR rendering as well as wrong choice for default fonts in the site's code).
Using Diogenes you get ναυβᾰ/τ-ης, αἰχμᾰ/λ-ωτος, etc.
Nate.

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

In the paper version of LSJ, both of these are once again subheadwords, if I may use that term. The headword for the first is ναυβᾰτ-έω with again the abbreviated subheadword given as -ης, ου, ὁ, (βαίνω) seafarer, seaman ... .

Once again, the Perseus project's editorial decision to unroll this compressed form of entry necessitated combining a breve and acute accent over a vowel. Such a character was not part of the initial Unicode standards for the Greek language area of the code point mapping (since actual Greek writing does not ever use the macron or breve, those generally only used in student texts, dictionaries, lexica, or other works needing to show vowel quantity.)

In a way, the Perseus entry does fulfill a useful function since it shows the location of the accent in the subheadword, which is otherwise not given in LSJ. But, it is only recently that the Unicode standard has caught up to such needs in digital texts and added the extra glyphs.

Mastronarde worked on porting several fonts to Unicode which had previously been supplied with the non-Unicode version of the GreekKeys program. Those fonts are New Athena Unicode, AttikaU, KadmosU and BosporosU. Up until a couple of years ago, he made the beta versions of all of them freely available over the web. Currently, only New Athena Unicode is freely available. The others are distributed as part of the Unicode version of GreekKeys. I do still have the beta version of the fonts. In them, vowels with both breve or macron and accents + breathings were added in the private use portion of the Unicode code point space. (For example, lowercase alpha + breve + acute is code point U+EB0A in the BosporosU font.) If anybody is interested in the Unicode version of the GreekKeys program, its web site is http://apagreekkeys.org/. Note that it is commercial software. The current price list for the 2008 version of the program says it is USD $40 for an individual license. (Full disclosure: I have no connection with this program nor with the American Philological Association nor do I own the program at this time.)

Using that encoding, your headword would appear as: Image. (I've used an image of the word since the default font for the Textkit site can't show these extra glyphs.)

Your other word is similar. The main headword is αἰχμᾰλ-ωσία, ἡ, captivity. The subheadword is then given as -ωτος, ον, taken by the spear, captive, prisoner ... . Again, the Perseus version helps out because it shows the location of the accent whereas the paper version does not. One would need to look up one of the citations if one did not know the appropriate accent rule for this class of words.

Again, here is an image of how this headword would look: Image.

So, Nate is absolutely correct that the question mark is another one of the artifacts of the Perseus digital conversion project although it could not be an OCR error since the paper version does not include the word nor does the the primary headword include a breve and acute over a vowel. Again, it is only in the last few years that the Unicode standard includes these special glyphs and that fonts with Unicode encodings for these glyphs have become available (at least in the TrueType or OpenType font formats.) There might be such glyphs in other font formats, such as those associated with the original versions of Tex and LaTeX. I haven't done any Greek typesetting with either program so I can't be more precise.

Finally, Nate's listing of the output from Diogenes shows that they too did not have fully adequate fonts to show the combined breve and acute. Instead, they used the vowel with breve and appended the betacode character used to indicate an acute accent. An admirable solution given the situation at the time they converted the Perseus project's electronic LSJ text to the format used within the Diogenes project.

Now, if somebody would come up with a way to encode the LSJ so that it can be directly imported into our brains, thereby bypassing all of this silly computer nonsense, then we could all get back to actually spending our time learning and enjoying these ancient texts without being tripped up by such mere artificialities! :lol:

Cheers.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

What about quotation marks? About half of the Greek phrases here get them:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... suna%2Fgw0

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

pster wrote:What about quotation marks? About half of the Greek phrases here get them:
If I look up that article in the paper version of the LSJ there are no quote marks at all. Also, the Perseus version of the article often abbreviates the headword as ς. whereas the paper version uses σ. which is clearly the expected form since the sigma is not in word-final position (unless you are in the camp that prefers the use of the lunate sigma throughout.)

I'm going to say that the quote marks were the intended means of setting off the Greek text in the Perseus version and that those without quotes have somehow been the victim of an incorrect transformation of the original data entry procedure. I cannot find any distinguishing characteristics of the citations themselves and in all instances each Greek word is a hyperlink to the full LSJ article (except for the abbreviation which, unfortunately, leads to the words εἰς, σός, and σύ which can be elided to either ᾽ς or σ᾽.

I sort of alluded to this back in my first reply on this thread but did not elaborate it at that time.

I do find that having an electronic version of the LSJ is a great time saver compared to flipping through all those pages, especially treating all Greek words as links, but these various inconsistencies and artifacts of the conversion process really ought to be documented somewhere on the Perseus site or, better yet, cleaned up a bit.

Cheers.
Last edited by Polyidos on Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

(Answered my own question!)

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Understanding Loose Quoting

Post by pster »

What are LSJ assuming we know when they expect us to understand their loose quoting of, e.g., Thucydides?

ἀντεπι-τίθημι,
A. put on in exchange, D.C.58.7(Pass.).
2. ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα give a letter in answer, Th.1.129, Is.Fr.49, cf. J.AJ17.5.1.
II. Med., make a counter-attack, throw oneself upon, D.S.36.4, Ph.1.661; simply, attack, 2.111:—Act. in same sense, ἀλλήλοισιν make mutual plots, Hp.Ep.17.

So they loose quote Thucydides by: ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα

But Thucydides actually says: παρὰ Παυσανίαν ἐς Βυζάντιον ἐπιστολὴν ἀντεπετίθει

So they are manhandling these prepositions. Why do they think this is permissible? Why do they think it is a good thing?

Thanks for pondering.
Last edited by pster on Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

NateD26
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:14 am
Contact:

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by NateD26 »

pster wrote:What are LSJ assuming we know when they expect us to understand their loose quoting of, e.g., Thucydides?

ἀντεπι-τίθημι,
A. put on in exchange, D.C.58.7(Pass.).
2. ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα give a letter in answer, Th.1.129, Is.Fr.49, cf. J.AJ17.5.1.
II. Med., make a counter-attack, throw oneself upon, D.S.36.4, Ph.1.661; simply, attack, 2.111:—Act. in same sense, ἀλλήλοισιν make mutual plots, Hp.Ep.17.

So they say loose quote Thucydides by: ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα

But Thucydides actually says: παρὰ Παυσανίαν ἐς Βυζάντιον ἐπιστολὴν ἀντεπετίθει

So they are manhandling these prepositions. Why do they think this is permissible? Why do they think it is a good thing?

Thanks for pondering.
I think the sense is similar, only more formal.

Charles D. Morris
παρά is used of the official address of Pausanias.
Smyth 1692 3. a.
a. Local: of motion to, in prose only of persons: ἧκε παρ' ἐμέ come to me X. C. 4.5.25;
Nate.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

Thanks Nate, for the Morris reference especially.

So, just to get clear on this, your position is that the permissibility and desirability of exchanging prepositions is that παρά is a rare and exceptional usage, but as lexicographers they should illustrate the more common usage of πρός?

Possible, but I still don't understand how their minds work.

And so you see if you say yes to my characterization of your position, then my follow up question would be, if πρός is the more common usage, why don't they give a πρός example?

So then you might reply πρός is usually used with verbs of sending.

Or perhaps you might reply, a range of different constructions is used with verbs of sending, or in Greek genearlly, but πρός brings out the semantics most clearly?

Or perhaps Thucydides is such a central author that examples from him are preferable?

I don't know.

So Morris explains Thucydides fine, but not LSJ not so much.

I have never seen a dictionary where they just switch out prepositions. Have you? That calls for a justification.

NateD26
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:14 am
Contact:

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by NateD26 »

pster wrote:Thanks Nate, for the Morris reference especially.

So, just to get clear on this, your position is that the permissibility and desirability of exchanging prepositions is that παρά is a rare and exceptional usage, but as lexicographers they should illustrate the more common usage of πρός?

Possible, but I still don't understand how their minds work.

And so you see if you say yes to my characterization of your position, then my follow up question would be, if πρός is the more common usage, why don't they give a πρός example?

So then you might reply πρός is usually used with verbs of sending.

Or perhaps you might reply, a range of different constructions is used with verbs of sending, or in Greek genearlly, but πρός brings out the semantics most clearly?

Or perhaps Thucydides is such a central author that examples from him are preferable?

I don't know.

So Morris explains Thucydides fine, but not LSJ not so much.

I have never seen a dictionary where they just switch out prepositions. Have you? That calls for a justification.
Your retorts are all valid, none of which, unfortunately, had crossed my mind.

I completely agree with you that changing a preposition in a quoted line is
not at all a common practice of lexica writers.

And searching for all occurrences of this verb in its various forms has revealed that it
has never appeared with πρός, at least not on my TLG database.

I don't understand the abbreviated references LSJ writes, as well as how many times
this verb was used in this sense.

Is.Fr.49 : on my end directs to Isocrates' 13th oration, Against the Sophists, which only
goes up to section 22. The more obvious abbreviation, fragment 49, also is not possible
since the TLG doesn't have more than 41 fragments.

J.AJ17.5.1 : no idea what this is. TLG redirects me somewhere but I don't know the author
and book title because Diogenes never displays these details, only book, section, and line number.

Both of these links didn't have this verb.
Nate.

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

NateD26 wrote: I completely agree with you that changing a preposition in a quoted line is
not at all a common practice of lexica writers.
Since LSJ does go to great lengths to identify their citations, and thus any interested party can verify and check the citations, I don't think they would alter quotations at all. I think it is much more likely that the Greek text in sense 2, ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα is simply giving a general form of usage for that sense, not specifically quoting Thucydides. I'm sure you have noted that it is very common in LSJ to use τινος, τινι, τινα as generic placeholders for a word in gen., dat., or acc. case respectively to indicate case forms in a particular construction. The fact that the first citation to Thucydides does not precisely follow the given usage template (but does demonstrate the sense) is, I believe, just another indication of style variations across Greek authors or of alternative forms of idioms over time.
NateD26 wrote: I don't understand the abbreviated references LSJ writes, as well as how many times
this verb was used in this sense.
The paper edition of LSJ has an extensive list of cited authors and their abbreviations, including titles of their works and editions consulted. The following is derived from that information.

J.AJ17.5.1 - "J." = (Flavius) Josephus, "AJ17.5.1" = Antiquitates Judaicae, book 17, chapter 5, section 1:

Ἡρώδης δὲ Ἀντιπάτρου γεγραφότος πρὸς αὐτόν, ὡς τὰ πάντα ᾗ χρῆν διαπεπραγμένος ἥξοι ἐν τάχει, ἐπικρυψάμενος τὴν ὀργὴν ἀντεπετίθει, ...

Is.Fr.49 - "Is." = Isaeus, "Fr.49" = fragment 49. LSJ used the edition by Theodor Thalheim, Leipzig, 1903, part of the Teubner series: Isaei Orationes cum deperditarum fragmentis

I am still trying to locate fragment 49 in the book. Naturally, all the editorial context is in Latin, and there doesn't seem to be a table of contents, so I have not yet been able to find the cited passage.

(The Wikipedia article on Isaeus gives a link to an English edition and commentary by William Wyse, published in 1904, but in his preface he states that the text was printed during the summer of 1903, before Thalheim's edition became available. It seems to contain just the extant full speeches, followed by almost 550 pages of commentary.)

Cheers.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

Polyidos wrote:I think it is much more likely that the Greek text in sense 2, ἀ. ἐπιστολὴν πρός τινα is simply giving a general form of usage for that sense, not specifically quoting Thucydides. I'm sure you have noted that it is very common in LSJ to use τινος, τινι, τινα as generic placeholders for a word in gen., dat., or acc. case respectively to indicate case forms in a particular construction. The fact that the first citation to Thucydides does not precisely follow the given usage template (but does demonstrate the sense) is, I believe, just another indication of style variations across Greek authors or of alternative forms of idioms over time.
I referred to a "general form of usage" when I asked:

"So then you might reply πρός is usually used with verbs of sending.

"Or perhaps you might reply, a range of different constructions is used with verbs of sending, or in Greek generally, but πρός brings out the semantics most clearly?"

But, I really have to press you here because this needs to be specified. To wit, to which general form of usage exactly are you referring?

In a τινος, τινι, τινα type example, the generalization is clear. Replace the indefinite pronoun by the corresponding noun or noun phrase and put it in the case indicated. Readers of LSJ understand the generalizing nature of pronouns (indefinite ones to boot!).

But, what is the general rule of usage that is in play in the Thucydides citation example? As readers we should be able to determine what it is because LSJ expect it of us. But I can't. And so I don't know what they expect of me. And that is why I got the LSJ blues.

(I skillfully avoided taking up your conception of sense because there are many conceptions of sense on the market, from home made to hi-tech, and I wasn't sure which one you might be using.)

Polyidos
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:43 pm
Location: Roswell, GA

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by Polyidos »

pster wrote: I referred to a "general form of usage" when I asked:

"So then you might reply πρός is usually used with verbs of sending.

"Or perhaps you might reply, a range of different constructions is used with verbs of sending, or in Greek generally, but πρός brings out the semantics most clearly?"

But, I really have to press you here because this needs to be specified. To wit, to which general form of usage exactly are you referring?
Perhaps I should back up one step by asking a basic question about lexicography. If one were given the task of writing the article for ἀντεπιτίθημι how would one go about it? Perseus identifies the word occurring 7 times in four authors:

Code: Select all

Words in Corpus 	Max 	Max/10k 	Min 	Min/10k 	Corpus Name
399409 	3 	0.075 	3 	0.075 	Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Historiae Romanae
305870 	1 	0.033 	1 	0.033 	Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae
288826 	2 	0.069 	2 	0.069 	Strabo, Geography
150173 	1 	0.067 	1 	0.067 	Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
(But, from the citations in the LSJ article Perseus' text corpus apparently does not contain the works of Ιs. = Isaeus, Ph. = Philo, Hp.Ep. = Hippocrates ἐπιστολαί, and D.S. = Diodorus Siculus has a link but currently fails to find the document in the TLG corpus.)

So, this is a rather rare word.

Out of this textual evidence one has to use the context to essentially make an educated guess as to the meaning taking into account what is already known about the meaning of the pieces of this compound verb, the types of verbal arguments used in the quotes (I am using the term 'argument' from functional grammar where it refers to any of the terms (words, clauses, phrases) needed to establish the predication associated with the verb; it's similar to the notion of arguments to a mathematical function) and anything that can be derived from the semantic requirements of the action and objects involved. Then, one has to sort out which of the quotes seem to represent independent meanings and which of them have the same meaning, perhaps with slight variations in idiom. Finally, one puts it all together and devises definitions (here in English) for each of the separate meanings, hoping to convey as much of the distinctions and nuances in English as one believes to be in the Greek. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

In the case of multiple quotes apparently revealing the same meaning, but perhaps with some variation in wording, one might summarize that by giving a 'template' for the most common wording, or the version which seems to follow the language's patterns best. This is what I meant by "general form of usage".

I don't think I am sufficiently qualified to say that πρός is more common with verbs of sending or even that it brings out the meaning better than other prepositions. Prepositional usage tends to be highly idiomatic in every language I have ever studied, but I would say it is not uncommon for there to be allowed variations (by which I mean that a native speaker would not find it ungrammatical) with essentially identical meanings.

The basic meanings of πρός and παρά do have a substantial overlap: from, beside, to or toward (governing gen., dat., acc. respectively). The literal meaning of παρά is closer to from the side of, at the side of, to the side of.

With the meaning of "give a letter in answer", I might guess that πρός + acc. could emphasize spacial separation between the sender and intended recipient (to or towards) while παρά + acc. could emphasize the actual arrival of the letter into the hands of the recipient (to the side of). Of course, I might just as easily be totally wacko with that idea! :D
pster wrote: But, what is the general rule of usage that is in play in the Thucydides citation example? As readers we should be able to determine what it is because LSJ expect it of us. But I can't. And so I don't know what they expect of me. And that is why I got the LSJ blues.
Well, add me to the list of those suffering from the LSJ Blues! :)

I guess the most important thing that is required of the user of any dictionary, glossary or lexicon is a basic appreciation of the workings and patterns of the source language. These types of documents, by necessity, compress a lot of information into as small a space as possible. Apparently, the quote from Thucydides is the only one using παρά with the meaning of "give a letter in answer". This means that it is left as an exercise to the reader to decide whether his choice of preposition is unusual for Greek or whether it merely represents a possible (although perhaps not common) substitution of παρά for πρός in general, or specifically with the verb in question. Given the paucity of citations, it is difficult to tell. I don't really have enough Greek under my belt to even have an intuitive feeling about this. Maybe that is something else that L., S., and J., et al. assume on the part of the reader/user.
pster wrote: (I skillfully avoided taking up your conception of sense because there are many conceptions of sense on the market, from home made to hi-tech, and I wasn't sure which one you might be using.)
If you look at this entry for "sense" I had in mind 5.b. One of the meanings of a word or phrase. A lot of general linguistics books commonly use "sense" and "meaning" interchangeably. Sorry if I added to the confusion factor.

For me, one of the greatest challenges of using LSJ (or Cuneliffe or any other bilingual Greek lexicon) is avoiding the trap of reading more into their choice of English renderings than is warranted by the actual Greek usage. Every language has words with many meanings. In our native language we effortlessly pick out the intended meaning from the context or idiom, probably without even being aware that we have done so. One of the challenges of studying ancient Greek is attempting to create a mindset that will permit one to see the overall unity of the set of meanings associated with a single word while also being able to pick out the one appropriate for a given sentence. It seems to me that rather than helping us see that unity, the authors of our lexica choose English words that they deem to be a good fit in an English translation of the given usage. If it were possible, I would rather focus on how the various meanings evolved over time. Some of the obvious methods are going from concrete to abstract, or literal to metaphorical, or associations with similar words, or analogy, etc. etc. There has to be a reason why a Greek speaker would use a given word with so many variations and shades of meaning rather than create new words. One of our tasks is to work towards identifying that semantic web of associations so that we gradually work towards acquiring that Greek mindset. I'm not at all convinced that works such as LSJ really help us along towards that goal. OTOH, do we really have anything else to take its place?

Cheers.

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

From the entry for προσάγω:

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... w0#lexicon)

...
3. δυσχερῶς προσῆγον πρὸς τὰς εἰσφοράς dub.l. in Plb.5.30.5 (πως εἶχον πρὸς Hultsch): ὅσων προσῆξαν is f.l. in Th.2.97 (ὅσωνπερ ἦρξαν Dobree).
...


What do "dub.l." and "f.l." mean?

NateD26
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 789
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:14 am
Contact:

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by NateD26 »

pster wrote:From the entry for προσάγω:

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... w0#lexicon)

...
3. δυσχερῶς προσῆγον πρὸς τὰς εἰσφοράς dub.l. in Plb.5.30.5 (πως εἶχον πρὸς Hultsch): ὅσων προσῆξαν is f.l. in Th.2.97 (ὅσωνπερ ἦρξαν Dobree).
...


What do "dub.l." and "f.l." mean?
According to this pdf (which i remember was handed to us at my university), dub. is dubious and l.
is line or lineam in Latin. I have no idea what f. stands for but you see that in both references,
the editors either replaced the verb with another or removed it altogether.
Nate.

John W.
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by John W. »

NateD26 wrote:
pster wrote:From the entry for προσάγω:

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... w0#lexicon)

...
3. δυσχερῶς προσῆγον πρὸς τὰς εἰσφοράς dub.l. in Plb.5.30.5 (πως εἶχον πρὸς Hultsch): ὅσων προσῆξαν is f.l. in Th.2.97 (ὅσωνπερ ἦρξαν Dobree).
...


What do "dub.l." and "f.l." mean?
According to this pdf (which i remember was handed to us at my university), dub. is dubious and l.
is line or lineam in Latin. I have no idea what f. stands for but you see that in both references,
the editors either replaced the verb with another or removed it altogether.
Hi, Nate and pster - hope you're both OK.

I think that 'dub.l.' and 'f.l.' stand respectively for 'dubia lectio' and 'falsa lectio', indicating a doubtful or false reading; in other words, the example cited is regarded as being possibly or actually the result of textual corruption.

Best wishes,

John

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

v. infr. v.

Post by pster »

μέλλω , impf. ἔμελλον and ἤμελλον (v. infr.), Ep.
A. [select] “μέλλον” Il.17.278, Od.1.232, 9.378, B.12.164; Ep., Ion. “μέλλεσκον” Theoc.25.240, Mosch.2.109: fut. “μελλήσω” D.6.15, Ev.Matt.24.6: aor. “ἐμέλλησα” Th.3.55, X.HG5.4.65, etc., and ἠμ- (v. infr.):—Pass. and Med., v. infr. v.—Only pres. and impf. in Hom., Hes., Lyr., and Trag.: aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.):

v. infr. v.=very infrequent ____?

UPDATE: I guess it should be an upper case "V" for section V.

John W.
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: v. infr. v.

Post by John W. »

pster wrote:μέλλω , impf. ἔμελλον and ἤμελλον (v. infr.), Ep.
A. [select] “μέλλον” Il.17.278, Od.1.232, 9.378, B.12.164; Ep., Ion. “μέλλεσκον” Theoc.25.240, Mosch.2.109: fut. “μελλήσω” D.6.15, Ev.Matt.24.6: aor. “ἐμέλλησα” Th.3.55, X.HG5.4.65, etc., and ἠμ- (v. infr.):—Pass. and Med., v. infr. v.—Only pres. and impf. in Hom., Hes., Lyr., and Trag.: aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.):

v. infr. v.=very infrequent ____?

UPDATE: I guess it should be an upper case "V" for section V.
Is it 'vide infra', i.e. 'see below'?

John

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

I doubt that. But I am not sure. We'll have to wait for the LSJ master to show up. :D

Put this in your browser favorites, it is the list of LSJ abbreviations:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... matter%3D5

John W.
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by John W. »

pster wrote:I doubt that. But I am not sure. We'll have to wait for the LSJ master to show up. :D

Put this in your browser favorites, it is the list of LSJ abbreviations:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... matter%3D5
Many thanks for the list.

One reason I think it may be vide infra is that it says 'aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.)'; I presume this refers us to the citation of the aorist form in Thgn. 259 which is given just two lines below in LSJ.

John

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

If you look at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... /-contents you will see a "v. infr." for Homer at the very beginning and no mention of Homer below.

Also, it would be very odd to abbreviate a five letter word with a four letter one. With the period, you would save no characters.

As for the "aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.)", I understand this to say that the aorist occurs only in prose except in Hesiod's poem Theogony where it occurs albeit very infrequently. (Not sure why Perseus LSJ doesn't link to the poem since it is in the collection.)

John W.
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by John W. »

pster wrote:If you look at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... /-contents you will see a "v. infr." for Homer at the very beginning and no mention of Homer below.

Also, it would be very odd to abbreviate a five letter word with a four letter one. With the period, you would save no characters.

As for the "aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.)", I understand this to say that the aorist occurs only in prose except in Hesiod's poem Theogony where it occurs albeit very infrequently. (Not sure why Perseus LSJ doesn't link to the poem since it is in the collection.)
Sorry, pster, but the link doesn't seem to work (unless it's just me).

Perhaps Nate or Polyidos will put in a deus ex machina appearance and resolve the issue for us!

John

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

It's just the entry for κεφαλή.

Try this link: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon and then click on LSJ.

John W.
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 426
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by John W. »

pster wrote:If you look at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... /-contents you will see a "v. infr." for Homer at the very beginning and no mention of Homer below.

Also, it would be very odd to abbreviate a five letter word with a four letter one. With the period, you would save no characters.

As for the "aor. only in Prose (exc. Thgn., v. infr.)", I understand this to say that the aorist occurs only in prose except in Hesiod's poem Theogony where it occurs albeit very infrequently. (Not sure why Perseus LSJ doesn't link to the poem since it is in the collection.)
Thanks for the other link, pster.

Although Homer is not mentioned subsequently as such, there are numerous citations below of the Iliad and the Odyssey, so perhaps the generalised reference to Homer at the start links to these - i.e. 'The word occurs in Homer: see the detailed citations below'. That said, I agree with you that there would seem little point in abbreviating 'infra' to 'infr.' (unless it's some kind of Victorian convention); that said again, if it means 'very infrequent' after Homer, why are there so many references to his two epic poems in the rest of the entry? It's all a bit puzzling!

By the way, if I read your list correctly, I think 'Thgn.' refers to Theognis rather than to the Theogony - sorry to be pedantic.

Best,

John

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

LOL. Arghhhhh. You may be right about everything! And maybe they make it a four letter abbreviation just for symmetry with the "v.".

User avatar
pster
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:05 am
Location: Magna Graecia

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by pster »

And now that I think about it, they do tend to use "rare" for very infrequent forms.

stephenhoffman
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2014 7:09 pm

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by stephenhoffman »

"ἀγᾰθός [ᾰγ]"

The two short alphas of ἀγaθός are shown by LSJ to have two different ways of—what? Being short?

Does anybody know the hell what this notation means?

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4777
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: LSJ punctuation blues

Post by mwh »

Yes, I do, and I expect it’s explained somewhere in the mind-blowing bunch of posts above (or supr. :D )

LSJ was not capable of combining a smooth breathing with a quantity symbol, so it prints ἀγ and adds the short separately. But the important thing is to recognize that both alphas are short, and not fuss about the typographical inadequacies.

Post Reply