I did a little search and it seems like the editor of Polybius never uses ὅ τι to distinguish it from ὅτι.
GENERAL QUESTIONS:
How do we know when we are faced with that? It seems like there has to be indirect speech or a superlative (where ὅτι indicates "as possible"). And so any other occurrence has to be the indefinite relative ὅ τι. Is that correct?
SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
Are both of the following occurrences both indefinite relatives? I assume they are.
Plb. 6.2:
ὅτι τὸ ψυχαγωγοῦν ἅμα καὶ τὴν ὠφέλειαν ἐπιφέρον τοῖς φιλομαθοῦσι τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ἡ τῶν αἰτιῶν θεωρία καὶ τοῦ βελτίονος ἐν ἑκάστοις αἵρεσις.
Whatever brings the atttraction and the use to the curious is this, the theory of causes and choice of the better in each case.
But why is this indefinite? Why not use a regular relative pronoun?
Plb. 6.4:
ὅτι δ᾽ ἀληθές ἐστι τὸ λεγόμενον ἐκ τούτων συμφανές.
One translator gives: I will illustrate the truth of what I say.
Here we don't have a demonstrative. So what is the antecedent for the relative pronoun?
In neither of these cases can I clearly distinguish the main clause from the relative clause. And in neither of these cases do I understand why the indefinite relatives are used.
Can anybody shed some light?
Thanks in advance.