Reading dictionary entries

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jeidsath
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Reading dictionary entries

Post by jeidsath »

I have a fuzzy understanding of the meaning of the various parts of a dictionary entry.

How do I read it for a noun? For a verb? What are the forms presented, and what order do they tend to come in?
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

daivid
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by daivid »

jeidsath wrote:I have a fuzzy understanding of the meaning of the various parts of a dictionary entry.

How do I read it for a noun? For a verb? What are the forms presented, and what order do they tend to come in?
nouns usually give the nominative then the genitive ending and then the form of the article ο,η or το which gives you the gender.
adjectives give the masculine nominative then the feminine ending and then the neuter.
verbs often only get the present 1st person singular

Quite often when it is a word is considered regular less is given (on the basis that it should be obvious even though for beginners it may not be) but if a word is irregular extra info may be given.
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jeidsath
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by jeidsath »

Thanks, David. So here is the first line of the LSJ entry for ἀνήρ (from Chicago's Logeion):

ἀνήρ, ὁ, ἀνδρός, ἀνδρί, ἄνδρα, voc. ἄνερ: pl. ἄνδρες, -δρῶν, -δράσι [ᾰ], -dras: Aeol. dat. pl.

Is that supposed to be the following?

Sg. Nom., Sg. Gen., Sg. Dat., Sg. Acc., Sg. Voc., Pl. Nom., Pl. Gen., Pl. Dat (with a short α)?

And I assume that I should be able to figure out plural accusative vocative on my own? What is the "-dras" supposed to mean? Something that changes in the Aeolic dialect?
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

daivid
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by daivid »

jeidsath wrote:Thanks, David. So here is the first line of the LSJ entry for ἀνήρ (from Chicago's Logeion):

ἀνήρ, ὁ, ἀνδρός, ἀνδρί, ἄνδρα, voc. ἄνερ: pl. ἄνδρες, -δρῶν, -δράσι [ᾰ], -dras: Aeol. dat. pl.

Is that supposed to be the following?

Sg. Nom., Sg. Gen., Sg. Dat., Sg. Acc., Sg. Voc., Pl. Nom., Pl. Gen., Pl. Dat (with a short α)?

And I assume that I should be able to figure out plural accusative vocative on my own? What is the "-dras" supposed to mean? Something that changes in the Aeolic dialect?
When it gets to irregular words like this I too am struggling. I usually resort to http://www.lexigram.gr/lex/arch/ at this point.. It is in Modern Greek and hence a little tricky to navigate (but you can use google translate) but almost everything is there. And you will find that the entry for ἀνήρ there will confirm what you have surmised.

As to "-dras" your guess seems spot on but really I haven't a clue. Can anyone else help?
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jeidsath
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by jeidsath »

I looked it up in the print version. "dras" is supposed to be in Greek.

It's because Perseus XML doesn't use Unicode and doesn't clearly demarcate Greek text from English, so everyone using their documents gets errors like these.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Σαυλος
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by Σαυλος »

Seems like a good place to pitch Kalos, Beautiful Greek Software.

It's free (donation requested). I have nothing to do with its creation. I do use it daily and gladly donated to it and enjoy promoting it.

http://www.kalos-software.com/
I will babble until I talk. ετι λαλαγω...

demetri
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Re: Reading dictionary entries

Post by demetri »

I also am a Kalos fan. Good resource and I am not connected with it either.

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