optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

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daivid
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optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by daivid »

This is not a story as such - more a moment in time with the past and the future implicit in the present.
- «οἱ πολίται ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ τὸ τοῦ βασιλέως στράτευμα ἐμπέσοι τὴν πόλιν. ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ οἱ σύμμαχοι οὐ καιρίως ἀφίκοιντο. ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ οἱ τοῦ βασιλέως στρατιῶται πληρώσαιεν τὸν τῆς πόλεως τάφρον. ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ τὸ τῆς πόλεως τεῖχος ὐπο τοῦ πολεμου αἱρεθείη. ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ οἱ ἄνδρες φονευθεῖεν καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες δουλωθεῖεν. οὕτως ἔπεισα αὐτοῖς ἐνδοῦναι.»
-«ψευδεῖς! οὐκ καθοπλίσας τοὺς πολίτας. ἐφοβοῦ μὴ οἱ πολίται ὁπλοφόροι ων ἀποστήσειαν. ἐφοβοῦ μὴ ἀπολέσειεν ἐξουσίαν. ἀρα οὐ ἐφοβοῦ μὴ ζημιωθείης ὑπὸ τοῦ δημοῦ θανάτῳ ὡς προδότης;»


Whether the first speaker was a wise king who avoided needless bloodshed or a selfish tyrant and a quisling as his accuser claims is up to you.
I'm especially uncertain as to whether I formed φονευθεῖεν correctly as my spell checker objected.
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Markos
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by Markos »

daivid wrote:I'm especially uncertain as to whether I formed φονευθεῖεν correctly as my spell checker objected.
I think it is correct. The accent initially looked funny to me as it is not recessive, but I checked Smyth and he notes there is contraction in the formation of the optative aorist passive. I never took notice of this before, as I have never used these forms actively and they are pretty rare in reading. To that extent, an exercise like this is helpful.

daivid
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by daivid »

Markos wrote:
daivid wrote:I'm especially uncertain as to whether I formed φονευθεῖεν correctly as my spell checker objected.
I think it is correct. The accent initially looked funny to me as it is not recessive, but I checked Smyth and he notes there is contraction in the formation of the optative aorist passive.
Thanks. It was the accent I was especially concerned about as, while I get the general principle, remebering how to apply the rules in practice is still hard for me.
Markos wrote: I never took notice of this before, as I have never used these forms actively and they are pretty rare in reading. To that extent, an exercise like this is helpful.
Thanks.

Rare forms are common. By that I mean that though the individual form may be rare, as there are many rare forms, you encounter rare forms often. Taylor and Anderson cover this form in Writing Greek but along with 7 other forms related to fear. As a result, this form only merits two sentences in the exercises they provide.
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Paul Derouda
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by Paul Derouda »

What, do you have Greek spell checker?

daivid
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by daivid »

Paul Derouda wrote:What, do you have Greek spell checker?
I use LibreOffice which is the non-Oracle version of OpenOffice. The Ancient Greek dictionary for the spell checker is not one of the standard dictionaries. I don't actually remember if I downloaded it from the LibreOffice or the OpenOffice web site but I do remember having to look quite hard.
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Σαυλος
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by Σαυλος »

Daivid - I need to hear more about this spellchecker. It actually works? Is LibreOffice a free download?
I will babble until I talk. ετι λαλαγω...

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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by daivid »

Σαῦλος wrote:Daivid - I need to hear more about this spellchecker. It actually works? Is LibreOffice a free download?
Yes, and Open Office should still be. I have Linux and Libreoffice comes pretty much standard with all versions of Linux. I know there are versions for Windows and Mackintosh and can't see any reason why installing it on those systems should not be straightforward. But I haven't used Windows for years so I don't know for certain.

And yes it does work. The only wrinkle, and a minor one at that, is that sometimes it objects to a word that is correct and then supplies the same form. This is because UTF8 has several ways of coding Ancient Greek letters with their accents.
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Paul Derouda
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Re: optative practice "on why the city fell to the king"

Post by Paul Derouda »

I use Mac. I'll have to look into that!

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