Online list of datives?

[Helikwps]

Sorry if this has been answered here before, but is there a one or two-page online list of datives that can be used as a cheat sheet, interest and agent and means etc? Replies greatly appreciated! Thanks, Tim

[Scribo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_case#Greek

I think filched from the above in PDF form: http://www.onthewing.org/user/Greek%20Dative%20Case.pdf

Not sure if complete, only briefly scanned it. You'll note that various grammatical traditions will often use different names and, indeed, recognise completely different uses. You might find an online book on Greek Prose Composition infinitely more helpful btw.

[mwh]

I used to say there's only one kind of dative. Not true, I hasten to add, but many of the distinctions conventionally made have no real validity. Ethical dative is my favorite. It's what you call a dative when you don't know what else to call it.

[Helikwps]

Thank you so much for these Scribo! Getting both laminated and I'm off to the races -- much appreciated!
Tim

(p.s. I've gotta say that as written the distinction between dative of purpose, "I fight for the king", and dative of benefit, "Every man toils for himself", is a subtle one indeed.)

[daivid]

Thank you so much for these Scribo! Getting both laminated and I'm off to the races -- much appreciated!
Tim

(p.s. I've gotta say that as written the distinction between dative of purpose, "I fight for the king", and dative of benefit, "Every man toils for himself", is a subtle one indeed.)

The Serbo-Croat word for and combines the meaning of "and" and "also" in much the same way as και.
When I first started learning Serbo-Croat that combination seemed weird. However now learning ancient Greek the two meanings are such a logical extension of each other that the stress in some textbooks to watch out for the two meanings seems way overdone. It is a good sign that you have progressed to the extent that those two forms of dative don't really seem distinct but for those at an earlier stage the more distinct types of dative (or genitive) they can be warned about, or better still taught, the better.

[Qimmik]

I've gotta say that as written the distinction between dative of purpose, "I fight for the king", and dative of benefit, "Every man toils for himself", is a subtle one indeed.

That's exactly mwh's point--these are just categories that grammarians have invented to pigeon-hole uses of the dative, not distinctions that are necessarily inherent in the Greek itself. The categories are useful for drawing attention to the ways in which the dative is used, but they don't really capture the essential Gestalt of the dative.

The dative is really a very amorphous case--a catch-all for nominal elements of a sentence that have some relationship to the predicate but don't belong in the nominative, genitive or accusative. I would almost go so far as to generalize the use of the dative in a negative way: for free-standing nominal elements in a sentence, i.e., those not governed by a preposition or dependent on another noun (genitive), the dative is the case for any nominal element that is not the subject or direct object or partitive object (again, genitive) of the verb. Thus, the indirect object, the beneficiary, the agent, the instrument all show up in the dative.

Of the categories of datives listed by grammarians, my favorite is the dative of military accompaniment.

[daivid]

The dative is really a very amorphous case--a catch-all for nominal elements of a sentence that have some relationship to the predicate but don't belong in the nominative, genitive or accusative. I would almost go so far as to generalize the use of the dative in a negative way: for free-standing nominal elements in a sentence, i.e., those not governed by a preposition or dependent on another noun (genitive), the dative is the case for any nominal element that is not the subject or direct object or partitive object (again, genitive) of the verb.

"for free-standing nominal elements in a sentence" may well be the most accurate description of what the dative really is but for learners it is useless.

Of the categories of datives listed by grammarians, my favorite is the dative of military accompaniment.

I shall look out for that one.

[Qimmik]

"for free-standing nominal elements in a sentence" may well be the most accurate description of what the dative really is but for learners it is useless.

Yes, at an elementary stage, it's worthwhile to point out how the dative can be used, but I think explaining the underlying concept (or, as I think, the absence of a single underlying concept) would also be helpful to students, too--it would be helpful to put the individual categories in perspective and dispel some of the confusion and complexity resulting from confronting the student with so many different categories. And Instead of or in addition to presenting the many ways the dative is used, it might be better to learn to recognize when it's necessary or possible to use a preposition (and which case to use) to express a relationship to the predicate of a sentence rather than using a free-standing word in the dative.

[Scribo]

True. People often confuse learning Greek with learning Greek grammar. Obviously the two are intertwined, you need grammar, but the latter also functions as a toolset and how sharp you keep those tools and how big your toolbox is up to you once you reach a certain point. After a while for me grammar was used mainly to deconstruct difficult and contested passages or simply to talk about language itself. Hell, one of the most interesting bits of modern classics as philological approaches are married to lots of newer fangled linguistics. I never thought I'd be reading, learning and applying discourse theory to Plato but...there you go.

For me the real kick is teaching. I'm an awful teacher but even so I quickly realised what the student needs to know isn't always what you need to know and that actually just because you know something well really doesn't mean you can teach it.

[daivid]

Yes, at an elementary stage, it's worthwhile to point out how the dative can be used, but I think explaining the underlying concept (or, as I think, the absence of a single underlying concept) would also be helpful to students, too--it would be helpful to put the individual categories in perspective and dispel some of the confusion and complexity resulting from confronting the student with so many different categories. And Instead of or in addition to presenting the many ways the dative is used, it might be better to learn to recognize when it's necessary or possible to use a preposition (and which case to use) to express a relationship to the predicate of a sentence rather than using a free-standing word in the dative.

Well, I'm definitely still at the elementary stage then.
In theory it might be helpful to warn learners that these classifications are rather artificial. In practice, I suspect learners will use these crutches so long as they need them and will just forget about them rather cast them aside when they are no longer needed.

I've checked Smythe and he as the dative of military accompaniment. The problem is with his lists is that it he uses real Greek and hence he is a little daunting for a user. By the time a learner has mastered Greek well enough for Smyth's section the dative not to be daunting those categories will probably no longer be needed.

Ideal would be a list illustrated by 3 or 4 examples of each type in simple Greek specially written to illustrate each type of dative.