milestone!

[klewlis]

ok this might seem trivial to some of you (and I know emma will smile since she's working on a similar task ;) but I just now worked through the first stanza of the odyssey. this is my first chunk of classical greek after years of koine, so that is very fun. I did alright although there were a few phrases of which I missed the meaning, but that will come with practice. <br /><br />my goal is to work through the entire story--ack--however long that takes! <br /><br />yay for perseus! not only can i check strange forms, but i also got a list of the most common vocab and am working on learning it (I know many of the top words already from koine but there is still so much!)<br /><br />I'll let you know when I finish book 1. lol<br /><br />ok but my first question:<br /><br />there are a couple of places where [face=SPIonic]kata[/face] is used in a way I don't expect. for example, [face=SPIonic]kata qumon[/face] for "in his heart" and [face=SPIonic]oi kata bouj uperionoj elioio hsqion[/face], "they ate the cows of the Hyperion Helios"<br /><br />(sorry I haven't figured out the font's breathing and accents yet ;)<br /><br />what is kata doing in these phrases????

[annis]

In the first case, [face=SPIonic]kata\ qumo/n[/face] is just an idiom you will have to learn, here something like "on" or "according to" his thumos.<br /><br />In the second case, you will often find the meaning you need by compounding the verb with the preposition. This is usually called "tmesis" or "cutting." The idea is that the compound verb has been split somehow. In fact, these separated prepositions modifying the meaning of the main verb probably came first. In any case, when a preposition is hanging out and you're not sure why, trying seeing if compounding it with the verb gives you a sensible meaning.

[klewlis]

wow, thanks! <br /><br />I've now discovered [face=SPIonic]katesqiw[/face]<br /><br />;)

[Emma_85]

smile<br /><br />Congratulations!<br /><br />Whish I had a book... working with photocopies of the text is quite annoying, as the commentary's missing. <br />So thanks William, I didn't know that about the compound verbs.

[annis]

[quote author=Emma_85 link=board=2;threadid=627;start=0#5888 date=1063370530]<br />Whish I had a book... working with photocopies of the text is quite annoying, as the commentary's missing. <br />[/quote]<br /><br />How annoying!<br /><br />

<br />So thanks William, I didn't know that about the compound verbs.<br />

<br /><br />You're very welcome.<br /><br />One other thing occurs to me.<br /><br />Pay very close attention to the accent of prepositions. Sometimes in Homer they will follow the noun they go with, and in that case the accent recesses.

[Emma_85]

Pay very close attention to the accent of prepositions. Sometimes in Homer they will follow the noun they go with, and in that case the accent recesses.<br />

<br /><br />... making the prepositions postpositions , thanks for the advise.

[klewlis]

[quote author=Emma_85 link=board=2;threadid=627;start=0#5888 date=1063370530]<br /> smile<br /><br />Congratulations!<br /><br />Whish I had a book... working with photocopies of the text is quite annoying, as the commentary's missing. <br />So thanks William, I didn't know that about the compound verbs.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I don't have a book either... I printed the first two books off from perseus and stuck them in a duotang... I'm forcing myself not to write translation in this text, just grammatical aids (like the conj/dec and lexical form where needed). That way if I want to go over it again in the future I won't be able to cheat But I am writing the rest down elsewhere. I keep the perseus page open in case I need to look up some obscure form... it works pretty well!

[Emma_85]

I keep the perseus page open in case I need to look up some obscure form... it works pretty well!

<br /><br />I really need to get to know that site better... seems I'm making life very difficult for myself.

[klewlis]

odyssey is here:<br />http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0135<br /><br />you can click on a word for full morphology.<br /><br />if the letters look latin instead of greek, click on the link above that says "configure display" and it will let you choose to view the greek letters as greek letters, as well as some other options. You will need the SPIonic font (which I assume you have already from reading this site!)

[Emma_85]

Thanks!!! <br />This will help me a lot! But I'll try to translate it first without using perseus, that way I'll probably learn more. Sometimes though, you're just stuck because you can't work out one form, so this is just what I need!

[klewlis]

yes, it's good (and hard) not to depend on it too much.<br /><br />I find that perseus is great when you don't recognize the word enough to even find the lexical form in the lexicon (darn those irregular principal parts...)<br /><br />but for actual definitions the lexicon can't be beat... it gives much more detail and also mentions idiomatic phrases and such, many of them directly out of our text... so that is awesome. <br /><br />:)