repetition of the determinative article in para 258 and 267

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hedoné
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repetition of the determinative article in para 258 and 267

Post by hedoné »

Hi
I'm having difficulties dealing with the following sentences

PARA 258. έν τῆ ὑπε?βολῆ τῆ είς το\ν πεδι/ον
PARA 267. οἱ α?το\ν τε ε/βαλλον και\ τα\ ὑτοζυ/για τα\ ?κει/νου

I can't understand the function of the articles repeated after the substantives (bold text)..can anyone help me please?thank

ps..i'm not very good at taping accents as you can see...sorry :oops:

modus.irrealis
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Re: repetition of the determinative article in para 258 and

Post by modus.irrealis »

Personally, I think the easiest way to think of it is that normally when you have something that modifies a definite noun, you place it between the article and the noun, but if you want to place it elsewhere you have to repeat the article with the modifier (which then tells you that it goes with the noun). So with an adjective:

? ἀγαθὸς ἀνή? or ? ἀνὴ? ? ἀγαθός

In your examples, the modifiers aren't adjectives but it works the same way:

τῇ ὑπε?βολῇ τῇ εἰς τὸ πεδίον = τῇ εἰς τὸ πεδίον ὑπε?βολῇ
τὰ ὑποζ?για τὰ ?κείνου = τὰ ?κείνου ὑποζ?για

As for function, I don't think I can explain this clearly but I'd say that often the version with the repeated article answers the question "which one" so that ? ἀγαθὸς ἀνή? tells you what kind of man while ? ἀνὴ? ? ἀγαθός tells you which man (and of course in some cases there might not be any real difference between the two).

hedoné
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:07 pm
Location: Italy

Post by hedoné »

thank you modus.irrealis :o really useful!

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