Which Accusative is the Object

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Bert
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Which Accusative is the Object

Post by Bert »

Parragraph 97 line 10 of First Greek Book reads (excluding accents) kai epi thn gefuran ton strathgon pempein ekeleuse Kuroj fulakhn. Cyrus commanded the general to send the guard on (or against) the bridge.<br />Cyrus is doing the commanding, and it is most logical that he is commanding the general to send the guard rather than the guard to send the general. Logic aside, is there a grammatical indication which accusative is the object of Cyrus' command?<br />Thank you.<br />Bert.

Elucubrator
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Re:Which Accusative is the Object

Post by Elucubrator »

Hi Bert,<br /><br />try reading from left to right, as a Greek would be hearing the spoken words. When you get to "tov stpathgov pempeiv", you know already that you are in an accusative and infinitive construction, and the "general" could be subject or object, but as soon as you hear the verb "ekeleuse" you have to take "the general" as the subject of the infinitive, because it's the only way the mind can complete the sense. <br /><br />Greek is a natural language, and paying attention to its word order, will help you to understand what you are reading. A lot of people end up looking all over the sentence trying to identify the subject, then the verb, and so on. This is often referred to as decoding, which is a very bad thing, as it will prevent you from getting to the point where you can understand Greek in Greek, and though it seems like the easier way at first, it makes progress very difficult. Force yourself to read from left to right trying to construct the meaning as you go along. If you don't know what to do with an accusative you have to just hold onto it in your head until you get to a point in the sentence that completes the meaning. Try to do this always in your head. If you come to the end of the sentence and you haven't understood it. Go back to the beginning and start reading it again from left to right; each time it will get a little easier until you get it. <br /><br />In this way rather than "translating" Greek, you will be translating your mind to the Greek; you will be learning to think in ancient Greek. This is the most exciting and rewarding experience.<br /><br />Let us know what your experience is like when you try this out. <br /><br />Sebastian<br /><br />PD have you got the spionic font yet? I transliterated because you did. But you should get the font as it is what we use on Textkit. I will come back here later and modify the post to put it into spionic, after I am sure that you have seen it.<br /><br />-S.

Bert
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Posts: 1889
Joined: Sat May 31, 2003 2:28 am
Location: Arthur Ontario Canada

Re:Which Accusative is the Object

Post by Bert »

Sebastian, thanks for your explanation. <br />As to SPIonic font, I installed it but I don't know what to do with it. (Instead of studying Greek maybe I should take a computer course.)<br />I send myself an e-mail using the instructions that I found in the post entitled something like; "Representing Greek, Font notes for new users" It didn't look any different when I received it as when I entered it. I must be doing something wrong but I don't know what.

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