Question Help

[Jordan St. Francis]

Hey, I'm reviewing some Practice and Review questions from the text Alpha to Omega.

Can anybody help me with this sentence from Chapter 24:

κατα τον των Ἑλληνων νομον τιμᾱ ξενιᾴ τε δωροισ τε τον ταδ' ἠγγελκοτα.

Now the accents are not all there.

ἠγγελκοτα is a neuter plural nominative/ accusative perfect participle.

τιμᾱ, I believe, is an imperative

and the first part seems to be "According to the law of Greece" ...[something] to/ for a guest

thanks!

[spiphany]

You almost have it: the participle is being used substantively here, with its own object: τον ταδ' ἠγγελκοτα / the one who announced these things.
It is the object of τιμᾱ (from τιμάω)
ξενιᾴ τε δωροισ τε are instrumtal datives

[Jordan St. Francis]

Honor the one who announced these things to the stranger/guest, according to the law of Greeks, with gifts.

?

[spiphany]

ξενιᾴ and δωροις are parallel. Look at it again -- you have ξενια (guest friendship) not ξενος (stranger/guest).

[Jordan St. Francis]

Honor, according to the law of Greece, the one who announced these things with friendship and with gifts.

thanks!

[Jordan St. Francis]

*another question*

τί οὐκ ὰκηκοασ μου, ω αναξιε οἰκετα, καιπερ σε τῷ ὀναματι καλουντοσ;

Chapter 24 from Alpha and Omega, # 10.

My translation is: What have you not heard from me, unworthy servant, although you are being called by name?

This does not seem exactly right. Any corrections?

Thanks!

[modus.irrealis]

ακουω can also mean "listen to" or "obey" so I would take τι to mean "why".

Also with καλουντος it's active but it's genitive and so has to go with μου.

[Jordan St. Francis]

Thanks.

"Why have you not heard me, unworthy servant, although I am calling [you] by name?"

or

"Why have you not heard....me who is calling you be name"...

[modus.irrealis]

The first, because of καιπερ = "although". You don't need the [], though, since σε is there.

Also, to get the second meaning, I believe you would need the article with the participle. Generally speaking when the participle is equivalent to a relative clause and is definite it's used with the article.

[Jordan St. Francis]

So why is a participle being used, when it seems to be functioning exactly like a verb? It doesn't seem to have an adjectival quality in this instance. Why not just kaleo in the first person singular active indicative?

[modus.irrealis]

In general, Greek prefers to use participles where English would use a subordinate clause with a finite verb, and it's just something you have to get used to. It's similar to in English how you might say "Having finished reading, I decided to go to bed" but Greek does it to a much greater extent. It's still adjectival in that it describes the circumstances (it's often called a circumstantial participle) or describes the noun indirectly through the verb. Adjectives, though, do the same thing

ο πρωτος Αθηναιος ειπεν... = the first Athenian (i.e. the Athenian who was first) said...
ο Αθηναιος πρωτος ειπεν... = the Athenian was the first to (i.e. the Athenian, being first) said....

Specifically in this case, though, it's just that the most common way of saying "although" is καιπερ + participle.

[Jordan St. Francis]

Ok. Thanks! I remember now reading about the circumstantial participle.

[Jordan St. Francis]

Of course, another question. I can't figure out at the moment the tense/ person/ mood of this verb used in a sentence I am translating:
ἐρώτησον

Now, I know that it comes from the verb ἐρωταω, and the sigma/ lengthened vowel makes it look future- but why the ον ending? Were it aorist, wouldn't it be augmented?

Thanks.

[modus.irrealis]

ον is the ending for the aorist imperative (2nd person singular) -- at least for those aorists that end in -α rather than -ον. I mean, e.g., ηρωτησα > ερωτησον but ελαβον > λαβε.

About the augment, that only occurs in the past tenses of the indicative mood. It doesn't occur in any of the other moods, so you have to always look at the stem. The aorist stem is the same as the future stem a lot of the time and so there's the potential for ambiguity, e.g. ερωτησω is both future indicative and aorist subjunctive, but in context it shouldn't cause too much trouble.

[Jordan St. Francis]

Thanks. I must really be keeping you busy because I am having difficulty with the sentence that that verb was taken from:

ἐρώτησον τούτους τούς ξενους τούσ οὐκ ὀντας Ἑλληνας ὅποθεν πεπεμμενοι εισιν.

Now, πεπεμμενοι is plural nominative and therefore must be the subject the sentence. It is also perfect passive, so "[they] who have been sent".

We've covered that ἐρώτησον is an aorist imperative. = "ask!"

Ask these strangers, not being Greeks, from where they have been sent

But that does not factor in εισιν, and I would wonder why ξενους was in the plural accusative if πεπεμμενοι [nominative] is intended to describe them.

[modus.irrealis]

The reason we're all here is to help each other, so ask away.

You got the meaning right, so I'll just help with the analysis. πεπεμμένοι here is not the subject but is the complement of the implied subject that goes to back to ξένους. The reason for εἰσίν is that in the passive of the perfect tense, instead of there being a single verb, you use "to be" plus a participle. For example, if the question had been "where they are going", it could be something like

... ὅποι πορεύονται

so πεπεμμένοι εἰσίν as a group functions like πορεύονται.

About ξένους being accusative, the key thing is that for the most part, the case of a noun is determined by its role in the clause it's in. So ξένους is in the main clause and is the direct object of ἐρώτησον so it's accusative, but πεπεμμένοι is in the ὁπόθεν-clause, and there is modified the (implied) subject, so it has to be nominative.

And about τοὺς οὐκ ὄντας Ἕλληνας, here because of the article, it should be "the strangers who are not Greeks". It would be"not being Greeks" if there were no article.