I got stuck today at Pl. Ap. 31e2 where we have these reinforced negatives. I finally understood what they are only after checking my commentary,
and I couldn't find a reference in Smyth. Are there any rules put in place for a student to recognize when a negative comes merely to reinforce
the previous one, not to negate it? Is it always after phrases like οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις/οὐδεὶς ὅστις that a following statement would have, if required,
reinforced negatives?
Here, οὔτε ὑμῖν οὔτε ἄλλῳ πλήθει οὐδενὶ after οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις σωθήσεται is translated as καὶ ὑμῖν καὶ ἄλλῳ πλήθει τινὶ
γνησίως ἐναντιούμενος.
I know this occurred already in previous sections, but I have trouble internalizing it.
Thanks.
Reinforced negatives: How to recognize?
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Re: Reinforced negatives: How to recognize?
In Smyth, there's 2760, etc. on accumulation of negatives. My understanding is that the basic rule is that compound negatives reinforce previous negatives in the same clause, but otherwise they have their own negative value.
I think the difficulty in this example is a different issue just because it doesn't seem like the negative makes a difference. Even in English, for example, I could say both
there is no one who will be saved, either when opposing you or any other people
there is no one who will be saved, neither when opposing you nor any other people
To be honest, I don't understand what's going on here with this negative (in any language). (That οὐδενί is a negative reinforcing οὔτε however does follow the above rule.) I hope it's clear what I mean.
But I don't think there's anything special about this construction in general with respect to negation. I'm sure, although I can't find any examples, that you would have
οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις οὐδὲν ἐρεῖ = everyone will say something, not everyone will say nothing
With the simple negation, though, I know it's true that ούκ ἔστιν ὅστις οὐ = everyone.
I think the difficulty in this example is a different issue just because it doesn't seem like the negative makes a difference. Even in English, for example, I could say both
there is no one who will be saved, either when opposing you or any other people
there is no one who will be saved, neither when opposing you nor any other people
To be honest, I don't understand what's going on here with this negative (in any language). (That οὐδενί is a negative reinforcing οὔτε however does follow the above rule.) I hope it's clear what I mean.
But I don't think there's anything special about this construction in general with respect to negation. I'm sure, although I can't find any examples, that you would have
οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις οὐδὲν ἐρεῖ = everyone will say something, not everyone will say nothing
With the simple negation, though, I know it's true that ούκ ἔστιν ὅστις οὐ = everyone.
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Re: Reinforced negatives: How to recognize?
Thank you, modus. It is much clearer now. The referenced sections in Smyth you provided were quite helpful as well.
Nate.
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Greek recognition
Hi, I am a new member, who studies greek and i have just looked at these last posts of learning greek. Unfortunately when looking at threads of text in greek in the messages I see that some characters are beingdo not appear and I see only rectangles ( I just copy a line from the last post : οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις οὐδὲν ἐρεῖ = everyone will say something, not everyone will say nothing) I suppose this has something to do with the settings of the computer. I have though a computer with Office 97 that supports Greek Unicode Fonts and normally recognizes Internet Ancient Greek texts. Can some one hlep me on whether ther is a way to fix this?