Another participle question

Greek Learning Greek
1

This is from JWW First Greek Book §498

They will not wrong us, if we make a truce with them.

My try:
οὐκ ἀδικήσουσιν ἡμᾶς, εἰ σπονδᾱ̀ς αὐτοῖς ποιησόμεθα.

Rusty Mason:
οὐκ ἀδικήσουσι ἡμᾶς, ποιησάμενους τὰς σπονδὰς πρὸς αὐτούς.

Koala on Textkit 29 Jan. 2004:
πρὸς αὐτοὺς σπονδὰς ποιησάμενους .. ταμόντας .. ἡμᾶς κακῶς οὐ ποιήσουσιν.

It looks like σπόνδᾱς ποιεῖν can be constructed with the dative as well as with πρόσ, so that’s not what is bothering me.

I know Greek favors using participles, but isn’t this wrong somehow? They us (who have made) with them? In other words, the “subject” of the participle is the object of ἀδικήσουσιν.

Or am I just not deep enough into the Greek spirit?

2

Either a (conditional) ptcp or conditional clause is fine. The ptcp is more ambiguous, at least without context; the conditional clause more precise.

For your conditional clause, fut ind (ποιησόμεθα, as you have it) is possible or else ἐὰν…ποιησώμεθα.

Generally, a circumstantial ptcp is only unambiguously conditional if it’s negated (with μή not οὐ): e.g. ἀδικησόμεθα μὴ ἐπ’ ἴσοις σπεισάμενοι (/ἐὰν μὴ ἐπ’ ἴσοις σπεισώμεθα) [we’ll be wronged if we don’t make a truce on equal terms]

3

Thanks Phalakros!

Comprehension check:

You are saying that the presence of μή makes it clear that the participle refers to a circumstance that is not a fact, i.e. it’s a condition.

Right?

4

Exactly. If it’s a circumstantial participle, μή is used for a condition, οὐ for other meanings (causal, concessive, temporal). Compare:

ἀδικησόμεθα μὴ ἐπ’ ἴσοις σπεισάμενοι

We’ll be wronged if we don’t make a truce on equal terms. [the ptcp σπεισάμενοι is conditional, hence the negative is μή]

ἠδικήθημεν οὐ σπονδὰς ποιησάμενοι

We were wronged since we didn’t make a truce. [the ptcp ποιησάμενοι is causal, hence the negative is οὐ].

That, at least, is generally the case in Attic Greek. There are exceptions, of course, and things change in later Greek.

5

I feel like more could be said about the difference between the circumstantial/conditional participle and explicit conditional.

My guess would be (I haven’t studied it, but it seems to fit with what I see when reading) that the participle version does not insert conditionality/possibility, if it’s not already present, but instead leaves the level of conditionality already present in the context unaffected. (While εἰ/etc. will always insert conditionality.)

For example:

καὶ βιασόμενος τοὺς πολεμίους εἰ φυλάττοιεν ἐπὶ ταῖς Συρίαις πύλαις, ὅπερ ᾤετο ποιήσειν ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμαν, > ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα. > Ἀβροκόμας δὲ οὐ τοῦτ’ ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ ἤκουσε Κῦρον ἐν Κιλικίᾳ ὄντα, ἀναστρέψας ἐκ Φοινίκης παρὰ βασιλέα ἀπήλαυνεν, ἔχων, ὡς ἐλέγετο, τριάκοντα μυριάδας στρατιᾶς.

The above does not strike me as ambiguous, and I don’t think that the reader really has to wait until the next sentence to find out if there was some question about whether Abrocomas has a large army or not. Instead, the participle introduces a definite statement about his army, and the next sentence does not treat it as a matter under question.

Something like the following would have directly heightened the conditionality, I think: πολλοὶ παρὰ Ἀβροκόμα μισθοφόροι ἀποστάντες ἦλθον παρὰ Κῦρον. ὁ δὲ βιασόμενος τοὺς πολεμίους εἰ φυλάττοιεν ἐπὶ ταῖς Συρίαις πύλαις, ὅπερ ᾤετο ποιήσειν ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμα, ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα. Now the size of the army is an indefinite topic under consideration, and the ἔχοντα feels much more conditional to me.

Even an indefinite person instead of a definitely named person would have made a difference: ὅπερ ᾤετο ποιήσειν ὁ Κῦρος τινὰ αὐτόθι ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα.

To recap, it looks to me like the participle simply carries through previous uncertainty (if present), rather than being necessarily ambiguous. On the other hand, judging whether or not that uncertainty is really present already in context is likely not always straightforward.

6

Joel,

Thanks for thinking deeper into my question. In fact a bit too deep for me, since I am still slogging through my beginner’s book, but I am grateful anyway.

I do have some good resources, like Goodwin on the Moods and Tenses, §§ 472, 841, 479, 552. It will be a while before all the examples there make sense to me.

But maybe we could try an experiment. How would you translate “If Cyrus thought Arbrocomas had a large army, he would have done this”?

I am working through White’s First Greek Book (1896) and wishing sometimes I had an answer key for the English to Greek exercises. I don’t look at these as “translations” really, but as tests of ability to get the grammar right. If the exercise says “If he should do this,” it’s a clue that I am supposed to use the optative; I am light-years away from being able to write confidently in Greek and make congruity judgments, as I would if I were translating into English from a language I know well.

I have found a couple “keys” to White posted by Textkit people who have worked on the book and posted their solutions.

My original question was whether οὐκ ἀδικήσουσι ἡμᾶς, ποιησάμενους τὰς σπονδὰς πρὸς αὐτούς. could be considered a “translation” of “they will not wrong us, if we make a truce with them.” I felt uncomfortable with the object in the apodosis [ἡμᾶς] being the subject in the protasis, while the pronoun in πρὸς αὐτούς is co-referential with the subject of ἀδικήσουσι.

I hope that makes sense. I feel like I am chasing my tail.

7

Zembel: Feel free to post any questions you have on the English to Greek exercises. I don’t know about the different answer keys or how accurate they are.

Ι hope you no longer feel as uncomfortable with ἡμᾶς ποιησάμενους—though, again, using a conditional clause is more precise and more regular. πρὸς αὐτούς (or αὐτοῖς in your version) is a different phenomenon, known as indirect reflexion. It refers back to the subject of the main clause (i.e., the subject of ἀδικήσουσιν), but not the subject of its own clause (ἡμᾶς). Some authors could write σφᾶς instead of αὐτούς (or σφίσι instead of αὐτοῖς) in this context, but both forms are grammatical. [For more detail than you’ll want, see this post— [http://discourse.textkit.com/t/plato-phaedrus-228a/17498/14) the articles referenced there.] Alternatively, and more idiomatically, πρὸς αὐτούς would just be omitted. The sense is clear without it. Classical Greek avoids redundant pronouns.

Goodwin in a fantastic resource, but probably best to wait until you have read more Greek.

8

Joel: The precise meaning of circumstantial ptcps (conditional, temporal, causal, etc.) is often clear from context, but not always. In some cases multiple meanings are possible and it is not necessary to pick one (except in the peculiar activity of producing a translation). For example:

σοῦ δ’ ἂν τὰ τοιαῦτα φλυαροῦντος ἐς ὀργήν τις ἂν κατασταίη.

As I mentioned, the addition of certain words can disambiguate circumstantial ptcps (μή usu. for conditional ptcp, ὡς/ἅτε/οἷα causal, καίπερ concessive, κτἑ.).

On your Xenophonic cento:

πόλλοι: πολλοὶ
Κῦρος τινὰ: Κῦρός τινα

In this new context, you might, but needn’t, change

ὅπερ ᾤετο ποιήσειν ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμα, ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα

to, e.g., ποιεῖν ἂν…ἔτι ἔχοντα

9

Thank you. I had edited the post to fix the πόλλοι before you posted, but would have left it if I had realized that someone had noticed before I got to it. That τινα is inexcusable.

That aside, some ambiguities are real language ambiguities, and matter for native speakers. I think it’s a fair question to look at cases where these are not made clear by surrounding adverbs, whether they seems to be treated as somewhat ambiguous by natives, or not.

σοῦ δ’ ἂν τὰ τοιαῦτα φλυαροῦντος ἐς ὀργήν τις ἂν κατασταίη.

Please knock it off.

10

some ambiguities are real language ambiguities, and matter for native speakers. I think it’s a fair question to look at cases where these are not made clear by surrounding adverbs, whether they seems to be treated as somewhat ambiguous by natives, or not.

It’s a good question and I’d be interested in a linguistically updated approach. Instead of focusing on cases without disambiguating words, I would begin with them, but from a diachronic perspective. To grossly simplify: I think you’ll find that the complex syntactical divisions we assign to the ptcp (conditional/ causal/concessive, general/specific, etc.) is basically foreign to early Greek, where the temporal use prevails. Epic poetry (including later Hellenistic epic, for the most part) does not use μή with ptcps. In the Classical period, these logical distinctions are clearly operative in some way—though, again, ambiguity is inherent—and the ptcp is increasingly used as a substitute for constructions with a finite verb. Already in Hdt you see the conditional ptcp used interchangeably with the conditional clause. Ancient literary critics like Dionysius talk about this. They contrast ambiguous, delaying, colorful uses of the ptcp—excessive cases decried as ἀσαφές, as in Dionysius’s criticism of Isaeus—with the simpler, more direct, finite verb. Things change in post-classical Greek, where (1) μή is increasingly fixed to the ptcp regardless of sense and (2) either analytical constructions such as εἰ/ἐάν + finite verb or parataxis are favored over circumstantial ptcps.

My notes are full of great quotes by Gildersleeve on participles, about which he wrote passionately. Here’s one:

“The participle adds color and sweep to description. The color sometimes becomes confusing, the sweep sometimes becomes a tangle, but an ametochic discourse would lack fluency, would lack light and shade.” (Problems in Greek Syntax, 11)

11

I tend to make a lot of errors, but:

εἰ ᾤετο ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμαν πολὺ στράτευμα ἔχειν, τοῦτο ἂν ἐποίησεν.

This sentence might have been what you were looking for though: “Cyrus thought that if Arbrocomas had a large army, he would have done this”

ὁ Κῦρος ᾥετο εἰ πολὺ στράτευμα ἔχοι ὁ Ἁβροκόμας, τοῦτο ἂν ποιῆσαι

Or negative

οὐκ ἂν ᾥετο ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμαν τοῦτο ποιῆσαι, μὴ ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα.

Interesting. I had been looking through Xenophon, looking for whether or not he tended to explicate the places where a non-adverb defended conditional participle was possible or not, and came up with the above. I will try to see if the pattern looks different in Herodotus.[/quote]

I’ve enjoyed what little I’ve read of Gildersleeve. In the other thread, there was a quote about his mention of recent attacks on Xenophon’s Attic, and I knew at least one of the class of papers that he was referring too, but couldn’t find it. The author had assembled a long list of non-Attic words and expressions in Xenophon, and had written an almost vitriolic essay about the damages of allowing boys to read him before second year. The classical journals from those decades tend to be a great deal of fun.

12

Joel,

This discussion has risen far above my level, but I’m still reading and picking up some tidbits that I may recall later.

I’m smiling that you rose to the challenge of my test sentence. But what I was looking for was a version using a participle. You can put it in the protasis, or you can put it in the apodosis. I feel sure that something like “Knowing that Abrocomas had a large army, Cyrus would have done this” is possible. And it would be acceptable as a translation, since it conveys the same meaning. But these exercises are aimed at a specific grammar construction: in this case a conditional, not a circumstantial, participle.

I think I may be one of those boys who started on Xenophon too early. It’s ruined my life , , ,

13

Joel: There’s no shame at all in making mistakes with Greek. I do it all the time. That’s how you improve. Κῦρος τινα is anything but “inexcusable”—it’s merely orthographic; barely worth mentioning.

I joined Textkit to help people with Greek as far I can and without judgement (though you might call this being a “narcissistic internet professor”). You’re of course free to not want help.

ὁ Κῦρος ᾥετο [—> ᾤετο] εἰ πολὺ στράτευμα ἔχοι ὁ Ἁβροκόμας, τοῦτο ἂν ποιῆσαι

One important syntactical point here. This is a conditional in indirect statement. If the direct version (what Cyrus thought) is

εἰ πολὺ στράτευμα εἶχεν ὁ Ἁβροκόμας, τοῦτο ἂν ἐποίησεν
“If A. had a large army, he would have done this”**

then the indirect version would almost always be:

ὁ Κῦρος ᾤετο εἰ πολὺ στράτευμα εἶχεν ὁ Ἁβροκόμας, τοῦτο ἂν ποιῆσαι.***

For a subordinate clause (like an εἰ-clause) within oratio obliqua, past indicatives regularly do not change to the optative. This avoids confusion with, e.g., potential conditionals (“future less vivid” in older jargon). In your version, the direct version could be understood as

εἰ πολὺ στράτευμα ἔχοι ὁ Ἁβροκόμας, τοῦτο ἂν ποιήσειε.

This is connected to a more general principle: imperfects and pluperfects are quite often retained in oratio obliqua, whether in a subordinate clause or not.

I’ll leave it to others if they want to find references in grammars.

οὐκ ἂν ᾤετο ὁ Κῦρος τὸν Ἀβροκόμαν τοῦτο ποιῆσαι, μὴ ἔχοντα πολὺ στράτευμα.

This is a good candidate for repeated ἄν (you could put it right before or after ποιῆσαι; or you could omit the first ἄν and keep it next to the inf).

On Xenophon, you might be thinking of the famous study by Tycho Mommsen on prepositions, in which he exposed to the world X.’s shocking use of σύν instead of μετά.

**Unless you mean the present (“if A. were to have…he would be doing”), in which case you’d use ἐποίει instead of the aor.

***You could also move Ἁβροκόμας before the conditional clause to be the acc subject of ποιῆσαι. In most cases, that is more regular.

14

No, no, I wasn’t accusing you of playing internet professor in the other thread, or even suggesting it. We really do have people who come in off the internet and play the sage from their Loebs or what not. It mostly happens on the Koine forum, and not often since registration was tightened.

I would hope though, that you view this place as a discussion board, with give and take. Otherwise, it might really come across as narcissism.

And I appreciate the correction. I was thinking εἰ ἔχει / ἂν ἐποίησεν. It’s one of those – frequent – cases where I know the rule, but I flub it in expression.

Also no, it wasn’t the Mommsen study, which is famous, and German. The article I’m thinking of was English, and not at all statistical. The author was partly using it to show off his sensitivity to non-Attic usage and foreign words, and disguising it as an argument about not using Xenophon to teach Greek. I’ll have to find it, as it’s really exactly the sort of thing that Gildersleeve was talking about. It was years ago, but I recall something about “his foreign expressions not being limited to παράδεισος and παρασάγγης.”

15

in this case a conditional, not a circumstantial, participle.

Zembel: I apologize for not being clearer in my initial post. Conditionals are a type of circumstantial participle.

Circumstantial participles can generally be sub-divided into different (potentially overlapping) types: temporal participles, causal, conditional, concessive, final, and others. A few examples of circumstantial ptcps:

(1) Temporal
ἀφικόμενος ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος πολεμῆσαι.

Having arrived, he tried to persuade the people to go to war.
After he arrived, he tried to persuade… [temporal]

The addition of a word like ἅμα or εὐθύς would make the participle clearly temporal: ἅμα ἀφικόμενος ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος πολεμῆσαι (As soon as he arrived, he tried…)

(2) Causal
πολλά τε καὶ κακὰ παθὼν ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος σπονδὰς ποιήσασθαι.

Having suffered many terrible things, he tried to convince the people to make a truce.
Since/because he had suffered many terrible things, he tried… [causal]

The addition of a word like ὡς, ἅτε, or οἷα would make the ptcp clearly causal: οἷα πολλά τε καὶ κακὰ παθὼν ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος σπονδὰς ποιήσασθαι.

(3) The last sentence could also be understood as concessive.

πολλά τε καὶ κακὰ παθὼν ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος σπονδὰς ποιήσασθαι.

Having suffered many terrible things, he tried to convince the people to make a truce.
Although he had suffered many terrible things… [concessive]

The addition of a word like καίπερ makes the ptcp clearly concessive:
καίπερ πολλά τε καὶ κακὰ παθὼν ἔπειθε τὸ πλῆθος σπονδὰς ποιήσασθαι

(4) Conditional

πολλά τε καὶ κακὰ πάσχων ἐθελήσεις πολεμῆσαι.

Suffering many and terrible things, you will be willing to go to war.
If you suffer many terrible things… [conditional]

Most of these could be understood in multiple ways. Context usually makes it clear.

Those are circumstantial ptcps. There are also non-circumstantial ptcps, like attributive ptcps or supplementary ptcps. Your book will introduce these too. They are very common.

I hope that’s a little clearer.

16

Phalakros,

That’s useful and thanks for the detailed picture. I see that the circumstantial participle can be used in a lot of ways, and can be variously classified depending on the interpretation in context.

Ah, but what is “ametochic discourse” in the quote from Gildersleeve? It won’t replace schetliastic prompemptikon at the top of my hit parade of impenetrable locutions, but it would be up there.

Zembel

17

Work it out yourself, Zem. Your question was off topic anyway.

Gildersleeve paens participles. He says that amethochic discourse would be flat. That would be discourse that’s not metochic, right? So, how do you say “participle” in Greek?

18

A participle is a μετοχη. Literally a “sharing”, or a “participation”. μετοχικος would make that into an adjective. You’d use it to describe something that is participle-y, like the Greek language. α- before the word means “not”. So “not participle-y.” Like Japanese.