I mean a relative clause that does not include any finite verb. I understand that it is a matter of terminology, whether or not one can call a certain type of construction “clause” (in particular, “relative clause”), and this is what my question is about. I am asking it since the answers in the negative that I received here seem to be dissonant with the following statement found in Wiki: “Relative clauses may be either finite clauses…or non-finite clauses. An example of a non-finite relative clause in English is the infinitive clause on whom to rely, in the sentence “She is the person on whom to rely”.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Finite_and_non-finite
I understand that the particular example in this citation may not have analogues in Greek. But are there any constructions at all in Greek to which the term “non-finite relative clause,” as defined above, can be validly applied? Or is it applicable only to constructions in modern languages?
You could count introductory clauses like “ὅ δὲ πάντων δεινότατον,” I suppose. Or you could say that ἔστι has dropped out there, but is still intended. And it almost seems wrong to take apart something like “ἐμίσει τοὺς οἷος οὖτος ἀνθρώπους,” and call the very short thing in the middle a finite relative clause with ἔστι implied. And there is still my example from the last thread.
On the other hand, you could do the some sort of thing with the English “non-finite relative clauses” from your link. “She is the person on whom to rely” really expresses “She is the person on whom it is best or correct for someone or other or us or maybe people in general to rely.”
What about the examples below, in which the verbal form is not omitted but is just not finite? They seem to have analogues in Greek. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
“The man sitting on the sofa over there is Simon’s brother. (The man who is sitting …)
Don’t forget to fill in the form attached to the letter. (… which is attached to the letter.)”
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/about-words-clauses-and-sentences/clauses-finite-and-non-finite
I’m sorry, I don’t understand precisely what is your question about these English examples.
In all your examples, if I understand them correctly, finite verbs are omitted but implied. In the examples that I have just cited, finite verbs are not even implied, but non-finite verb forms (“sitting”, “attached”) are used instead. I am asking whether there are analogues to this in Greek and, if there are, whether they can be validly considered relative clauses (as are their analogues in English).
In Greek, the English relative clause from the first sentence “sitting on the sofa over there” would be expressed with a participle. Something like “καθίζων ἐπὶ τῇ κλίνῃ ἐκεῖ.” But I don’t think this would be called a “relative clause” in Greek. The second sentence would be something like “τὸ γραμματεῖον τὸ τῇ ἐπιστολῇ προσηρτημένον.” Again, not a “relative clause” in Greek.
(No doubt I’ve flubbed the above translations to Greek.)
EDIT: I’m told that I did flub the first sentence, which needs an article. And further that there is an example of almost this very phrase with an actual Greek relative clause in Sappho 31:
φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν᾽ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει
Thanks a lot! This does answer my question, to the effect that the notion of “relative clause” has a wider sense when applied to English (and, perhaps, other modern languages) than it does when applied to Ancient Greek.
Of course, I would love to know why there is such a difference, given that the indicated notion is a general linguistic one, but perhaps this would be asking too much…
A “general linguistic” concept? “Relative clause,” looking at Google books, is a term invented for the study of the Latin/Greek, and only came into English by analogy. Once it made its way into the English grammars, the phrase came unloosed from the original analogy over a period of decades, as one might except. But no, there is no general linguistic theory from which all this proceeds.
Do you mean, invented by the Renaissance scholars? Very interesting. Yet, regardless of the term’s origin, I was assuming that today it is part of general linguistic nomenclature. Am I mistaken in this? The first link given me by Google is “RELATIVE CLAUSES” By Mark de Vries © Oxford University Press
It begins: “Relative clauses are subordinate clausal modifiers. Semantically, they contain a variable
that is somehow related to the anchoring phrase (usually a so-called head noun). Across
and within different languages, we find a host of different construction types falling
under the general label of relative clause.” (my emphasis)
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6934/5e25b4944497528bd31c3e340805c6267a48.pdf
Late 1700s, from Google Books. But there may well be a Latin term that I didn’t search for. From your link:
If only for this reason, relative clauses have received ample attention in the descriptive as well as generative linguistic literature, especially since the 1960s
That tracks with when I’m able to see the first reference to “non-finite relative clauses.” It’s a post-1960s thing.
The Greek grammar that everyone in the English world uses is the 1920 Smyth. So if you want to understand what Smyth means by “relative clause,” Mark de Vries will not tell you very much. If you try to mix and match like this, you’ll go very far wrong, as in the other thread.
Thanks, this helps! (I’m not “trying” to mix; on the contrary, I’m trying separate what got mixed, as my mind is since long not a tabula rasa, and some concepts are just sitting on the back of it.)
p.s. In this case, what got mixed is the modern notion of “clause” that I had imbibed in time immemorial and Dickey’s notion of a unit with one verb form in it, into which units she suggests to analyze sentences (Dickey, 59).