Οὐκ + enclitic forms of εἰμί

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hi,

I’m a bit confused by what happens when the proclitic οὐκ is followed by the enclitic forms of εἰμί.

The English Athenaze has (p. 333 in the 3rd edition)

οὐκ εἰμί
οὐκ ἔστι(ν)
οὐκ ἐσμέν
οὐκ ἐστέ
οὐκ εἰσί(ν)

The Italian edition only explicitly comments on οὐκ ἔστι(ν) (p. 439) but I’ve come across e.g. οὔκ εἰμι in Chapter II (p. 20).

I’ve also checked Probert’s Guide to Accentuation but I’m still unsure.

She says (§282) that she follows Hermann’s rule, which dictates οὐκ ἔστιν (so all three sources agrees on this), but doesn’t seem to explicitly mention the other cases. Based on what she says later in §296, I would have to conclude that she seems to suggest οὔκ εἰμι (as in the Italian edition) and similarly for all the other enclitic forms (οὔκ ἐσμεν, οὔκ ἐστε, οὔκ εἰσι(ν)), unlike what is given in the English edition of Athenaze.

Can anyone perhaps shed some light on this?

Many thanks.

Cristiano

2

According to the ancient grammarians (primarily Herodian) ἐστι is orthotone (ἔστι) when it’s initial and also after οὐκ.
Hermann, on little or no authority, introduced a semantic differentiation between enclitic ἐστι as simple copula and orthotone ἔστι denoting existence or possibility. This seems to have become modern dogma.
And εἰμί etc. are traditionally oxytone (cf. φημί etc.) except for 3 sing., which is normally treated as enclitic (except when initial or after οὐκ and one or two other prepositives).
Some of this makes linguistic sense but not all, and the textbooks are full of inconsistencies. It’s a quagmire.

3

Many thanks. I think I’ll stick with the Italian Athenaze approach for now. I think it’s important for a beginner like me to have a model although things are actually messy in reality.

Cristiano