In the protasis which begins the sentence within the bracket, there are two genitive absolutes, the second enclosing a μη-negative, also genitive. I have been trying to find an authority which states that while a negative in an ει-clause is always, or nearly always, μη, the negative of a genitive absolute is usually ου; to no avail. Does anyone share my opinion that the negative in this case is μη because it is embedded within a genitive absolute, itself embedded within the protasis of the sentence? Help!
Why don’t you quote the actual text so we can have a look?
Smyth 2728:
The participle has οὐ when it states a fact, μή when it states a condition. . . .
the negative in this case is μη because it is . . . embedded within the protasis of the sentence
I think this is correct. The genitive absolute is an integral part of the hypothetical conditions on which the conditional sentence is based. But I think it’s not so much the syntactic “embedding” as the semantic conditionality of the genitive absolute that led to the choice of μή as the negative. Does that make sense?
It would be helpful to reproduce the passage at issue in a question like this, which can easily be done from the Perseus Greek and Latin Materials site.
εἰ μὲν γὰρ λόγων εἰρημένων ἔργου δὲ μηδενὸς γεγενημένου μετελθεῖν ἐκέλευον ἐκεῖνον, ἠδίκουν ἄν: εἰ δὲ ἤδη πάντων διαπεπραγμένων καὶ πολλάκις εἰσεληλυθότος εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τὴν ἐμὴν ᾡτινιοῦν τρόπῳ ἐλάμβανον αὐτόν, σωφρονεῖν ἂν1 ἐμαυτὸν ἡγούμην
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman
Thanks Hylander for your reply and I take your point, as Barry Hofstetter’s, about quoting text. My long-standing difficulty is always to try to “prove” answers to problems by reference to Smyth, Goodwin, etc, and in this case neither authority seems to have an overt description of the syntax of one or more genitives absolute within an ει clause with a main verb. That’s life I suppose. Again, many thanks.
I wouldn’t exactly call this a “difficulty.” The grammars may only be the beginning of wisdom, but they do really help sometimes… 