ὀνομάτων γὰρ συμπλοκὴν εἶναι λόγου οὐσίαν. (Plato, Theaetetus, 202b6)
I know all the words in this sentence and can probably guess the intended meaning (something like “For the combination of names is the essence of λόγος”).
If I were to rephrase it (changing the infinitive into ἐστίν) as ὀνομάτων γὰρ συμπλοκὴ ἐστί λόγου οὐσία, it would all make sense, but how should I understand the accustive + infinitive construction here? I have seen such a construction in the case of indirect speech, but what is going on here?
Or perhaps does the sentence mean something different from what I think it means?
I had my OCT open to Kratylus when I saw this on my feed reader, so I skipped ahead and took a look. It helps to start from 202d8, where Socrates starts talking. He seems to be relating a dream he had heard of about τα πρωτα στοιχεια. It begins with οτι and finite verbs, but shifts into infinitives and accusatives after the ειη ονομασαι on e3, though with plenty governed by the various δειν and δυνατον constructions. The one you’re talking about is just plain indirect speech from the dream relaters, it looks like.
But there’s a lot of things talking here, about the origin of language, it looks like, and without reading the rest of the dialogue, I may be misunderstanding some things.
But isn’t that a later passage than the one I was asking? Or do you mean to say that the later passage clarifies the context for the earlier one?
Sorry, typo. 201d8 is where he starts talking. Ἄκουε δὴ ὄναρ…