I’m having trouble getting my head around the different kinds of relative/interrogative adjectives. Can anyone explain for me, using simple sample phrases/sentences, the difference between οσος, ποσος and οποσος?
Thanks!
πόσος interrogative, “how big?" πόσον τοῦτο; “How big is this?” In plural, “how many?”
ὅποσος indirect: οἶδα ὅποσόν ἐστιν “I know how big it is.”
ὅσος “as big as”, correlative with τόσος or τοσοῦτος: ἐγὼ τοσοῦτός εἰμι ὅσος σύ “I’m as big as you.”
Also exclamatory: ὅσος εἶ “How big you are!”
Compare ποῖος, ὁποῖος, οἷος, which might be easier to get a handle on, since they denote quality rather than quantity.
Thanks that’s a start. I’m really struggling with chapter 50 Relative Clauses of CGCG, probably because my knowledge of English grammar is poor when it comes to terminology like definite vs. indefinite pronouns/adjectives, relative clauses, correlative clauses, etc.
Some comments and more questions below:
πόσος interrogative, “how big?" πόσον τοῦτο; “How big is this?” In plural, “how many?”
OK that I understand, but I assume the sentence could also mean “How great is this?” or “How much is this?” depending on the context?
Also, section 8.1 of CGCG says πόσον can either be used as (1) a direct interrogative (as above, right?) or (2) an indirect interrogative (would that for example be in an indirect question? Can you give me a simple example of a sentence that uses πόσον that way?) or (3) as an indefinite relative adjective (again, a simple example would be helpful).
ὅποσος indirect: οἶδα ὅποσόν ἐστιν “I know how big it is.”
OK so ὅποσόν is ACC because it’s the direct object of οἶδα, correct? But why is this usage of ὅποσος described as being indirect? Does it have something to do with how ὅποσος is associated with ἐστιν? I can’t quite get my head around this direct/indirect terminology.
ὅσος “as big as”, correlative with τόσος or τοσοῦτος: ἐγὼ τοσοῦτος εἰμὶ ὅσος σύ “I’m as big as you.”
OK I haven’t gotten as far as sec. 50.27 (correlative clauses) yet in CGCG but looking ahead I think I can understand your example. Would a more literal translation of this sentence be “I am as much big as you” with the italics representing τοσοῦτος and ὅσος?
Also exclamatory: ὅσος εἶ “How big you are!”
So as I understand it ὅσος can mean:
as big as
as great as
as much as
so big as
so great as
so much as
how big
how great
how much
and in the plural οσοι it can mean:
as many as
so many as
how many
Is that right? Or are there more possibilities? Yikes!
Yes to most of that. An interrogative is a question. The direct question forms (πόσος, ποῖος, τί, ποῦ, πότε, πῶς, etc.) can also be used in indirect questions as an alternative to the indirect forms (ὁπόσος, ὅτι, etc.). E.g. “I know how many are speaking” οἶδα πόσοι (instead of ὁπόσοι) λέγουσιν.
A typical example of the use of ὅσος is the one I gave you earlier: ἅπαντα ὅσα σοι λέγω ἁληθῆ ἐστί, “Everything I’m telling you is true” (lit. All things as many as I’m telling …). There ἅπαντα is nominative (subject of sentence), ὅσα is accusative (object of λέγω).
Greek grammar certainly can be confusing and complicated. So can English grammar. Perhaps I am wrong (if so, please correct me), but I have the impression that you haven’t actually studied Greek as a language, or that you actually read Greek—you just have been dipping into the reference grammar you mentioned to read about topics that interest you.
There’s nothing wrong with that per se. However, if you haven’t actually begun studying Greek, your progress in understanding the grammar will be much slower. Especially once you are able to read Greek at a basic or intermediate level, your understanding of grammar will improve by seeing usage in real contexts.
Naturally, even if you have started the Greek learning journey, there will be questions which a reference grammar can shed light on. And of course, the good people here at Textkit are glad to assist you as well.
All the best,
Persequor
@persequor - No that’s not correct.
@mwh - Thanks. It makes sense that the direct interrogative adjectives can also be used indirectly, and CGCG covers this in sec. 42.5 on indirect specifying questions.
But I’m still trying to get my head around the basic principles of agreement for relative clauses; CGCG sec. 50.8 says “The relative pronoun and relative adjectives agree in gender and number with their antecedent but their case is determined by the syntactic function of the relative clause.”
So thinking out loud, in the example you gave me:
ἅπαντα ὅσα σοι λέγω ἁληθῆ ἐστί
ἅπαντα is nominative because it’s the subject of the matrix clause ἅπαντα ἁληθῆ ἐστί (“Everything is true”)
And you say ὅσα is accusative because it’s the object of λέγω in the sentence, and that makes sense to me within the subordinate clause σοι λέγω. But CGCG identifies ὅσος as a definite relative adjective, and as an adjective it must be modifying a head (pro)noun somewhere, or more precisely the relative clause ὅσα σοι λέγω must be modifying a head (pro)noun somewhere. And that head (pro)noun in this case must be the collective pronoun ἅπαντα, right? But if ὅσα σοι λέγω adjectively modifies ἅπαντα, shouldn’t the adjective have the same case (i.e. nominative) as the head (pro)noun?
Like, it makes sense to me that ὅσα must be accusative in your sentence because it’s the object of the verb λέγω. But it also seems to make sense to me that ὅσα should be nominative since it marks a subordinate clause that attributively modifies the head (pro)noun ἅπαντα which itself is nominative.
And hey, wait a minute: doesn’t ὅσα morphologically represent both the nom. sg. neut. and the acc. sg. neut. of the relative adjective ὅσος, η, ον? And since the syntactic function of the relative clause here is to adjectively modify ἅπαντα, doesn’t that mean ὅσα must be nom. sg. neut. instead of acc. sg. neut.?
Where am I getting mixed up here? Argh…
ὅσα is nom./acc. plural neut.!
Remember that a neuter plural (in this case, ἅπαντα) regularly takes a singular verb in Greek.
Mitch, Look again at οἶδα ὁπόσοι λέγουσιν (“I know how many are speaking”): ὁπόσοι nominative, the subject of the verb of the relative clause. And as for ὅσα in ὅσα σοι λέγω, adjectives don’t have to have an explicit noun or pronoun to agree with: e.g. κακός εἰμι “I’m bad.”
@Paul - Oh yes sorry I meant plural.
@mhw - OK good point.
Maybe I’m getting myself unnecessarily confused about all this. Because when I read this sentence from X. An. 1.1.2:
ὁ μὲν οὖν πρεσβύτερος παρὼν ἐτύγχανε: Κῦρον δὲ μεταπέμπεται ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς > ἧς > αὐτὸν σατράπην ἐποίησε, καὶ στρατηγὸν δὲ αὐτὸν ἀπέδειξε πάντων > ὅσοι > ἐς Καστωλοῦ πεδίον ἁθροίζονται.
I get that the text is saying something like “Now the elder son happened to already be present, but Cyrus he summoned from the province where [of which] he had made him governor and had also appointed him as head of all the forces [all those who] mustered in the plain of Kastolos.”
And when I read this sentence from 1.1.6:
ὁπόσας > εἶχε φυλακὰς ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι παρήγγειλε τοῖς φρουράρχοις ἑκάστοις λαμβάνειν ἄνδρας Πελοποννησίους ὅτι πλείστους καὶ βελτίστους, ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοντος Τισσαφέρνους ταῖς πόλεσι.
I get that it says something like “To any [however many] of the garrisons he had in the cities, he passed on word to their commanders telling each of them to get hold of the best Peloponnesian men they could, warning them that Tissaphernes was plotting against their cities.”
In other words, I think I can usually get the sense of how these relative pronouns/adjectives work. I just get hung up sometimes when it comes to things like agreement and with some of the syntactic terminology in CGCG.
Anyways, I think the solution for me is probably simple: just read lots more Greek. Once I’ve gotten through Book 1 of Anabasis and have a few dozen relative clauses under my belt, the explanations about relative clauses in chapter 50 of CGCG will probably just magically make sense 
OK let me give this one more try:
From X. An. 1.1.8:
καὶ γὰρ ὁ Κῦρος ἀπέπεμπε τοὺς γιγνομένους δασμοὺς βασιλεῖ ἐκ τῶν πόλεων > ὧν > Τισσαφέρνους ἐτύγχανεν ἔχων.
My reading here is that the definite relative pronoun ὧν in this sentence is in the genitive case because this is a case of relative attraction occuring since (a) the relative clause is restrictive because it identifies the cities as ones which formerly belonged to Tissaphernes but which Cyrus now happens to have control of; (b) the accusative case would be expected here since the relative pronoun represents the direct object in the relative clause i.e. as an independent sentence the subordinate clause would be something like ἐτύγχανεν ἔχων τας πολεις Τισσαφέρνους [sorry haven’t figured out yet how to type Greek with accents so mostly using copy/paste]; and (c) the antecedent τῶν πόλεων is either in the genitive or dative case (here it’s in the genitive).
Since these three conditions apply, this is an example of relative attraction happening, which means the usual rules of agreement for relative clauses (i.e. case of relative pronoun is determined by its syntactic function within the relative clause) don’t apply. Instead, the relative pronoun takes on the same case as it’s antecedent (ὧν has same case as τῶν πόλεων).
Did I get it right?
Yes Mitch it looks as if you’ve got it. It’s so common you can hardly say the accusative would be “expected.” There’s a similar instance at Lysias 12.82 discussed here just today.
Yay, thanks!