The heart of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is Book Z. It begins:
[1028α] [10]
τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχῶς, καθάπερ διειλόμεθα πρότερον ἐν τοῖς περὶ τοῦ ποσαχῶς: σημαίνει γὰρ τὸ μὲν τί ἐστι καὶ τόδε τι, τὸ δὲ ποιὸν ἢ ποσὸν ἢ τῶν ἄλλων ἕκαστον τῶν οὕτω κατηγορουμένων.
Let’s imagine ourselves being superfluent in Attic and English but having no knowledge of Aristotle and perhaps only a minimal knowledge of philosophy. Let’s then imagine we are tasked with giving a hyper-literal translation of this. We do not care about how clunky our translation is nor how readable it is. Rather our task is to get as close to a word for word translation as possible. Perhaps we are considering undertaking an interlinear version of Book Z. n.b., readability for the purposes of this exercise is not a virtue but a vice! What word(s) are we to use to translate the bolded bits? Why? What does καὶ mean here and what is its function? Assuming we can drop out the part in the middle, how should we translate the underlined part? i.e., τὸ ὂν … σημαίνει γὰρ τὸ μὲν τί ἐστι καὶ τόδε τι
I assume that the bolded bits are indefinite pronouns and not interrogative pronouns. Things quickly fall apart after that. I don’t like any of the translations I’ve seen and I cannot tell it if is because of the translators’ views on Attic, English, Aristotle, philosophy, translation, readability or whatever.