I am supposed to write in Greek, “This year is the beginning of a long and difficult war.”
I wrote, “τούτο τὸ ἔτος ἡ ἀρχή ἐστί μακροῦ καὶ χαλεποῦ πολέμου.”
I am not sure if ἀρχή should be in the nominative or accusative, since is it linked by a be verb.
Is it a predicate nominative?
If you think more carefully about the question you ask you will be able to answer it yourself. How could it be an accusative with ἐστί?
Also check the accents.
Is this correct: τοῆτο τὸ ἔτος ἡ ἀρχή ἐστι μακροῦ καὶ χαλεποῦ πολέμου.
A trickier question: should ἡ ἀρχή have the article or not?
τοῦτο
Since it is “the beginning” I would think so; however, I am just a beginner. My ears are open.
"This year is the beginning of a long and difficult war.”
“This year” is the subject, “(is) the beginning” is the predicate. You may not have covered this yet, but in Greek predicates normally go without the article. So you’d do better to cancel ἡ.
Ah. Is that what they call a predicate nominative?
I should think that the rule is more like ‘in Greek (definite nominal) predicates that precede the verb go without the article’. If the predicate were after the verb we would expect an article (all other factors unconsidered). No?
[*] 1150. A predicate noun has no article, and is thus distinguished from the subject: καλεῖται ἡ ἀκρόπολις ἔτι ὑπ᾽ Ἀθηναίων πόλις the acropolis is still called ‘city’ by the Athenians T. 2.15.
Hence why I specified definite predicate noun. Check out Smyth 1152 for an introductory discussion.
But I confess to not being totally sure whether this is such a case, which is why I solicited mwh’s opinion.
Yes that’s it. Remember the verb to be can’t have an object, only what grammarians call a predicate (whether noun or adjective).
“X is Y”, “X is called Y”, “X seems to be Y”, “X can’t become Y". In all such cases Y will be nominative, in agreement with X.
Predicates can be in other cases too, for X is not always nominative. “She wanted the white roses to be red.” “She painted the white roses red.” “red” will be accusative, agreeing with “the white roses”, the object.
It’s “predicative” as distinct from “attributive” (“She painted the white roses”).
[@Callisper. I don’t know what’s gained by “definite nominal” (if it were indefinite of course it wouldn’t have the article, and it doesn’t apply only to nouns). And I don’t think its position relative to the verb is determinative; you may know more about that than I do. For present purposes I thought it enough to say “normally"; bedwere’s Smyth quote is far from absolute, but I see no reason to use the article here.]