He asked whether they could safely remain in the villages.
ἠρώτησεν εἰ μένοιεν ἄν ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κώμαις.
I am wondering if εἰ and ἄν are ever used separately this way.
indirect question + potential optative … oh my!
Have you read this?
Have you read this?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=64823
Yes.
I even downloaded a copy. It’s a nice piece of work.
εἰ + opt.
εἰ εἴποιμι / λέγοιμι = If I were to say (= If I said, followed by main clause with “would”)
(Aor. or pres. according to aspect.)
Is that the the answer? My example isn’t a conditional. And the same would apply in this part:
- What happens to if-clauses (and this applies to any subordinate clause):
Same as with ὅτι/ὡς, i.e. no change is necessary, but in secondary/historic/past sequence the verb is liable to become optative—in which case any ἄν is lost, i.e. ἐάν+subj. becomes εἰ+opt. (Subj.+ἄν is an indefinite clause; if it loses the subjunctive it loses the ἄν along with it.)
Maybe this thread is more helpful: http://discourse.textkit.com/t/english-to-greek/17516/1
I thought that Michael’s thread covered indirect questions.
Edit I think you need to think more about what the direct question is here.
This sort of ἄν + opt. happens often enough in Attic. See Kühner II.1.396.5 for a bunch of examples. He says:
Insbesondere eignete sich der urbane Ton der Attiker diese Ausdrucksweise zu dem Zwecke an, dem Vortrage fest begründeter und bestimmter Urteile oder sicherer Thatsachen die Farbe des Zweifels und der Unentschiedenheit zu geben…Der mit ἄν verbundene Optativ in Fragesätzen drückt dasselbe Verhältnis aus, welches er ausser der Frage bezeichnet.
It’s their “urbane Ton” giving “die Farbe des Zweifels und der Unentschiedenheit” to the expression. Questions are the same way. If this were the result of an ἄν associated with the conditional itself transformed into an optative in a past indirect question, the ἄν would have gone away. It stays because it is “ausser der Frage.”
(I glanced through Seneca’s links, but I can’t see why they are relevant. Maybe he could quote the specific section he is thinking of.)
The direct question would be “Can they stay safely.” The “can” is used in both English and Russian (which I know well enough to vouch for) although of course there’s nothing here about the subject’s being capable of performing the action or managing to perform it, as there is in ἢν δύνηται, βασιλεύσει ἀντ’ ἐκείνου.
Perhaps for Greek this should be something like “Will they stay safely.”
Your question is an either or. In the same way that Slimsne’s was in the thread I linked to. If you have the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek you could look at 38.4 and 42.1-8. If you dont have it I recommend it.
Surely the direct question would be ‘Can we stay safely?’ 'Can ‘they stay safely?’ as the direct question would require a pronoun in the accusative.
As I see it, if there is no need for an av in the direct question: ‘Can we stay safely?’, there is no need for an av in the reported question either. However, I stand to be corrected.
X. An. 4.8.7: ἠρώτων ἐκεῖνοι εἰ δοῖεν ἂν τούτων τὰ πιστά.
They [οἱ Μάκρωνες] were asking if they [οἱ Ἕλληνες] could (~please) give pledges regarding this.
But see my reference above for other examples.
Fair enough, Joel.
Surely the direct question would be ‘Can we stay safely?’
Right, Wilberfloss, it was careless of me to confuse this.
However, I don’t see any “Farbe des Zweifels und der Unentschiedenheit” here. I don’t see any way to read this as “can we (~please) remain safely.” (Bitte, dürfen wir . . .)
In my mind the question obviously means “Is it possible for us to remain safely?” English and Russian have a way of putting that as: “Can we remain safely?” and “Можем ли мы безопасно оставатся?”
I stumbled across this too:
erit igitur nobis coram odorandum et constituendum tutone Romae esse possimus.
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&getid=0&query=Cic.%20Att.%2015.3
My question is simple, although I guess not as simple as I thought. This is a grammar exercise; I am not trying to compose classical Greek phrases for an imaginary conversation.
It seems to come down to two points:
1. Can this be expressed in Greek using a potential optative?
I am looking at CGCG §34.13(21): πρὸς βίαν δ’ οὐκ ἂν λάβοις. (Soph. Phil. 103)
Another example: σμικροῖσι μὲν γὰρ μεγάλα πῶς ἕλοι τις ἄν; (Eur. Ores. 694)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0116%3Acard%3D682
2. If a potential optative can be used, what happens when it goes into an indirect question? Would the εἰ and ἄν become ἐάν?
I’ve been looking at Smyth sections 1824-1834 (Potential Optative) and sections 2663-2674 (Indirect Questions) and based on what I’ve read, my interpretation would be that since the speaker is not expressing an opinion on the safety of staying but rather is asking a question, then I’m not sure how a potential optative would work here. One can certainly use the optative without ἄν, as the verb in the main clause is in a secondary tense, but I don’t know if that would get across the idea of possibility/impossibility. In view of 1824.b, perhaps a different construction is called for, such as:
ἠρώτησεν εἰ δύναιτο ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κώμαις μένειν.
I pretty much am (and probably always will be)a beginner myself, so this is just my tuppence.
Aetos, you may have hit the nail on the head. This sentence comes from an exercise in White’s First Greek Book, and the chapter where it appears is before the chapter where δύναμαι is introduced. Being a good student (class of 1896) includes figuring out what the teacher wants in the exercise, so I thought it had to be some other way. But every teacher slips up, even one as old as JWW.
Researching on this board, I see that Koala tried this back in 2004:
ἠρώτα εἰ οἱοὶ τ’ ὦσιν ἀσφαλῶς μενεῖν ἐν ταῖς κώμαις
And Skylax commented:
« could remain » : I would not use a subjunctive here (there is no deliberation), but rather ἄν with a potential optative, so εἰ οἷοί τ’ ἂν εἶεν. – For ἐρωτῶ εἰ ἄν and the optative, see for example Anabasis, 4, 8, 7)
The example Sklylax refers to is the same Joel quoted earlier in this discussion: ἠρώτων ἐκεῖνοι εἰ δοῖεν ἂν τούτων τὰ πιστά. Only Joel wants to make the optative a marker of polite request.
I checked my notes for the Anabasis, which I happen to be reading right now and probably would have gotten to this sometime next week (I’m at 4.3.10)!
The direct question for this sentence would have been δοίητε ἄν (would you give). The question here, I think is a little different. They’re not sitting around the campfire asking “Could we safely remain here?” or “Would we safely remain here?”. I think the question here is as you indicated, Zembel, “Can we safely remain here?” or “Is it possible to safely remain here?”, so could that not be rendered as δύναται ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κόμαις μένειν;? If this is then turned into a indirect question, we could have ἐρωτᾷ εἰ δύναται ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κόμαις μένειν for a primary tense example or in secondary tenses ἠρώτησεν εἰ δύναιτο …μένειν. If we make the question “Could we safely remain here?”, then the direct question would be phrased δύναιτο ἄν ἀσφαλῶς … μένειν; using the potential optative and as an indirect question then: ἐρωτᾷ εἰ δύναιτο ἄν ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κόμαις μένειν, where the ἄν is retained, or with a secondary tense: ἠρώτησεν εἰ δύναιτο ἄν ἀσφαλῶς ἐν ταῖς κόμαις μένειν.
As Seneca suggested, it’s a matter of determining what the direct question really is. If the original sentence was English to be translated into Greek, I’d go with “can we safely remain…”. If it was Greek to English, then we know the direct question was “could/would we safely remain here?”
δοίητε ἄν - White does put that in his note, but Kühner doesn’t take it that way, the ἄν would normally go away in the change of mood for historical reported speech (are there ever exceptions to this?), and it sure looks like a request in context. But what do I know?
As for how best to translate the English Zembel gave, his version isn’t what I’d expect, but I was answering his original question, “does this ever happen in Greek?”
Well, I did misunderstood what was being claimed here. The LSJ has:
with OPT. and ἄν when this was the form of the direct question, ἠρώτων εἰ δοῖεν ἂν τούτων τὰ πιστά they asked whether they would give (direct δοιήτε ἄν;), X.An.4.8.7.
(Accent error in the UChicago LSJ, but I haven’t checked elsewhere.)
Harmonizing with Kühner, I think that this is saying that the question itself is δοίητε (deliberative subj., which needs no ἄν), and the ἄν was “ausser der Frage”. So “will you be giving pledges” + our special politeness uncertainty word. I don’t see that it wasn’t possibly the optative + ἄν in the direct question, which would have been stated the same way in the indirect question, but I’m not competent to judge between the precise shades of meaning there.
What does the ἄν do to the simple deliberative direct question δοίητε? Well, it clearly made it polite. And from the context, it sure looks like it was taken as a request.
Not having read this whole thread, here are a few notes:
Potential optative is fine in an indirect question. εἰ…ἂν wouldn’t become ἐάν. Nothing special happens to a potential opt (usu with ἄν in Attic prose) when put in indirect discourse.
Or you could use ἤρετο εἰ δύναιντο (oblique opt)… Perhaps better; it depends on the context.
The LSJ quote isn’t talking about a deliberative subjunctive + ἄν. What form is δοίητε/δοῖτε? And you press too hard on ἄν as a “politeness” word. It does have this nuance in certain contexts, but ἄν is capable of much more.
Well, nobody seemed to like “die Farbe des Zweifels und der Unentschiedenheit zu geben.” In Anabasis 4.8.7., a tiny tribe treating with a large army on its border that it would like to keep on friendly terms, it seems proper to emphasize the politeness function in the question.
And thank you for pointing out δοίητε as an alternate for δοῖτε rather than the subjunctive. I been racking my brain for why White/LSJ wanted a subjunctive in the direct question. I always easily confuse myself with forms of δίδωμι, I’m afraid.
Yes, it could be used for softening/politeness in the Xen passage (as it often does for requests or questions). I meant that it doesn’t always have such a nuance, as in the OP’s question (or cases that have come up in other threads, if I remember correctly).