word order of ἐκ τοῦ λέοντα ἔχειν ὑποχείριον καὶ χειροήθη;

Greek Learning Greek
1

This is a fork from the preposition/case questions as the preposition is giving me no problem nor for matter the genitive (thanks to all of you who replied) but the word order.

I would have expected a word order like Τί γὰρ ὄφελος ἐκ τοῦ ἔχειν λέοντα ὑποχείριον καὶ χειροήθη;

At first it didn’t bother me explaining it as a hyperbaton. Now I’m not so sure and maybe the order Chrysostomus uses is the neutral form and that λέοντα is attribute of τοῦ ἔχειν (and hence bracketed by those two words) while ὑποχείριον καὶ χειροήθη are predicates of λέοντα.
And if there is a hyperbaton involved, what word is being stressed?

In short the more I look at it the possibilities just grow.

xenophon Anabasis 1.5.2 εἰ δέ τι καὶ ἄλλο + μὲν δὲ
2

daivid, It’s not so much that λεοντα is bracketed by του and εχειν, more that the object of εχειν (namely λεοντα) precedes the verb that governs it (εχειν). Objects often precede their verbs, as you know. You could have a sentence λεοντα εχω ὑποχείριον καὶ χειροήθη, and the word order is no different once the verb becomes infinitive in an articular infinitive construction. It’s the most “neutral” word order possible. It gives λεοντα more salience than εχω/εχειν, which slips into the least prominent position in the phrase, i.e. after λεοντα and ahead of the predicative adjectives.

But it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference if the order were Τί γὰρ ὄφελος ἐκ τοῦ ἔχειν λέοντα ὑποχείριον καὶ χειροήθη as you were expecting. It’s just the difference between saying λεοντα εχω and εχω λεοντα. The first word is the more prominent one.

I wouldn’t think in terms of hyperbaton. A verb very often intervenes between a noun and its predicate, as here, in fact it’s practically the standard order. Think e.g. Παυλος εστι σοφος, or Παυλον καλῶ σοφον, same order as λεοντα εχω υποχειριον.

Any such sentence can easily be folded into an articular infinitive construction:
τί οφελος (εστιν) ἐκ τοῦ Παυλον ειναι σοφον;
τί οφελος (εστιν) ἐκ τοῦ λέοντα ἔχειν ὑποχείριον;
(Παυλον subject of the infin., λεοντα object, but in both cases you have noun – verb – predicative adj.)

3

Michael answered it.

If you think of τοῦ as introducing the infinite clause as a whole you will see that nothing unusual is going on here. The pattern Prep. + τοῦ + substantive acc. + infin. is found in the NT and LXX. The following are not syntactically identical to the citation from Chrysostomus in Psalmos. .

John 1:48 λέγει αὐτῷ Ναθαναήλ· πόθεν με γινώσκεις; ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· πρὸ τοῦ σε Φίλιππον φωνῆσαι ὄντα ὑπὸ τὴν συκῆν εἶδόν σε.

John 1:48 (NRSV) Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

John 17:5 καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δόξῃ ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί.

John 17:5 (NRSV) So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

4

And of course the case of the neuter article (το το του τῳ) makes no difference to what follows it. And of course the article will not necessarily depend on a preposition.

E.g. (nom., subject) το Παυλον ειναι σοφον ουδεν εμοι μελει. The fact that Paul is clever is of no concern to me.
(gen.) τα βιβλια μου μαλλον μελει μοι του Παυλον ειναι σοφον, My books are of more concern to me than the fact that Paul is clever, I care more for my books than for Paul’s cleverness.
(acc., object) ο Πετρος μισεῖ το λεοντα μ’ εχειν, Peter hates the fact that I have a lion (or, that a lion has me :smiley: ).
Etc.etc.

5

ο Πετρος μισεῖ το λεοντα μ’ εχειν

If I wanted to say that ‘Peter hates the lion I have,’ would I say:

Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν.

Or do I need ἔχοντα? And then, I suppose:

Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν ἀνθρώπους ἐσθίειν.

Peter hates my lion’s eating people.

6

If I wanted to say that ‘Peter hates the lion I have,’ would I say:

Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν.

Or do I need ἔχοντα? And then, I suppose:

Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν ἀνθρώπους ἐσθίειν.

Peter hates my lion’s eating people.

“Peter hates the lion I have”

You need either a relative clause or a participle agreeing with τον λεοντα.

Ο Πετροσ μισει τον λεοντα ον εχω, or, Ο Πετροσ μισει τον λεοντα τον μοι οντα.

However, if this were real Greek and not just a grammatical exercise, you would probably say:

Ο Πετροσ μισει τον λεοντα μου, or, stressing that it’s my lion, Ο Πετροσ μισει τον εμον λεοντα, or even more emphatically, Ο Πετροσ μισει τον λεοντα τον εμον.

Peter hates my lion’s eating people

Ο Πετροσ μισει το τον λεοντα μου τουσ ανθρωπουσ εσθιειν.

The “generic” article is needed with ανθρωπουσ.

Perhaps better τωι Πετρωι ουκ αρεσκει το τον λεοντα μου τουσ ανθρωπουσ εσθιειν.

True, this is open to the interpretation “Peter hates the fact that the people are eating my lion.”

I think this might mitigate the ambiguity:

τωι Πετρωι ουκ αρεσκει το τον λεοντα μου εσθιειν τουσ ανθρωπουσ.

7

SVO (subject verb object) is good english and appears in Greek often enough. However it isn’t required in Greek. Some linguists have claimed that, in Greek, the explicit subject before the verb is the preferred location. Greek composition that constantly uses SVO runs the risk of being considered translation Greek from a language (e.g., English) that uses SVO . On the other hand VSO used constantly in narrative begins to look like translation Greek from Hebrew. There are reasons why the subject appears before the verb. See Helma Dik’s publications on word order. If you are fortunate enough to be able read R. Buth’s work he has addressed these issues somewhere at some time in the last 30 years.

I agree that using an infinitive ἔχειν to express personal possession isn’t the most normal way of doing things. I would prefer Hylander’s first option quoted above. However, I went looking for an infinitive form of εχω with a personal pronoun and found it. These samples are not identical to the syntax found in Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν. This difference matters because infinitive in each example is dictated by the idiom.

2nd person pronoun

Matt. 14:4 ἔλεγεν γὰρ ὁ Ἰωάννης αὐτῷ· οὐκ ἔξεστίν σοι ἔχειν αὐτήν.

Matt. 14:4 (NRSV) because John had been telling him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

ἔξεστίν with an infinitive is standard syntax.

1st person pronoun

1Cor. 7:40b δοκῶ δὲ κἀγὼ πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἔχειν.

1Cor. 7:40b (NRSV) And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

δοκῶ with an infinitive is standard syntax.

8

Peter hates the lion I have.
As Hylander said. But a really neat way of saying μισει τον λεοντα ον εχω (He hates the lion I have/I’m holding) is μισει ὃν εχω λεοντα.
(The antecedent is “attracted” into the relative clause itself.)
Cool, huh?

Peter hates my lion’s eating people.
In *Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν ἀνθρώπους ἐσθίειν, you just need to change τὸν μ’ ἔχειν (completely ungrammatical: why the infinitive?) to ὃν ἔχω.
(I don’t think you need an article with ανθρωπους. That would mean either mankind, all people, people as a whole, or else “the people,” the particular people the lion is eating. ανθρωπους by itself will just mean “people,” as distinct from say deer or other dietary items.)
This is formally ambiguous, as is always the case when an infinitive (here εσθιειν) has both a subject and an object, both in the accusative: which is which? (I call it “Delphic.”) Word order does little to lessen the ambiguity. Context is all.

Just a couple of points on Stirling’s post.
First, it’s no wonder that the two NT samples “are not identical to the syntax found in Ὁ Πέτρος μισεῖ τὸν λέοντα τὸν μ’ ἔχειν.” That’s ungrammatical nonsense, and was just a mistake by jeidsath. The sentence should have no infinitive.
Second, even apart from that, it seems to me pointless to go “looking for an infinitive form of εχω with a personal pronoun,” when there must be thousands of examples and there’s nothing syntactically special about εχω in any case. Besides (bonus 3rd point), in the Matt. sentence the σοι belongs to εξεστιν, not to εχειν, and in the 1Cor. sentence we have εγω nominative, subject of δοκῶ.
The syntax of εξεστιν and δοκω is hardly relevant to the discussion. There’s any number of verbs that take an infinitive, and we haven’t been looking at verbs that take an infinitive in any case, but only at the articular infinitive, which functions as a substantive.

9

Thanks for all the replies both for clearing up my uncertainty over the sentence and for all the comments on word order in general.

I see, a λέοντα is far more essential to the sense than ἔχειν. Indeed might it not be possible to drop εχω altogether? You certainly could in English.

Yup I know, having been unaware of the concept of hyperbaton I have over reacted and see them everywhere

10

No you couldn’t drop εχω. An accusative by itself would be unintelligible.

As for hyperbaton, you might do best to forget about it until you meet the sort of dislocations that you sometimes find in poetry, where words that grammatically belong together can be widely separated from one another. You don’t find anything like that in ordinary prose, certainly not in Xenophon or Herodotus. Best to concentrate on getting the grammar right, paying particular attention to the inflections.

We can talk of hyperbaton here for instance—an elegiac couplet by Callimachus introducing his tale of Acontius and Cydippe:
αυτος Ερως εδιδαξεν Ακοντιον, οπποτε καλῃ
ῃθετο Κυδιππῃ παις επι παρθενικῃ.

καλῃ … Κυδιππῃ … επι παρθενικῃ.
καλῃ | ῃθετο Κυδιππῃ
παις επι παρθενικῃ
(“Eros himself taught Akontios [what it was like to experience ερως], when the lad blazed [with love/desire] over the beautiful maiden Kydippe.”)
Regrettably a translation destroys the structure. We lose καλῇ at the outset of the tale, set off by the verse ending, we lose the “burning” verb (applying to Akontios) simultaneously beginning the verse and interposed between καλῃ and Κυδιππῃ, we lose the “boy-girl” juxtaposition at the end.

So it’s always important to read Greek in the order in which it comes. The same principle applies in prose.

11

What was I thinking of? :blush: However, were it reworded to exclude εχω the essential meaning would not be lost - not so λεων. Hence for λεων to be placed in the stressed position is what we should be expecting.

This looked very daunting until I tried it but with your notes it was very easy. Without those notes it would have had me completely stumped due to the word order.

For that reason, if your advice is intended to mean worry about inflections and not word order then I have to say that it is word order that is holding me back. I do put a lot of time on inflections but that is because I don’t know of any way to get to grips word order beyond reading real greek which I read too slowly to really help because I keep getting thrown by the word order.
(Though Eugene Van Goethicus’ book along with his workbook would seem helpful if were not out of print)

If you simply mean that hyperbaton is so rare in prose that I am unlikely to encounter it then that means that I keep seeing hyperbaton because when ever I can’t work out the sense of the word order of a sentence then hyperbaton is my fall-back explanation.

12

This looked very daunting until I tried it but with your notes it was very easy. Without those notes it would have had me completely stumped due to the word order.

But daivid what was there in my notes that you couldn’t have done for yourself? You shouldn’t need me to point out that καλῇ and Κυδίππῃ and παρθενικῇ belong together (all fem.dat.sing.), or that παῖς (nom.sing.) is subject of ἤθετο, …

(…) completely stumped due to the word order.



I have to say that it is word order that is holding me back



when ever I can’t work out the sense of the word order of a sentence (…)

Remember that in Greek, unlike in English, meaning doesn’t depend on word order, it depends on forms and inflections, it depends on grammar. Word order may contribute nuance or emphasis but it doesn’t change the basic meaning of a sentence. So my advice would still be to focus on forms and grammar, not on word order.
“Why are the words of this sentence in this particular order?” is a secondary question. The first question is “What does this sentence mean?”, and that involves seeing how it hangs together grammatically, regardless of word order. Is this a noun, and if so what gender, number and case? Or is it a verb, and if so what tense, person, voice, …? And so on. Most of the words should disclose this information quite readily, so that you hardly need to think about it. As you work through the sentence, its grammatical structure gradually reveals itself, and its meaning along with it (provided you know the vocabulary, but you can look up any words you need to).

Take that Callimachus sentence, for example. Here’s how to tackle it, word by word from the beginning.
αυτος Ερως εδιδαξεν Ακοντιον
αυτος masc.nom.sing., Ερως likewise, they go together, “Eros himself,” presumably subject.
εδιδαξεν verb, aor.act., 3rd sing., presumably “Eros himself taught.”
Ακοντιον acc., presumably object, “Eros himself taught Akontios.”
It would mean the same thing whatever the word order.
That could be a complete sentence, but it continues:
οπποτε καλῃ ῃθετο Κυδιππῃ παις επι παρθενικῃ.
οπποτε introduces a subordinate clause, “when,” “at the time that.”
καλῇ dat.fem.sing., an adjective, “beautiful.” [In principle it could be a verb in the subjunctive, but it rapidly becomes clear that it isn’t.] We don’t yet know why it’s dative, we have to put it on hold.
ᾔθετο Well, we’ve never seen that before! But the –ετο ending tells us it’s a verb, in the 3rd person singular, in the middle or passive, in the indicative, in a past tense (yes all that from –ετο, verb endings pack a ton of information!). Since it’s in a past tense it will have an augment, hidden in ᾐ-. Remove the augment to find the present so we can look the verb up, will probably be αἰθ-, so let’s try that. Bingo: αἴθομαι blaze, burn, and this the imperfect: “(he) blazed”—presumably Akontios is the subject.
Κυδιππῃ a name, fem.sing.dat.; now we have something to put καλῇ with, “beautiful Kydippe.” We’re still not sure why dative.
παῖς nom.masc.sing., here’s an explicit subject for ᾔθετο, “(the) boy”, presumably referring to Akontios.
“when the boy blazed/burned (for?, over?) beautiful Kydippe.”
Just two words to go:
επι παρθενικῇ. ἐπὶ with dative παρθενικῇ, “maiden” as adjective, fem.dat.sing., agreeing with καλῇ Κυδίππῃ, “the beautiful maiden Kydippe”, in the dative. ἐπί + dat., let’s say “for” or “over,” and we’re home dry, mission accomplished.

That spells out—very laboriously—the steps of the procedure we should follow when reading this sentence—or any sentence. Its meaning emerges bit by bit. With practice the process becomes automatic, like driving a car, and the sentence can be read just as quickly as in English, if not more so. Since the word order in prose is more straightforward, you don’t have to deal with hyperbaton except in very mild form. Of course you can always try guessing at the meaning, but a guess will be wrong unless it fits with all the grammatical data.

Word order we looked at, but the words of each clause here could be in any order at all (except for οπποτε introducing the subordinate clause) and it would still mean basically the same thing. I really don’t see how word order could be what’s holding you back unless you’re subconsciously expecting it to be the same as in English, which you know it’s not. Anyway, follow the procedure I’ve outlined, and I think you’ll find that you’re not thrown by word order.

In your latest post on the Weather thread I see you have εἴρει with a plural subject. You certainly shouldn’t be worrying about word order while you’re still making mistakes like this. (εἴρω is a weird word to use in any case. It’s epic and rare. I wouldn’t go experimenting with strange words. I know Markos does, but Markos isn’t interested in writing ordinary Greek.) We all make slips (I know I do: just look at the Ajax thread), but this is the sort of mistake you would not still be making if you had developed a feel for grammatical concord.

Sorry to go on so, but I do hope this is helpful.
Michael

13

If I had not had the help of your excellent explanation I would have assumed the boy to be Eros because it is as a boy Eros is usually depicted. And it doesn’t help that Akontios is in the accusative so ignoring word altogether has its pitfalls too. And there are cases where

When I attempted to learn to drive I failed spectacularly so that metaphor about driving a car was not at all as reassuring as I am sure you intended. My problem is that I would start to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else which made it impossible for me to pay attention to other things. Judging from the way the instructor lost his temper with me

My thinking was that if I had a better idea of what word order was about then it will be less of a wild card and so less distracting. On top of that knowing I don’t know the logic of Greek word order creates a vacuum that English word order steps in to fill. But it may well be that learning a bit more about word order at this stage would just be distracting.

Well may latest mistake writing for λόγοι for λόγους illustrates my lack of a feel for grammatical concord. In both that case and the one you mention above it was me finding something difficult and by focusing on that and making the mistake on something that ought to be easier. As I had λόγους correctly in the accusative in the same post it’s about feel not knowing. But how to acquire that feel?

I have started trying out the class exercises from Rico’s book that I have up to now assumed to be impossible when you are not in a class. It is a lot harder but the big difficulty is getting over the feeling that it is silly talking to yourself.
My tack is to memorize text. This is something I have don’t before but rather sporadically. I think I may this time get it to the point of a daily habit.

(I always use words I have encountered before. Because I don’t read enough I didn’t know εἴρω was rare. - If only there were more easy readers in ancient Greek).

It has been helpful. Even though I have taken a long time to reply I have read your post several times and given it a lot of thought.