Hello:
I am starting to work with Unit 9 of Dr. Mastronarde’s textbook. It deals with present indicative infinitives and a few two-ending adjectives. Is there a preferred word order with εξεστι? I had one exercise that had the word the third from the end and another with the word toward the beginning. I can write out the sentences from the answer book (without the accents) if it would help.
Lukas
Here are the first few uses of ἔξεστι in Plato:
οἷς ἔξεστι τῶν ἑαυτῶν πολιτῶν προῖκα συνεῖναι ᾧ ἂν βούλωνται
ἀλλ’ εὔχεσθαί γέ που τοῖς θεοῖς ἔξεστί τε καὶ χρή
ποικίλλειν δὲ ἔξεστι ταῖς συλλαβαῖς
ἔξεστι δὲ καὶ “ψυχὴν” κομψευόμενον λέγειν
ὥστε περὶ μὲν Αἴγυπτον οὐδ’ ἔξεστι βασιλέα χωρὶς ἱερατικῆς ἄρχειν
Judging from these examples, ἔξεστι can come first or last or in between. The dative object and infinitive can precede or follow, go up next to ἔξεστι, or be separated by several words.
Hi Lucas, and welcome to Textkit.
My instinct is to say there is no such thing in ancient Greek as a “preferred” word order in constructions with a particular word (ἔξεστι in your example), and in discussing ancient Greek word order I would avoid the word “preferred” altogether (“common” is better, but you will find lots of debate about even what’s common). But I would take you up on your suggestion to write out the sentences in question from your answer book (no accents is fine), so we can see more particularly what’s behind your question.
Meanwhile, are you aware of Mastronarde’s essay on Greek word order?
In general, if you don’t mind a little advice (speaking strictly for myself), in your early stages of learning the highly inflected language that is ancient Greek, I wouldn’t get too hung up on producing a particular word order (in your exercises). It’s much more important to learn to read Greek in the proper order, which is to say, in the order the author used. Read the first word first, the second word second, etc., rather than slip right off the bat into the fatal habit of jumping around in the sentence looking for a subject, a verb, etc. Learn to resolve the sentence as it unfolds - that may sound obvious, but in practice it’s not. An instinct for usual and unusual word order will come with lots and lots of reading.
Randy Gibbons
Thank you. Unit 9, Part III #4:
It is impossible for the immortal gods to feel [“have”] jealousy.
τοις αθανατος θεοις ουκ εξεστι φθονον εχειν.
Unit 9, Part III, #5
It is possible for a wicked man not to have a bad reputation.
εξεστι τω πονηρω μη κακην δοξαν εχειν.
Άρα εξεστι τω πονερω κακήν δόξαν μη έχει.
Έχειv, sorry
In other words the the order is highly flexible. 
A selection from Xenophon’s Anabasis indicates the same.
ὁποῖόν τι μὲν δὴ ἐστὶ τὸ τοιοῦτον ὄναρ ἰδεῖν ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν ἐκ τῶν συμβάντων μετὰ τὸ ὄναρ. 3.3.13
καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾶν ἔξεστί σοι ὄχλον τοσοῦτον… 4.1.20
ἀλλʼ εἴποιτʼ ἂν ὅτι ἔξεστι καὶ τὰ ὑμέτερα ἔχοντα παρὰ Σεύθου τεχνάζειν. 7.6.16
Word order does matter, but the beginning student should simply focus on understanding the Greek as presented, and any conclusions about word order should come from the level of reading and analyzing the works of actual authors, and not beginning textbooks.
Please indicate the correct reference number for the first example from Xen. In the second example there is bc as an ellipse of εστί, right?
3.1.13, sorry, typos happen.
Here is context for the second citation:
ἀποκρίνεται ὁ Χειρίσοφος· βλέψον, ἔφη, πρὸς τὰ ὄρη καὶ ἰδὲ ὡς ἄβατα πάντα ἐστί· μία δʼ αὕτη ὁδὸς ἣν ὁρᾷς ὀρθία, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾶν ἔξεστί σοι ὄχλον τοσοῦτον , οἳ κατειληφότες φυλάττουσι τὴν ἔκβασιν.
I don’t see how “an ellipse of ἐστί” would fit?
Μια δ’αυτη οδός ην ορας όρθια εστι
I see. I thought you were talking about the specific clause containing ἔξεστι, and was confused as to exactly what that had to do with the original question.
One other question if I may:
Unit 9, Part III #4:
It is impossible for the immortal gods to feel [“have”] jealousy.
τοις αθανατος θεοις ουκ εξεστι φθονον εχειν
I thought " ουκ" was used in indicative sentences and “μη” with infinitives, imperatives, and subjunctives. Why is " ουκ" used is this sentence?
ἔξεστι is indicative.
Moods (indicative, subjuctive, infinitive, etc.) are differentiated from each other morphologically. An impersonal is a particular syntactic usage of a verb (ie no subject) that can occur in a number of moods.
Infinitive ἐξεῖναι.
Here is a simplification of Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 1.119 [ἀντιγράφομαι] … Τιμάρχῳ μὴ ἐξεῖναι δημηγορεῖν “I am bringing an indictment to make it not allowable for Timachus to speak publicly.”
Participle ἐξὸν.
Here is a phrase from Demosthenes, Against Aristogiton 25.4 οὐκ ἐξὸν αὐτῷ λέγειν “there being no right for him to speak”
Imperative ἐξέστω.
Here is a phrase (an apodosis) from that same speech of Aeschines, Against Timachus, 1, 21 μὴ ἐξέστω αὐτῷ τῶν ἐννέα ἀρχόντων γενέσθαι don’t let it be allowable for him to become one of the nine rulers.
But there are other sentences, with εξεστι", that use “μη.” This sentence has “έχεινι,” at the end, an infinitive. I thought I read that “μη” is used with infinitives.
Confused,
Lukas
οὐκ in this sentence goes with ἔξεστι, not ἔχειν.
Show us a couple of the sentences you’re referring to that have both ἔξεστι and μή, and maybe we can show you the difference.
(If some day you study an advanced grammar - not saying you should do that at this point in your learning - you’ll see that the rules governing when οὐ is used and when μή can be complex, so there’s no surprise in being a little confused at first 
.)
εξεστι τω πονηρο μη κακην δοξαν εχειν.
I think I see my mistake. I thought any sentence with an infinitive would use “μη.” I think yo are seeing that "μη " has to go with the infinitive.
Lukas
The basic sentence is, “The gods feel (have) anger. " οι θεοις φθονον εχουσιν” When εξεστι is added to the basic sentence, some changes are made. The subject of the basic sentence goes to the dative and the verb goes to the infinitive, giving εξεστι τοις θεοις θφονον εχειν. The basic sentence has now been “surrounded” by the εξεστι, or works as part of the εξεστι structure. Any other changes that needs to be made to fit εξεστι into a sentence will only affect εξεστι and not the basic sentence which now functions as part of the εξεστι construction.
At this stage, it is not possible to add the negative inside the εξεστι construction, so as RG says, ουκ negates εξεστι.
As to the original question: ἔξεστι can go just about anywhere, as most verbs can. However, verbs that take an infinitive, such as ἔξεστι, normally come before the infinitive, not after it. If the infinitive precedes, it has greater salience.
You have the right idea.
Xenophon has τῷ τυράννῳ ἔξεστι μὴ πείθεσθαι τοῖς ὀρθῶς λέγουσι, “it is allowable for a tyrant to not take notice of the advice of those who speak correctly (ie give good advice)”. The μη is with the infinitive. The core sentence is ο τυραννος ου πειθεται τοις ορθως λεγουσιν. After the addition of the εξεστι, when the indicative πειθεται was changed to the infinitive πειθεσθαι, the negative was changed to μη too.
Plato has τούτοις δὴ ἔξεστι μὲν πείθεσθαι, ἔξεστιν δὲ μή. “It is allowable (for you)to believe these things, and it is allowable (for you to) not (believe these things).” The μη prompts us to supply the infinitive.
οὐ or μή? General rules. Indicatives are usually (not always) negatived with οὐ (οὐκ/οὐχ before vowel); so here οὐκ ἔξεστι (ἔξεστι is the main verb). So too with optatives. With subjunctives, always μή. With infinitives it depends; generally μή, as you can see. When learning constructions always note whether the neg. is οὐ or μή.