Chapter 600 A School Grammar of Attic Greek Dickinson College Christopher Francese

Publication information

Information about the source

II. COMPOUND SENTENCES 600 Successive independent sentences in Greek are usually joined together in one of four ways: (1) By a coordinating conjunction; (2) By a demonstrative pronoun or adverb; this may be in the earlier sentence, pointing forward, or in the latter, pointing backward; (3) By a relative pronoun or adverb, at the beginning of the second sentence; (4) By a particle standing early in the second sentence, and referring to the preceding sentence.

a. Absence of such a connective (ἀσύνδετον not bοund together, asyndeton), though so common in English, is generally in Greek a mark of emotion. Thus the following passage (L. 12, 100) shows far more feeling than the English version: ἀκηκόατε, ἑωρκατε, πεπόνθατε, ἔχετε· δικάζετε you have heard, seen, suffered, you have him; give judgment. b. Repetition of some significant word (ἀναφορ anaphοra), with asyndeton, is an emotional way of connecting sentences: Tί οὖν ἐστι τοῦτο; ἀπιστίᾱ. ταύτην φυλάττετε, ταύτης ἀντέχεσθε what, then, is this? Distrust. Guard this, cling to this. D. 6, 24.