Module 15

Attributive and Predicate Position

Word Order

Greek creates meaning through prepositional phrases and through endings. Word order also matters. Attributive position creates meaning by placing the article and the attribute in a specific sequence. As you read, pay attention to the arrangement of words, noticing why word order matters in Greek.

Attributive Position

Attributive position tells us that a noun is to be translated with other words. Consider the phrase the woman in the road. Since the woman referred to is the person standing in the road, Greek may place the words in the road into attributive position with the noun woman.

Consider another phrase, the white stripes. In this example, the noun stripes is described by the adjective white and so Greek can place the adjective, white, into attributive position with the noun, stripes.

In the examples below the attributes ὑπὸ λίθῳ under a rock and καλός good are in bold; underlined are the articles and nouns, σκορπίος, σκορπίου ὁ scorpion and ὄνειρος, ὀνείρου ὁ dream. The general rule for attributive position is that the article will directly precede the attribute. Three possibilities exist.

1. article attribute noun:

1. ὁ ὑπὸ λίθῳ σκορπίος

   the scorpion under a rock

2. ὁ καλὸς ὄνειρος

   the good dream

2. article noun article attribute:

1. ὁ σκορπίος ὁ ὑπὸ λίθῳ

   the scorpion under a rock

2. ὁ ὄνειρος ὁ καλός

   the good dream

3. noun article attribute:

1. σκορπίος ὁ ὑπὸ λίθῳ

   the scorpion under a rock

2. ὄνειρος ὁ καλός

   the good dream

Note that in all of the above examples, the article directly precedes the attribute.

Other Possibilities

Greek uses attributive position to tell you what words are to be translated together to create a phrase. When no article is present, consider these four examples,

Predicate Position

If the words are not in attributive position and an article is present, consider these two examples,

This arrangement of words with the article present is called predicate position.

Practice with Attributive Position. Write out the following in all forms of attributive position. Check your answers with those in the Answer Key.

1. the harsh road (ἡ ὁδός; χαλεπή)
2. the wise word (ὁ λόγος; σοφός)
3. the noble soul (ἡ ψυχή; ἀγαθή)

Practice with Predicate Position. Write out the following in all forms of predicate position. Check your answers with those in the Answer Key.

1. the road is harsh (ἡ ὁδός; χαλεπή)
2. the word is wise (ὁ λόγος; σοφός)
3. the soul is noble (ἡ ψυχή; ἀγαθή)

Ancient Greek Thought and Living Well

During the Archaic Age (799–480 BCE) and after, Greeks in the various city-states of Hellas were becoming increasingly aware of their rationale for doing things. They recognized custom, usage, and tradition as the reasons behind much of what they did and many of the beliefs and values they held. Thus they began to look for a better way to live well and a better authority for their beliefs, conventions, institutions, and values. One place they looked was nature and soon saw that, in nature, birth and wealth were irrelevant. Another place they looked was to logic and reason. Intellectuals, including philosophers and sophists, engaged in these inquiries.

Philosophical inquiry predates sophism, the discipline of the sophists. Philosophers asked if the universe had a beginning, how it began, and what its elements were. They saw the world as something ordered and rational and sought to explain as much as possible in terms as little as possible, i.e., via theories. These intellectuals were often highly skilled mathematicians.

Sophism can be traced at least back to the early 6th century when philosophers—from the Greek adjective φιλόσοφος lover of wisdom—were intent on explaining the universe and all its contents by means of science rather than religion. The loan word sophism comes from the Greek adjective, σοφός, σοφή, σοφόν, clever, skilled, wise. Sophists were mainly itinerant teachers, travelling from city to city, teaching for a fee various subjects, including physics, astronomy, mathematics, and the art of rhetoric. They promised their pupils material success through bettering themselves by education. Sophists were viewed by some as having a corrupting influence on the young by teaching them atheism, scientific inquiry, rhetoric (making the lesser argument the stronger), and a new relativistic morality.

In the below there is a list of some prominent Greek intellectuals. In the Practice Translating that follows, you will read fragments written by Thales, Herakleitos, Aiskhylos, Euripides, Antiphon, Sokrates, and Aristoteles.

Thales of Miletos, Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος, c. 624 BCE. Thales was a pre-Socratic philosopher who predicted an eclipse of the sun in 585 BCE and argued that the universe’s prime element was water. Two of Thales’ writings are found below in the Practice Translating.

Anaximandros of Miletos, Ἀναξίμανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος, c. 610–546 BCE. Anaximandros was a pre-Socratic philosopher who put forth the theory that the infinite was the universe’s origin.

Anaximenes of Miletos, Ἀναξιμένης ὁ Μιλήσιος, c. 586–526 BCE. Anaximenes was a pre-Socratic philosopher who proposed air as the universe’s prime substance.

Pythagoras of Samos, Πῡθαγόρᾱς ὁ Σάμιος, c. 570–495 BCE. Pythagoras was a pre-Socratic philosopher who argued that the soul was immortal and after its death was reborn into another body, either man, animal, or plant, through a process called metempsychosis, μετεμψύχωσις. The only end to this cycle was to attain purity of intellect and soul.

Xenophanes of Kolophon, Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος, c. 570–478 BCΕ. Xenophanes was a pre-Socratic philosopher who criticized Hesiod and Homer, arguing that their explanation of divine and human affairs was incorrect. He also criticized the adulation of athletes because wise men were much more important to society than some champion boxer. Finally, he asserted that the gods were not anthropomorphic but that there was one god who was moral and motionless, all-knowing and all-powerful.

Herakleitos (Heraclitus) of Ephesos, Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος, c. 535–475 BCE. Herakleitos was a pre-Socratic philosopher who argued that the universe’s prime substance was fire, which all things contained within them, that the universe had always existed, and that all is in flux for one can never step into the same river twice. Three quotes by him are found below in the Practice Translating.

Aiskhylos (Aeschylus) of Athens, Αἰσχύλος ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 525–456 BCE. Aiskhylos wrote satyr plays and tragedies. He composed about ninety plays, of which seven survive. Many fragments from his other plays are found quoted by other later authors or on Egyptian papyrus scraps. Aristoteles writes that Aiskhylos expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed them to interact with each other instead of only with the chorus. One of his plays, Prometheus Bound, may have been written by his son, Euphorion. Another of his plays, The Persians, is the only extant tragedy concerning contemporary events that survives. One quote by him is found below in the Practice Translating.

Parmenides of Elea, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης, c. 500 BCE. Parmenides was a pre-Socratic philosopher who reasoned that the earth was a sphere and that sense perception was illusory. Thus the only way to truth was through logic.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenai, Ἀναξαγόρας, Κλαζομεναί, c. 500–428 BCE. Anaxagoras was a pre-Socratic philosopher and a good friend of the Athenian statesman Perikles. Anaxagoras spent much of his time in the cultural center of his day, Athens. He declared that the sun was a stone and not a god. The Athenians may have brought him to court and had him exiled on charges of impiety and pro-Persian sympathies. It is uncertain if the charges were real, political, or fabricated by later biographers.

Sophokles (Sophocles) of Athens, Σοφοκλῆς ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 497–406 BCE. Sophokles wrote satyr plays and tragedies. He composed over 120 plays and seven have survived, the most famous being Oidipous Tyrannos (Oidipous Rex) and Antigone. He is said to have won twenty-four of the thirty competitions he entered. Of him it is said that he portrayed people as better than they are in reality.

Empedokles of Akragas, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, Ἀκράγας, Σικελία, c. 494–434 BCE. Empedokles was a pre-Socratic philosopher, who contended that the senses were routes to knowledge and that the universe was made up of the following four substances: earth, air, fire, and water.

Protagoras of Abdera, Thrace, Πρωταγόρας, Ἄβδηρα, Θρᾴκη, c. 490–420 BCE. Protagoras was a pre-Socratic philosopher. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato writes that Protagoras invented the professional sophist. Protagoras argued that it did not matter whether the gods existed—he was an agnostic—that there were two sides to every question, each opposed to the other; that the soul was nothing apart from the senses; that everything is true; that all values were relative; and that man is the “measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not.” For these views it is said that the Athenians expelled him from their city and burnt his works in the marketplace (Diogenes Laertius 9. 51–52).

Gorgias of Leontini, Γοργίας, Λεοντῖνοι, c. 483–376 BCE. Gorgias was a sophist, who specialized in teaching the art of rhetoric.

Antiphon of Rhamnos, Ἀντιφῶν ὁ Ῥαμνούσιος, c. 480–411 BCE. Antiphon was an orator, engaged in 5th-century Athenian political and intellectual life. One quote by him is found below in the Practice Translating.

Euripides of Athens, Εὐριπίδης ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 480–406 BCE. An innovator who did not gain wide acceptance until after his death, Euripides wrote satyr plays and tragedies. He introduced comedy into tragedy and presented the heroes and heroines of his plays as everyday people. He was a proponent of the new music, which broke with tradition and is a feature of his work that shocked some of his contemporaries. In several plays (Helen, Ion, Iphigeneia in Tauris), he created tragicomic plots that foreshadowed the so-called New Comedy. Four quotes by him are found below in the Practice Translating.

Sokrates (Socrates) of Athens, Σωκρᾰ ́της ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 469–399 BCE. Sokrates was an Athenian stonemason and carver and very poor. He was accused of being a sophist and was loved by some and hated by many of the Athenian people. Early in life Sokrates was intrigued by scientific speculation. He soon grew skeptical of it and turned his attention to inquiring into the right conduct of life. Two quotes by him are found below in the Practice Translating.

Demokritos (Democritus) of Abdera, Thrace, Δημόκριτος, Ἄβδηρα, Θρᾴκη, c. 460–370 BCE. Demokritos was a pre-Socratic philosopher, who proposed that all things were composed of atoms and void. Atoms were the smallest building blocks of the universe and void allowed motion to occur. His theory was later popularized by Epikouros and then expounded by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius. Six quotes by him are found below in the Practice Translating.

Hippokrates (Hippocrates) of Kos, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, c. 460–370 BC. Hippokrates was a physician, who made outstanding contributions to the field of medicine. Founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine, he established medicine as a discipline and profession. He is credited with writing the Hippocratic Oath, a code of ethics still in use today.

Thrasymakhos of Khalkedon, Θρασύμαχος, Χαλκηδών, c. 459–400 BCE. Thrasymakhos was a sophist, who taught that justice is the interest of the stronger, i.e., that “might makes right.” He is best known as a character in Plato’s Republic.

Aristophanes of Athens, Ἀριστοφάνης ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 446–c. 386 BCE. Aristophanes wrote comic plays. Of forty or so plays, eleven have survived and represent a genre of comic drama referred to as Old Comedy.

Platon (Plato) of Athens, Πλάτων ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 428–424 BCE. Plato was a student of Sokrates and a philosopher. Best known for his theory of forms and highly influential in his own day, Plato’s works continue to be read and studied.

Diogenes the Cynic of Sinope, Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Σινώπη, c. 412–323 BCE. Diogenes was a philosopher and founder of the Cynic school of philosophy. He believed in moral action rather than in theory. He lived simply and frugally, looking to nature as a guide to living well and authentically, declaring himself a citizen of the world.

Aristoteles (Aristotle) of Stageira, Ἀριστοτέλης, Στάγειρα, c. 384–322 BCE. Aristoteles was a student of Plato and a philosopher. He founded the peripatetic school of philosophy and wrote on many subjects, including aesthetics, biology, economics, ethics, government, linguistics, logic, metaphysics, music, physics, poetry, politics, psychology, rhetoric, theater, and zoology. Aristotle’s works continue to be read and studied. One of his quotes is found below in the Practice Translating.

Menandros (Menander) of Athens, Μένανδρος ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, c. 342–290 BCE. Menandros was a comic playwright who wrote 108 comedies. Popular in his own day, Menandros took first prize at the dramatic games of the Lenaia festival eight times. Many fragments and one play, almost complete, the Dyskolos, have survived the ravages of time. One quote by him is found below in the Practice Translating.

Aristarkhos of Samos, Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, c. 310–c. 230 BCE. Aristarkhos was an astronomer and a mathematician who placed the sun at the center of the universe in the first known heliocentric view of the universe.

Eukleides (Euclid) of Alexandria, Εὐκλείδης c. 300 BCE. Born in Alexandria, Eukleides developed a conceptual system of geometry from a small set of axioms. His book, Elements, has been used to teach geometry up until 150 or so years ago.

Practice Translating. Translate the sentences below, taken from proverbs and a variety of ancient Greek authors. Remember the meanings and functions of the cases presented in Module 7. Nominative case endings are bolded; genitive endings are italicized; dative endings are highlighted; and accusative endings are underlined. Note that the third declension increases the number of possible endings for the nominative singular. Check your understanding with the translations in the Answer Key. Now go back and read each sentence two or three times, noticing with each rereading how much better your understanding of the sentence becomes. Make this a habit and you will improve quickly.

1. ὁ κόσμος ἀλλοίωσις· ὁ βίος ὑπόληψις (Demokritos, philosopher).
2. ἓν μόνον ἀγαθόν ἐστι· ἡ ἐπιστήμη. καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν· ἡ ἀμαθία (Sokrates, philosopher).
3. οὐδὲν κακὸν ἀμιγὲς καλοῦ (Proverb).
4. μέγιστον τόπος· πάντα γὰρ χωρέει (Demokritos, philosopher).
5. ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν τὸ αὐτό (Herakleitos, philosopher).
6. ὁ βίος βραχύς· ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρά· ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς· ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή· ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή (Hippokrates, physician).
7. ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ (Sokrates, philosopher).
8. ἐτεῇ δὲ οὐδὲν ἴδμεν. ἐν βυθῷ γὰρ ἡ ἀλήθεια (Demokritos, philosopher)
9. τὰ πάντα ῥέει καὶ οὐδὲν μένει (Herakleitos, philosopher).
10. θνητῶν ὄλβιος εἰς τὸ τέλος οὐδείς (Euripides, tragic playwright).
11. πάντων τῶν ἀναγκαίων κακὼν ἰατρὸς χρόνος ἐστίν (Menandros, comic playwright).
12. σοφώτατον χρόνος· ἀνευρίσκει γὰρ πάντα (Thales, philosopher).
13. νόημα ἢ μέτρον ὁ χρόνος, οὐκ ὑπόστασις (Antiphon of Rhamnus, Attic orator).
14. τὸ μέλλον ἄδηλον ἀνθρώποις καὶ μικροὶ καιροὶ μεγάλων πραγμάτων αἴτιοι γίγνονται (Demosthenes, Attic orator).
15. τάχιστον νόος· διὰ παντὸς γὰρ τρέχει (Thales, philosopher).
16. τὸ τοῦ ποδὸς μὲν βραδύ· τὸ τοῦ δὲ νοῦ ταχύ (Euripides, tragic playwright).

Adverbs and Verbs

Adjectives, Nouns, Pronouns

1. The asterisk indicates the top 250 most frequently occurring vocabulary, which you are to memorize.

   Case	Ending	Function
   Nominative	-α, αι, -ες, -εις, -η, -ις, -ν, -ο, -οι, -ον, -ος, -ς, -ων	predicate adjective; predicate nominative; subject of the verb
   Genitive	-εος -ης, -ου, -ων	dependence; possession object of preposition
   Dative	-ι, -ῳ	indirect object; means or instrument; object of the preposition or verb
   Accusative	-ι, -ο, -ον, -ρ	object of the verb

17. κάτοπτρον εἴδεος χαλκός ἐστί, οἶνος δὲ νοῦ (Aiskhylos, tragic playwright).
18. ἀνθρώπῳ σοφῷ πᾶσα γῆ βατή· ψυχῆς γὰρ ἀγαθῆς πατρὶς ὁ ξύμπας κόσμος (Demokritos, philosopher).
19. κακῆς ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς γίγνεται τέλος κακόν (Euripides, tragic playwright).
20. διάφοροι δὲ φύσεις βροτῶν, διάφοροι δὲ τρόποι (Euripides, tragic playwright).
21. ὁ κόσμος σκηνή, ὁ βίος πάροδος. ἔρχῃ, ὁράεις, ἀπέρχῃ (Demokritos, philosopher).
22. τὸ πεπρωμένον φυγεῖν ἀδύνατον (Proverb).
23. χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά (Proverb).
24. μία χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιέει· μία μέλισσα μέλι οὐ ποιέει (Proverb).
25. τῷ ξένῳ δεῖ ἀκολουθέειν τοῖς ἐπιχωρίοις νόμοις (Proverb).
26. ὁ φίλος τὸν φίλον ἐν κινδύνοις γιγνώσκει (Proverb).
27. μακραὶ τυράννων χεῖρες (Proverb).
28. εἰ πεινάεις, πᾶν ἐστι χρῆμα ἐδώδιμον (Proverb).
29. πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει (Herakleitos, philosopher).
30. ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικόν ζῶον (Aristoteles, philosopher).
31. βίος ἀνεόρταστος μακρὰ ὁδὸς ἀπανδόκευτος (Demokritos, philosopher).
32. κρεῖσσον ἄρχεσθαι τοῖς ἀνοήτοις ἢ ἄρχειν (Proverb).

Adverbs and Verbs

Adjectives, Nouns, Pronouns

1. The asterisk indicates the top 250 most frequently occurring vocabulary, which you are to memorize.

Practice Parsing Greek Sentences. Parse each word of the sentences found below. For nouns and pronouns, give case and function. For verbs give person, number, tense, mood, and voice. For adverbs and conjunctions, identify them. For prepositional phrases give the preposition and the preposition’s object. For adjectives tell what noun they agree with in gender, number, and case.

τῷ ξένῷ δεῖ ἀκολουθέειν τοῖς ἐπιχωρίοις νόμοις.

τὸ τοῦ ποδὸς μὲν βραδύ· τὸ τοῦ δὲ νοῦ ταχύ.

Check your answers with those in the Answer Key.

Module 15 Top 250 Vocabulary to be Memorized. Like learning the alphabet and endings, memorizing vocabulary is essential to acquiring language. The better you memorize the top 250 most frequently occurring words, the greater mastery of the language you will have.

Pronoun and Nouns

------, ἀλλήλων one another, each other

ἀρχή, ἀρχῆς ἡ rule, command; beginning; province

γῆ, γῆς ἡ land, earth

γένος, γένεος (γένους) τό race, kind, sort; birth, origin

μήν, μηνός ὁ month; (adv.) truly, surely

σῶμα, σώματος τό body

χώρᾱ, χώρᾱς ἡ land, country

Verb

ἡγέομαι lead; believe; lead, command + dat.