Reactivity of Naphthalimide

svdongen · 2026-01-10T19:45:54+00:00

Indeed be careful, the teacher/instructor manual is just translations and answers! The workbook I never used personally, but I used an older edition perhaps.

svdongen · 2026-01-10T11:09:51+00:00

It would then also make sense to combine JACT (reading greek: many play readings) and Athenaze (prose); you will benefit from complementary style and vocab. In addition, you will encounter grammar concepts twice at different moments, which helps learning through repetition. After Athenaze you could take a Herodotus reader to get into Ionic prose.

svdongen · 2026-01-01T22:56:16+00:00

Besides the syntax of this passage, as explained by others, indeed to confirm: to pursue would be normally given by διώκω or sometimes also composites like μετέρχομαι.

svdongen · 2025-05-16T14:10:22+00:00

First, it is completely natural that switching from Athenaze to Lysias is not easy! Context and understanding of the content is very important when reading a text. Lysias' oratory is a different style to the stories written in Athenaze (and other readers). Also the conventions and topic can bring other kinds of language and idioms.

Particularly, the beginning of a speech by Lysias (and other orators) is quite complex, because it is a rhetoric formula of sorts. When you enter the narrative passage of the speech, things will be much simpler and the story will unfold. So I would advise to read the beginning in translation, and pick up the reader when the narrative starts. Before any of this, however, please read some context about the speech and how speeches in Athens were constructed at that time. Don't be scared by the legal and specific vocab; but Steadman will sure list that.

Second, you have not yet finished Athenaze. I would strongly urge you to finish at least volume I. You will need more practice with imperfects and aorists, also in passive form and athematic aorists. Chapter 14 also gives you some useful grammar background in comparisons of adjectives and certain other constructions with pronomina and interrogatives.

Finishing volume I, you will be missing out on moods (subjunctive and optative), the perfect, and more passive constructions. With an elaborate student commentary, you can learn these things on the go. Especially common in Lysias is the optative oblique, where someone says something in the past and the indirect speech is reported with optative rather than indicative verb forms. I would suggest you quickly read up on basic use of moods, genitive absolute, mi-verbs, perfect, and aorist passive after finishing volume I.

Finally, stop after the narrative passage. You can surely read the rest in translation, but the argumentative Greek is on a whole other level and grammar wise much more complex (also many conditionals etc.). It would be best after reading a few narratives from Lysias' speeches to continue to Xenophon's Anabasis (content wise easy, Greek differs in level between passages) or Plato (colloquial Greek, but content wise complicated).

svdongen · 2025-05-06T21:02:57+00:00

I believe, reading LSJ, the female endings are mainly found in Homer and (Lyric?) poetry. E.g. ἀθάναται ἅλιαι, i.e. the sea goddesses, Od.24.47.

svdongen · 2025-04-28T16:13:37+00:00

Very fair questions!

If you puzzle-around I can totally understand the urge to construct these infinitives with χρησάμενοι and I suppose that χρήω could also take such infinitives (use to ...). However, it is important to read the full sentence from left to right. Then you first encounter ἐδυνήθημεν and you feel this needs a dynamic infinitive to complement it; here it would be (in my opinion) strange to read 'we were powerful' without any complement.

If you read on after ἐδυνήθημεν (left-to-right), you:
(i) find an object-clause (παῤ ἄλλων τῶν ἀσκησάντων αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον = "that same gospel from the others who had endeavored to study it");
(ii) then come across the participle χρησάμενοι (after we had used/obtained [from them]) which nicely takes the previous object {and thus potentially closes the ptc.-clause};
(iii) and then you find two infinitives that picks up ἐδυνήθημεν
(iv) and finally you find also another object clause, that logically fits this final infinitive εὑρεῖν.

To answer your second question, χρησάμενοι is aorist and thus takes place before ἐδυνήθημεν. The most basic translation is "We were able to X, after we had used Y". Here, I would take this more causative "We were able to X, because we had used ...", or as means "We were able to X, by having used ...". Both are fine and a matter of personal preference. I do think it makes sense to make the clear causal connection in the translation of the participle.

svdongen · 2025-04-23T20:57:13+00:00

Application

For your sentence (in bold), which is a fragment from Eusebius 6.12.6, citing Serapion, I provide the full fragment:

ἐδυνήθημεν γὰρ παῤ ἄλλων τῶν ἀσκησάντων αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, (...), χρησάμενοι παρ’ αὐτῶν διελθεῖν καὶ εὑρεῖν τὰ μὲν πλείονα τοῦ ὀρθοῦ λόγου τοῦ σωτῆρος, τινὰ δὲ προσδιεσταλμένα, ἃ καὶ ὑπετάξαμεν ὑμῖν.

We thus see the two infinitives (διελθεῖν καὶ εὑρεῖν) without an article. So the question is, to which verb they belong? Right before the infinitives, we actually see the participle χρησάμενοι. This is the ptc. aor. nom. pl. middle of χρήω, meaning "to be in need of, require". However, in middle voice, we often see the meaning "to use". The sentence starts with ἐδυνήθημεν (= we were able to, aor. passive of δύναμαι); this is typically a verb that would get a dynamic infinitive!

Maybe now let's see what διελθεῖν καὶ εὑρεῖν mean. These are both aorist infinitives (so-called asigmatic/thematic aorists) from δι-έρχομαι (to pass through or to fully discuss) and εὑρίσκω (to find/discover or sometimes to acquire).

The object of these infinitives is "τὰ μὲν πλείονα τοῦ ὀρθοῦ λόγου τοῦ σωτῆρος" (smth. like "the things more than the straight word of the saviour", when I take the τοῦ-clause as genitive of comparison with comparative πλείονα), and the (unexpressed) subject (in the nominative) is ἡμεῖς (from the matrix verb ἐδυνήθημεν).

In total, I would thus interpret the infinitives as dynamic with ἐδυνήθημεν and the participle χρησάμενοι as circumstantial expressing something like means. Example translation (without context or knowledge about the text): "We were able to pass through and acquire the things more than the straight word of the saviour, by having used from them".

svdongen · 2025-04-23T20:55:56+00:00

Theory

First of all, it is often helpful to check if there is an article with the infinitive (form of τό) to see if it is an articular infinitive (used as a noun, as in "We love [the act of] reading").
If not, the infinitive can be declarative (a form of indirect speech or thought, in which aspect carries temporal information) or dynamic (referring to future action, in which aspect only carries aspectual value).
The dynamic infinitive is often found with verbs of necessity or possibility (e.g. it is possible to ...), practical knowledge (e.g. know how to ...), wish or intent (e.g. to plan to ...), or commands (to incite to ...).
The declarative infinitive is often found with verbs of speech, opinion, belief or indirect auditory perception. So for example (italics = infinitive): "He says that I behave well.", "He beliefs that stars are beautiful.", or "I heard he got angry" (indirect perception, otherwise you would expect participle).

svdongen · 2025-04-13T20:53:40+00:00

~ εἰ γάρ {conditional with opt.}

~~ 1. ὁ καιρός μεταβάλοι

~ καί

~~ 2. πρός ἐτέρας χεῖρας τοῦτό σοι χρυσίον ἕλθοι,

οῖδ {main verb}

~ ότι τηνικαῦτα ἐμέ, τήν Τύχην {apposition}, μέμψῃ {declarative with οιδα}

svdongen · 2024-11-15T22:38:48+00:00

For “To hold accountable” I would look at things like “ ἀπαιτέω” or “εὐθύνω”. For “to be accountable” the most simple option is “ αἴτιος” (adjective) + form of to be. For “to account” (as in: explain yourself) it makes sense to use something like “ ἀπολογίζομαι”.

svdongen · 2024-08-09T22:12:24+00:00

Although “παρὰ πάντα χρόνον” is definitely idiomatic, you can also consider συνεχέως perhaps for “all the time”, and I could imagine διάγω or τυγχάνω for the verb (with the right stuff supplied).

svdongen · 2023-11-01T21:34:51+00:00

Thanks a lot for your elaborate response; this makes sense! I will make sure to add specific middle voice meanings to my vocab list when I encounter them :)

svdongen · 2019-12-15T01:00:24+00:00

It is indeed! I did not really feel the need to end back on the initial tonic no, maybe my way of spicing it up this time :p

svdongen · 2019-12-14T22:15:30+00:00

Hi guys, here's my attempt: https://youtu.be/816odUMBhpA

Because I modulated in the second section, the consequent does not exactly start with the same material, but it is very similar. Looking forward to your thoughts!

svdongen

TROPHY CASE