Talk:Modern Greek/Reading Exercises/Reading 01

=ύφασμα and αρκετός=

Untitled
Can anyone explain the difference between ύφασμα and αρκετός?--Bcrowell 18:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Thanks, Andreas, I was just confused! --Bcrowell 06:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

=βοερού= I'm hoping this question will turn out to be significantly less stupid than my last one. I want to produce my own translation of the Cavafy poem, since I don't know of any public-domain English translations. Is βοερού a form of an adjective βοερός? I can't find a βοερός in any dictionary -- is it archaic?
 * Βοερός : αυτός που παράγει ή εκπέμπει δυνατή βοή, γεμάτος θόρυβο
 * from: http://www.asxetos.gr/
 * Here is another Cavafy poem with this word: http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kavgr230.htm
 * Try various declension forms in Google and you will find more examples Andreas 01:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The meaning here is noisy Andreas 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

=translation=

Does λόγος have a religious connotation here, or does it just mean the power of speech?


 * Here "είχε λόγο" means "his word counted" (= he had the power to influence decisions)
 * --83.146.62.97 09:26, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My translation
This is a more literal translation (I'm not a poet, and English is not my mother tongue):

In the back of the noisy coffeehouse, bent over the table, an old man sits there, a newspaper in front of him, companionless.

And in the despair of the miserable old age, he thinks how little he enjoyed the years when he had strength, and beauty, and a say.

He knows he's very old; he can feel it and see it. Still the time when he was young seems like yesterday. What a short time, what a short time.

And he contemplates what a trick Prudence has played on him; how he trusted her -- what folly! -- and how she lied when she said, "Tomorrow. You have a lot of time."

He remembers the passions he controlled, and the joys he passed by. Those lost opportunities mock him now for his brainless knowledge.

But all that thinking and remembering made him dizzy, and he falls asleep in the coffeehouse, bent over the table.

Στου καφενείου
This seems a preposition combined with a genitive case. This would be non-standard Modern Greek as far as I can determine. Can someone explain this strange usage? JorisvS
 * The forms στον, στην etc are not words by themselves but contractions. The phrase is a contraction of Σε του καφενείου ... το μέσα μέρος which is a variation of σε το μέσα μέρος του καφενείου. This is a standard construction in Modern Greek.

If this is a normal construction, why do even teachers of Modern Greek in Greece tell that after a preposition (σε is most definitely one) only the accusative case can be used? JorisvS

- Google: "στού" 159,000; "στης" 84,000; "στων" 34,000. Andreas 14:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Με μιαν ...: The accusative of μια is μια, not μιαν in Modern Greek. This either is archaic or dialectal.
 * μιαν is a variant (accusative only) used before vowel, Google: 186,000, same as έναν, 1,940,000
 * These are other example that modern Greek is not standardized.Andreas 14:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, on this we can easily agree. JorisvS

From the commonness of the construction, I do not understand why none of my books intented for learning Greek (also the ones written and used in Greece) do not even mention it at all. One would expect to find it, because of the commonness of it. Can anyone clarify this for me? Related to this was my (unanswered) question above: "If this is a normal construction, why do even teachers of Modern Greek in Greece tell that after a preposition (σε is most definitely one) only the accusative case can be used?". In "Στου καφενείου" it is clearly combined with the genitive. Can anyone fill this in for me too? JorisvS