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Apodotic δέ.—The beginning of the principal clause (apodosis) of conditional and concessive sentences is often marked by δέ. Apodotic δέ is found also in the principal clause of causal, temporal, comparative, and relative sentences; and regularly gives greater emphasis to the main clause, which is thus distinctly set off against the subordinate clause. Apodotic δέ is very common in Homer and Herodotus, not rare in Attic poetry, but infrequent in Attic prose, where it is used especially after an emphatic personal or demonstrative pronoun or when a participle represents the antecedent clause. Thus, εἷος ὁ ταῦθ' ὥρμαινε . . ., ἦλθε δ' Ἀθήνη εἰ οὖν ἐγὼ μὴ γιγνώσκω μήτε τὰ ὅσια μήτε τὰ δίκαια, ὑ_μεῖς δὲ διδάξετέ με
ἐπεὶ τοίνυν οὐ δύναμαί σε πείθειν μὴ ἐκθεῖναι, σὺ δὲ ὧδε ποίησον
ἐκάθευδον . . . ὥσπερ οἱ ὁπλῖται οὕτω δὲ καὶ οἱ πελτασταί
ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἀφικόμενοι μάχῃ ἐκράτησαν . . ., φαίνονται δ' οὐδ' ἐνταῦθα πά_σῃ τῇ δυνάμει χρησάμενοι
καί ποτε ὄντος πάγου . . . οὗτος δ' ἐν τούτοις ἐξῄει
a. Apodotic δέ often resumes a δέ in the subordinate clause and carries on the opposition expressed by that clause; as εἰ δὲ βούλεσθε . . . ἐκλεξάμενοι ὅποι ἂν βούλησθε κατασχεῖν . . ., πλοῖα δ' ὑ_μῖν πάρεστιν
b. The use of apodotic δέ should not be regarded as a survival of original coördination.
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Herbert Weir Smyth [n.d.], A Greek Grammar for Colleges; Machine readable text [info] [word count] [Smyth].
