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In Greek result clauses can take one of two forms. Handily, these correspond quite closely to their form in English.
Result clauses usually indicate the consequence of a particular trigger. Take the following example:
It was so hot that I didn’t get any work done
In this sentence, the heat is the trigger, and the result is that I didn't get any work done.
We can note that the main clause is marked by ‘so’, and the result clause is introduced by ‘that’. You might therefore learn that result clauses are marked by ‘so that’. However, this may confuse you as ‘so that’ can also indicate purpose:
She took an umbrella so that she wouldn't get wet
NB Result clauses and purpose clauses are different, and are marked differently in Greek (see purpose clauses). The gap between the ‘so’ and the ‘that’ in the result clause is important!
Greek result clauses can look very similar to the English equivalents. The Greek equivalent of ‘so’ in the previous example is οὑτως, and the Greek equivalent of ‘that’ is ὥστε. The verb of the ὥστε clause is in the indicative.
For example:
καὶ οὕτως ἤδη συνειθισμένον ἦν, ὥστε πολλάκις ἡ γυνὴ ἀπῄει κάτω καθευδήσουσα ὡς τὸ παιδίον, ἵνα τὸν τιτθὸν αὐτῷ διδῷ καὶ μὴ βοᾷ.
And we were so used to this arrangement that my wife often went downstairs to sleep with the child, to breastfeed it and stop it crying.
Lysias Speeches 1.10
NB The construction needs to be considered as a whole. You need to realise that οὑτως is a ‘marker word’ for the construction (eg. rather than translating it as its own word, meaning ‘thus’). And you need to take care to see which word οὑτως is ‘modifying’.
Importantly, this is not the only way that Greek can express result. We can find the infinitive after ὡστε as well. For example:
πυθόμενος γὰρ ὅτι τὸ μειράκιον ἦν παρ’ ἐμοί, ἐλθὼν ἐπὶ τὴν οἰκίαν τὴν ἐμὴν νύκτωρ μεθύων, ἐκκόψας τὰς θύρας εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν γυναικωνῖτιν, ἔνδον οὐσῶν τῆς τε ἀδελφῆς τῆς ἐμῆς καὶ τῶν ἀδελφιδῶν, αἳ οὕτω κοσμίως βεβιώκασιν ὥστε καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν οἰκείων ὁρώμεναι αἰσχύνεσθαι.
When he found out that the boy was staying with me, he came to my house drunk one night, broke down the doors and went into the women's quarters, where my sister and nieces were. They lived such proper lives that they were ashamed even to be seen by servants.
Lysias Speeches 3.6
In English too, we can find infinitives in result clauses. The initial example about working in summer is very close in meaning to the following:
It was too hot to work
The difference between the two constructions in English is said to be very close to the difference in Greek. When we use the indicative (‘it was so hot that I didn't get any work done’), we state the result clause, meaning that the event in it it actually happened: I didn’t get any work done. When we use the infinitive we don’t actually say what happened. It’s just an implication that I didn’t get any work done if I say ‘it was too hot to work’. I could cancel the implication if it wasn’t true:
It was too hot to work, so I went and bought a fan.
- Indicative: the result is stated
- Infinitive: the result is implied
Result clauses with no marker word
Not all result clauses need to be marked by a marker word like ‘so’.
For example:
καὶ συλλήβδην πάσης τῆς ἀρχαιολογίας ἥδιστα ἀκροῶνται, ὥστ’ ἔγωγε δι’ αὐτοὺς ἠνάγκασμαι ἐκμεμαθηκέναι τε καὶ ἐκμεμελετηκέναι πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα.
…and in a word, they love hearing about all ancient history, so that I have been forced by them to become knowledgeable and expert about all that kind of thing.
Plato Hippias Major 285e
It will not always be clear in the translation that these are result clauses. For example:
θέμενοι δὲ ἐς τὴν ἀγορὰν τὰ ὅπλα τοῖς μὲν ἐπαγαγομένοις οὐκ ἐπείθοντο ὥστε εὐθὺς ἔργου ἔχεσθαι καὶ ἰέναι ἐπὶ τὰς οἰκίας τῶν ἐχθρῶν...
Grounding their weapons in the agora they did not obey the men who had made their entrance possible in gettting straight to work and going to the houses of their enemies.
Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 2.1