τυγχάνουσιν

[Aenesidemus]

In Aristotle's Poetics 1447a, we have

ἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητικὴ καὶ τῆς αὐλητικῆς ἡ πλείστη καὶ κιθαριστικῆς πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον: διαφέρουσι δὲ ἀλλήλων τρισίν, ἢ γὰρ τῷ ἐν ἑτέροις μιμεῖσθαι ἢ τῷ ἕτερα ἢ τῷ ἑτέρως καὶ μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον.

how should one translate that τυγχάνουσιν ? its basic meaning ,"happen to be at a place," doesn't fit, and the English translators seem pretty much to ignore it.

 

[Pacifica]

It goes with the participle οὖσαι—so τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι is literally something like "happen to be"; but wait for someone more versed in Greek to tell you about the exact nuance of meaning.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

Pacifica is right. This is one of those (relatively rare) Greek verbs that use a predicative participle to express what in English will almost always be an infinitive (as here). The word τυγχάνω by itself really just means 'happen' or the idiomatic English 'manage' (as in 'He managed to kill the bear.' = 'He succeeded in killing the bear.', which I suppose would be:
τὸν ἄρκτον ἔτυχεν ἀποκτανών.