How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

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Chris Servanti
Posts: 55
Joined: September 10th, 2015, 2:30 pm

How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by Chris Servanti »

I am working through Mounce's book on koine and love it (My ultimate goal is to be able to speak and write koine fluently, of course combined witht he necessary modern greek vocabulary wedded with koine grammar) I just finished the all the indicative verb forms, but I have a question:

Is there a way to find out (via lexicon or something else) which form of conjugation a verb uses? (Like whether λαλεω in the aorist is 1st or 2nd)

Thanks!
Jonathan Robie
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Location: Durham, NC
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Re: How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Welcome to B-Greek!

First, a little housekeeping. We have a user name policy that you have to follow in order to post. If you send me your real name, I can change your user name so we can approve your posts going forward.

To answer your question, any of these tools do the trick.
Some verbs have more than one aorist form. Sometimes one verb is closely related to another verb in form and meaning, which can be pretty confusing.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Carlson
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Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
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Re: How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Δουλος Του Χριστου wrote:Is there a way to find out (via lexicon or something else) which form of conjugation a verb uses? (Like whether λαλεω in the aorist is 1st or 2nd)
Most verbs use the 1st aorist. The 2nd aorists you will have to memorize. Good lexicons should tell you which conjugation is used. Fortunately, the most important ones are pretty common (they come from the oldest part of the language) so you will have plenty of reinforcement during your reading.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Chris Servanti
Posts: 55
Joined: September 10th, 2015, 2:30 pm

Re: How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by Chris Servanti »

Jonathan Robie wrote:Welcome to B-Greek!

First, a little housekeeping. We have a user name policy that you have to follow in order to post. If you send me your real name, I can change your user name so we can approve your posts going forward.

To answer your question, any of these tools do the trick.
Some verbs have more than one aorist form. Sometimes one verb is closely related to another verb in form and meaning, which can be pretty confusing.
Sorry 'bout the user name, and thank you very much for the resources!
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4165
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Re: How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Δουλος Του Χριστου wrote:Is there a way to find out (via lexicon or something else) which form of conjugation a verb uses? (Like whether λαλεω in the aorist is 1st or 2nd)
Most verbs use the 1st aorist. The 2nd aorists you will have to memorize. Good lexicons should tell you which conjugation is used. Fortunately, the most important ones are pretty common (they come from the oldest part of the language) so you will have plenty of reinforcement during your reading.
Also, textbooks tell you about 2nd aorists when they introduce those verbs.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
caseyperkins
Posts: 9
Joined: January 23rd, 2015, 3:26 pm

Re: How do I know which aorist a verb is conjugated in?

Post by caseyperkins »

Here's something I'm working on for my iPhone program GreekKit. This feature will be available next week. It shows all forms of a given word as they appear in the NA28. (Forms that are not in the NA28 are not listed). It also identifies second aorists, second perfects, and other such info.

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All of the parsing info comes courtesy of Dr. Maurice Robinson.
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