TOU GNWNAI AUTON Phillipians 3 9
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat May 6 20:56:34 EDT 2000
At 11:44 AM +1200 5/7/00, Eddie Van Gent wrote:
>Greetings
>
>
>According to various grammars GNWNAI is a 2nd Aorist Active Infinitive.
>However, the 2nd Aorist Active is EGNWN with the stem GNW and according to
>the rules an infinitive is only a deponent if that particular tense is
>deponent in the finite verb form.
>Second Aorist Active Infinitives have the same morpheme as the Present
>Infinitive so the word to be 2nd Aorist Active would normally be GNWN -
>being derived from the following- GNW + EEN (EIN endings were formerly
>EEN, which comes into play when contraction rules are applied) .This then
>would become GNWN.
This is one matter wherein I think traditional description of ancient Greek
verb morphology can only be confusing to new learners of the language,
namely, the distinction between "First" and "Second" categories in the
Aorist, Perfect, and so-called "(Aorist) Passive." The distinction intended
between "First" and "Second" at each 'tense'-systems (and of course 'tense'
is also a misnomer, since only in the indicative do these forms have any
normal temporal reference)--the distinction is between "First" forms as the
paradigm followed by the great majority of verbs that have an Aorist,
Perfect, and/or (Aorist) Passive, and "Second" which, as usually applied,
includes all archaic forms that deviate from the "First" paradigm, most of
them having a distinct paradigm of their own: Second Aorists having
"thematic" forms comparable to omega present and imperfect conjugation;
Second Perfects having -A rather than -KA endings and a bewildering variety
in ways of forming perfect tense-stems; Second Passives having -H rather
than -QH endings.
In my own teaching of ancient Greek I have made it my practice to refer to
Aorists of the type EGNWN, hEALWN, EBHN, ESTHN as "Third" Aorists; I've
also urged students to link together the descriptive language that's really
more valuable than the ordinal numeral used: "First or Sigmatic or Alpha
Aorist"--the sort formed with -S- as a tense marker and endings in
-A/-AS/-E/-AMEN/-ATE/-AN; "Second or Thematic or O/E Aorist"--the sort
formed like the imperfect by linking the thematic O or E to a stem before
adding the endings -N/-S/-E/-MEN/-TE/-N; and "Third or Athematic
('Non-Thematic') Aorist"--the sort formed with a stem element which is a
long vowel A or H or W, which may alternate with a short vowel form in A or
E or O and to which the same secondary endings are attached directly--with
no intervening thematic vowel--(-N/-S/--/-MEN/-TE/-SAN. EGNWN falls into
this category; the stem is simply the long-vowel root form GNW.
>To get GNWNAI one could take the 2nd Aorist Stem GNW + HNAI (which is the
>normal 2nd Aorist Passive morpheme) and end up with GNWNAI after applying
>the rules of contraction:-
>W + H = W
No, the 2nd (which I'd prefer to call "3rd" Aorist stem is GNW, but the
active infinitive ending is -NAI (just as for athematic present stems:
DIDO-NAI, TIQE-NAI, hISTA-NAI. The form GNWNAI is NOT a contraction;
moreover, although you might THEORETICALLY have a middle/passive infinitive
GNW-SQAI, that function is taken over by the forms EGNWSQHN with stem
GNWSQH- and infinitive GNWSQHNAI.
>I can't find any reference in the following major Greek scholar's books
>that GNWNAI is a 2nd Aorist Passive Deponent:- Bill Mounce, Max
>Zerwick/Mary Grosvener, Barbara & Timothy Friberg,
I can't speak for them; but I don't think this distinction is very clearly
treated even by Smyth's grammar (e.g. at the Perseus web site:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+546&vers=english&display=Latin+transliteration
At any rate, I think a Greek teacher has an obligation to make this
distinction between KINDS of "Second Aorist" clear and show how it works.
If anyone else cares to use my term "Third Aorist," be my guest, but the
truth is that I did not invent it so much as I have sought to promulgate as
a clarifying factor.
>Obviously if GNWNAI is in fact passive, the meaning of Phillipians 3: 9
>and context could alter quite significantly.
Banish the thought! It is NOT passive. That would have to be GNWSQHNAI. A
nice place to observe the alternation of active and passive is 1 Cor 13:12,
where the verb is compounded as EPIGINWSKW and what we have is an
opposition of future active with aorist passive: TOTE DE EPIGNWSOMAI KAQWS
KAI EPEGNWSQHN.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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