TOU GNWNAI AUTON Phillipians 3 9

Steven R. Lo Vullo sundoulos1 at netzero.net
Sat May 6 21:49:18 EDT 2000


Re: TOU GNWNAI AUTON Phillipians 3 9Eddie,

Carl is absolutely right about GNWNAI not being a second aorist. Mounce, in his book _The Morphology of Biblical Greek_, calls EGNWN a "root aorist." Says he, "When the personal ending is added directly to the verbal stem in the aorist, it is called a 'root aorist.' MI verbs in the active and middle are root aorists (e.g., hISTHMI > ESTHN), as are BAINW (*BA > EBHN; v-3d), GINWSKW (GNO > EGNWN; v-5a), DUW (*DU > EDUHN; v-1a[4]), and EPIPETOMAI (*PET > EPTHN; v-1b[3]).... Root aorists are easily confused with second aorists, which however use a connecting vowel." As a "root aorist" GNWNAI takes the active ending NAI rather than the second aorist EIN or the first aorist SAI. I think many people call this type of verb a "second aorist" for the sake of convenience, but that lends itself to confusion. Hope this is helpful.

Steve Lo Vullo
     
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Carl W. Conrad 
  To: Biblical Greek 
  Cc: Biblical Greek 
  Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 7:56 PM
  Subject: Re: TOU GNWNAI AUTON Phillipians 3 9


  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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