Some patterns underlying the perfect forms EGHGERKA, etc?

Carlton Winbery winberyc at speedgate.net
Sat Oct 7 17:44:48 EDT 2000


>Dear bgreekers,
>
>I have some questions on the irregular  perfect forms, e.g
>EKHKOA (from AKOUW), EGHGERKA (from EGEIRW),
>ELHLAKA (from ELAUNW), ELHLUQA (ERXOMAI).

A good morphology would be of help to you here. The form EKHKOA is really
AKHKOA and is the result of reduplication by duplicating the first syllable
and lengthening the short vowel between the two. The same is true of
EGHGERMAI, ELHLAKA, and ELHLUQA.

>Are there some patterns underlying these inflections?
>It seems that they have the augment E and the reduplication
>of the stem consanants, e.g. KHKO, GHGE, LHLA, LHLU.
>
Augmentation is not at play here. The initial vowel E (AKHKOA - A) is just
that, the first letter of each word. So KHKO, GHGE, LHLA, LHLU should all
be preceded by an E as part of the stem except KHKO which should begin with
A. For the perfect forms these words reduplicate with the whole first
syllable. Other factors are also at play in the morphology of these words.
For example the verb ELAUNW has a verb stem of ELA but adds NU for the
first principal part (present stem). ELANUW by metathesis becomes ELAUNW.
I'm sure Carl could add some history into this process, but look at the
third PP -HLASA and the fourth ELHLAKA. The basic verb stem is ELA.
EGHGERMAI has a verb stem of EGER. It adds an iota in the first principal
part and lengthens the E to EI in the third principal part because of the
loss of the S after the liquid. In the perfect the first syllable is
doubled for reduplication. In the NT it appears only in the fifth PP but is
given by Liddell and Scott in the fourth PP also, EGHGERKA.

Again a good morphology will help you understand the changes that take
place in Greek and also to deal with many "so-called" irregular forms. Two
such works were published within months of each other in 1994, Brooks and
Winbery from Univ. Press of America and Mounce,from Zondervan Press. Of
course I prefer the former but it is a bit expensive (not my fault).


Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery at speedgate.net
winbery at andria.lacollege.edu
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off





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