learning stems

James Forsyth james at bigbeing.com.au
Thu Jul 4 05:05:14 EDT 2002


Hi Matthew,

Try juxtaposing the following verbs:

TIMAW
LALEW
POIEW
FILEW
FANEROW
DHLOW

KHRUSSW
PRASSW

LEGW
AIRW

-AGGELLW
BALLW

Compare the beginnings of the perfect active, perfect mid/pas & aorist 
passive for LEGW and LAMBANW.  For the ending of these three cases of 
LAMBANW, memorise the following pattern (which should look like a pyramid):

F
MM
(M)F (Attic in parentheses).

For GINOMAI, notice how the following rhyme (sp?) fits around the paradigm: 
MAI MAI MHN GEG GEG MAI THN.

Compare the aorist passive of GRAFW with the same for -AGGELLW (but note 
Attic inserts a theta between the lambda and eta in the latter).

For the intransitive of ISTHMI, draw a box around the two parts which begin 
with ESTH (disregard breathings for a moment); draw another box around the 
two epsilons with a rough breathing; place another box around the two parts 
which start with ESTA (disregarding breathings again).

The first aorist ending and second aorist are in alphabetical order.

To quickly memorise the aorist actives of BALLW and LAMBANW, place them 
next to each other.

Draw a curly bubble around the first letter of the present active, future 
active and perfect active of AKOUW, and an inverse curly bubble around the 
remaining tenses.

Compare the sigma in the perfect mid/pas and aorist passive of AKOUW with 
the same in GINWSKW.

Take advantage of all the many additions (prefixes? prepositions?) made to 
the word ERCOMAI.

Compare the tables of as many grammars as possible to get rid of the 
hyphens and replace them with words.  For example, many books omit the 
perfect mid/pas of hORAW.  It's best to include it (hEWRAMAI).

So many just come naturally after a while, but are difficult to explain.

Don't worry about taking Mounce's advice re: not memorising too many 
principal parts.  If you're a regular public transport user you've got time 
for anything!  (I, for one, do intend to be a regular public transport user 
"throughout my ministry" see BBG p372).

James Forsyth

At 07:11 AM 3/07/02 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello:
>
>I am learning Koine using the Mounce text, and have found it a good book. My
>only deficiency is that I am going at this entirely alone. I know all the
>paradigms cold, but a big challenge seems to be to learn the principal 
>parts of
>verbs. I could stare at the book and memorize, but does anyone have a
>recommendation/book for how to do this?
>
>Matthew E. Ferris
>
>
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