participles & EINAI

James Forsyth james at bigbeing.com.au
Sat Jul 27 07:28:16 EDT 2002


Hello B-Greek,

Consider memorising the participle paradigms in the following order:

1. LUWN
2. LUSWN
3. LUSAS
4. LELUKWS
5. LELUMENOS
6. LUQEIS
7. LUSAMENOS
8. LUOMENOS
9. LUSOMENOS
10. LUQHSOMENOS

Doing it this way means that the regular verb equivalents get learned in 
the correct order and the last four mostly build on each other and are easy 
to remember.

I noted that in numbers 1,2,3,4 & 6 above, the accusative singular 
masculine provides a preview of the nominative and accusative plural 
neuters.  The other five (5,7,8,9 & 10) all follow GRAFH for the feminine 
1st declension.  To memorise this pattern, you can write out the numbers 
1-10 and draw a curly shape around the former and another around the latter.

I have a question which may encroach into modern Greek territory.  The 
active infinitive of EIMI is EINAI (with a circumflex and smooth breathing 
above the first iota).  In a Greek book on chess I saw today (SKAKI 1) it 
said "hO LEUKOS EINAI MAT" and similarly "hO MAUROS EINAI MAT" (once again 
the circumflex and breathing were the same).  In these cases white, then 
black, were delivering checkmate.  Is this the same EINAI?  I realise it 
may be stretching it to think that "takes", "mates" or "checkmates" means 
the same as the infinitive of EIMI.  But does it?

Thank you,

James Forsyth
(Assoc) DipTh; BA (Youth Affairs); GradDip (SRM)
ICQ: 10747220
james at bigbeing.com.au

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