participles & EINAI

Richard Ghilardi qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Sat Jul 27 11:30:32 EDT 2002


James,

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002 21:28:16 +1000 James Forsyth <james at bigbeing.com.au>
writes:

[snip the participles]

> 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?
> 

EINAI is not the infinitive of EIMI in MG. MG has no infinitive. Here is
the morphoparadigm for EIMI in MG:

EIMAI		EIMASTE
EISAI			EISTE
EINAI			EINAI

MG uses NA + UPOTAKTIKH (subjunctive) where English uses an infinitive:

QELW NA EIMAI ENAS AMERIKANOS.

I want to be an American.

O MAUROS EINAI MAT.

Black is mate (checkmated).

Yours in His grace,

Richard Ghilardi -- qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
New Haven, CT USA




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