Three conjugations?

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Jun 2 21:30:46 EDT 2002


I really don't have much more to say on the question, beyond that "Three
conjugations" remains for me a question, which is why I have put the
question-mark back into the subject-header once more. I want to explain why
it remains a question for me just why classification of Greek verbs into
THREE "conjugations" is helpful or useful to one learning Greek. I then
want to call attention to two verbs which I think call for some explanation
in terms of Ward's classification of verbs in the GNT.

Let me reiterate at the outset that I admit openly that Ward's presentation
of the Greek verbal system is comprehensive and consistent. The forms and
phenomena which I might describe differently are described in a consistent
and orderly fashion in his textbook, _Learn to Read the Greek New
Testament_.

My own contention has been that

(1) it is imperative for the student of Greek to learn to distinguish two
fundamentally different types of verbal inflexion: THEMATIC, wherein the
variable vowel O/E (along with other infixes required to indicate tense,
voice, mood, etc.) intervenes between verb-stem and pronominal endings, and
ATHEMATIC, wherein the pronominal endings are attached directly to the
verb-stem enhanced, if need be, by those other required infixes;

(2) it is imperative for the student of Greek to learn the principal parts
of all verbs whereof any other principal part is not predictable from the
first principal part, i.e. the present indicative first-person singular,
and a student must also know how to extract from the principal parts the
stem for each of the "systems" and which endings are to be used with those
stems.

That's really quite a lot for a student to achieve and in my own experience
I've rarely seen students accomplish this in less than a full academic year
(that was two fifteen-week semesters at Washington University).
Consolidation of that achievement might take quite a bit longer, but I
think it's generally agreed that a disproportionate amount of the effort of
learning Greek must be expended upon learning the whole range of
inflections of the verb.

Now I cite from Ward's Appendix C, p. 252 on "Irregular Verbs":
C8.01. "... a verb is said to be _regular_ if all its forms are derived
from its lexical form with complete regularity in accordance with such a
general description of verbal behavior." The substance of that is restated
in C8.04: "This can be summed up by saying that, upon the basis of the
descriptive rules, all the forms of all the tenses of ar egular verb are
_entirely and accurately predictable._"

I have no quarrel with the above definition of a "regular verb." Nor have I
any quarrel with the comparable description of an "irregular verb":
C8.05 "An _irregular verb_ is a verb which has some forms that are _not
predictable_ from its lexical form on the basis of the descriptive rules."

So far as I can ascertain, Ward is fully consistent in his application of
this distinction between "regular" and "irregular verbs." However, it would
appear from what is said in C8.31 that Ward considers all the verbs of the
"Second" and "Third" Conjugations as irregular verbs--irregular because
they have principal parts not predictable from the lexical form:

C8.31 "Although most verbs of the Second and Third Conjugation follow
regular patterns in the formation of their other tense stems from their
aorist root, what the Principal Parts will be cannot be predicted in
advance, either from the lexical form or from the aorist of a verb. That
is, the Principal Parts need to be separately noted FOR EACH VERB OF THESE
CONJUGATIONS [my emphasis, cwc]. Thus as they have Principal Parts which
are unpredictable, these verbs must all be classified as irregular."

And here is where I scratch my head and wonder wherein lies the utility of
this distinction of "First" and "Second" "conjugations." So far as I can
see the two differ from each other chiefly in that the "First conjugation"
has -SA aorists or liquid/nasal variants of -SA aorists, while the "Second
conjugation" has -ON or -OMHN aorists, which is to say "thematic" aorists.

So I say, WHY is it not enough to require students to learn the principal
parts of ALL verbs (in the GNT or whichever database one chooses) that have
other principal parts not predictable from the first-person singular
indicative? If LUW is conjugated in the present tense exactly the same way
as BALLW is conjugated, why should LUW with its aorist in ELUSA be
segregated in a separate class from BALLW with its aorist EBALON, or from
ERCOMAI with its aorist HLQON, which often enough in the GNT appears as
HLQA? That BALLW and ERCOMAI have thematic aorists is clear already from
the memorized principal parts.

So I continue to think that what one needs to learn is (a) the fundamental
distinction between THEMATIC and ATHEMATIC verbal inflection, and (b) how
to derive stems from the principal parts of irregular verbs in order to
associate them with the endings appropriate to their types.

Finally I'd like to call attention to two very interesting irregular verbs
that appear in the NT and that happen to illustrate one of the more
fascinating elements of the history of past-tense verbal inflection: EKCEW
and FERW. Both these verbs show aorists in -A as far back as the Homeric
poems: EKCEW has only the form EXECEA, but FERW has an -A form (HNEGKA) as
well as a regular second-aorist form (HNEGKON). The persistence of both
HNEGKA and HNEGKON as equivalent forms throughout the classical era gives
way in the Hellenistic era to the survival of HNEGKA only. What is
remarkable about these "alpha" aorist forms is that there's no trace of a
Sigma ever having been present in either aorist, and HNEGKA can't be
explained as a -KA aorist either because the -K- is part of the root
(ENEGK) rather than part of a -KA ending.

Aorist of FERW in GNT:
	Aorist = 13x
		Indicative = 9 (HNEGKA 1x, HNEGKEN 5x, HNEGKAN 3x)
		Imperative = 1 (ENEGKATE 1x)
		Infinitive = 1 (ENEGKAI 1x)
		Participle = 2 (ENEGKAS 2x)

Here's the whole picture for EKCEW in the GNT:
EKCEW (16x in GNT)
	Active = 15
		Fut, Indic, EKCEW (perispomenon) VERB 1 sing fut act indic = 2
		Aor. Indicative = 11(EXECEEN 10x, EXECEAN 1x)
                     Imperative  = 1 (EKCEETE 1x)
                     Infinitive = 1 (EKCEAI 1x)
	Passive = 1
		Pres. Indic. = 1 (EKCEITAI 1x)

I don't know whether these verbs--either or both--fit into Ward's "First"
or into his "Second" conjugation; I would have thought that all "First
conjugation" verbs are regular but both of these must surely be classified
as "irregular" verbs.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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