The origins of ERCOMAI - verbs with different roots

Chuck Tripp ctripp at ptialaska.net
Tue Jun 4 02:43:21 EDT 2002


"I am willing to accept that occasionally a word can go through such a
transition that it becomes unrecognizable when compared to its lexical form,
especially in the 2nd Aorist, but I am really curious what transition could
have taken place to make ERCOMAI develop the variations it has.  I can see
ERCHOU and ERCESQE in the imperative, HRCOMHN in the imperfect is also
logical but what about ELEUSOMAI(fut), ELHLUQA(pf), HLQON (2nd aorist) and
HLQA (1st aorist).  Does anyone know if this is due to a historical change
in the stem and, if so, how it took place?"

As Carl said these are actually different stems.  This occurs in english occasionally too.  Go/went is an example.  This occurs in other languages too (example in the French aller at least three stems come to mind, 'all-', (as in aller, allez, allons, allait), 'va-' (je vais, tu vas etc), 'ir-' (j'irais etc).

This kind of brings to mind a question I have been trying to formulate while reading the discussion between Carl and Ward.  Were the speakers of greek, the average speakers conscious of the fact that ERCOMAI and ELQE and EIMI (ibo) are different manifestations of the same word.  I am not sure I was aware that go and went are the same word until I became aware of this in other languages.

If most greek speakers were not conscious of this, that kind of makes me wonder how native speakers process mentally their own language as opposed to non-native speakers.  

Chuck Tripp
Kodiak, Alaska
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