The origins of ERCOMAI
Dr. Dale M. Wheeler
dalemw at multnomah.edu
Thu Jun 6 00:50:28 EDT 2002
Carl Conrad wrote:
>At 6:39 PM -0700 6/3/02, Ty wrote:
> > --List Members:
> >
> >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?
> >
> >I guess I could just accept that that is the way it is but such acceptance
> >does not satisfy my curiosity and curiosity is at the heart of a desire to
> >learn.
>
>No, you should NOT suppose that the root ERC appearing in the present
>system of this verb somehow metamorphosizes into the root appearing in the
>other systems. In fact, that root ERC appears ONLY in the present system;
>the other (wholly unrelated) root has three forms, (all originally preceded
>by initial digamma which I'll omit from the account here): ELEUQ-, ELOUQ-,
>ELUQ-, the last form appearing in Homeric aorist HLUQON, but in later Greek
>the U is usually syncopated out so that it becomes the more familiar
>2nd-aorist stem ELQ-.
>The future tense is formed from ELEUQ-S-O/E- with standard assimilation and
>simplification of Q-S before vowel to -S-; the perfect stem is what's
>called "Attic reduplication": the first syllable of ELUQ is reduplicated
>with lengthening of the second -E- to ELHLUQ-.
Greetings Carl...
Indeed one should not be surprised to see such combined forms in Greek,
they happen in many languages. English, ie., Anglo-Saxon, has "go, went,
gone", with the "go/gone" principal parts coming from the Germanic heritage
(viz., German "gehen") and the "went" coming from the Romance heritage
(viz., Latin "venire, vedire"; French "venir"). I read somewhere once an
explanation tracing some of these combined Greek roots to the same
phenomenon, ie., the speakers of Attic and Hellenistic had chosen different
(Ionic, Doric, Proto-Greek, Sanscrit) dialectically based roots for the
various principal parts of their verbs...but I don't remember where that
was discussed. Does that ring a bell with you Carl?
***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Prof., Biblical Languages Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan St. Portland, OR 97220
V: 503-2516416 E: dalemw at multnomah.edu
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