GINOMAI

Carl Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Nov 30 17:39:41 EST 2002


> I am just a beginner as far as learning Greek goes so some of my questions may
> seem very basic to the more knowledge-able among you, but I do appreciate your
> replies.
> I am trying to learn Greek without the benefit of a teacher.  I did have a
> tutor at one time but he had to give it up due to time restraints. When I found
> B-Greek on the internet I thought that this might be a way to get questions
> answered that I would have asked the tutor.
>  I have already received a helpful answer from Dennis Hukel; Thanks.
>  Here is another question: In my grammar it says that GENHTAI in Mark 13:30 is
> an aorist.  The lexicon however, states that GINOMAI has EGENOMHN as active
> aorist, and EGENHQHN as passive aorist.  What happened to the augment, and why
> the different endings?  Can someone help me out? Thanks. 

If your lexicon is telling you that EGENOMHN is an "active" aorist, you
need to get a new and better lexicon. GINOMAI is in fact always "middle"
voice in MEANING, even if it has a perfect "active" form GEGONA. In the
aorist there are two forms: an older form EGENOMHN which is far more
common
in the literature you're likely to read, a newer form EGENHQHN which,
though bearing exactly the same MEANING, competed with EGENOMHN for a
while
and ultimately replaced it as the standard aorist form. Both these forms
are augmented: E- is the augment added to the root GEN- in the older form,
and E- is the augment added to the root GENHQH/E- in the newer form.

The form GENHTAI in Mark 13:30 is a subjunctive; it has no augment because
the augment is only found on indicative forms.

If you're still in the relatively early stages, all this may not make
sense
right away, but keep on asking questions about anything that is unclear,
and don't get discouraged by how much there is to learn about Greek.
-- 
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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