GINOMAI

bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca
Sat Nov 30 20:35:29 EST 2002



> 
> From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
> Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:32:07 -0500
> To: <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca>
> CC: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Re: [b-greek] GINOMAI
> 
> At 3:17 PM -0500 11/30/02, <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca> wrote:
> >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/
> 
   Mr. Conrad
Thanks for the reply and the encouragement.
The lexicon did say in a footnote * second aorist middle deponent. I overlooked that. I should have caught on to GENHTAI being subjuntive but sometimes I forget almost as much as I learn
  Bert de Haan.




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