[B-Greek] MI verbs

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Feb 25 16:09:31 EST 2003


At 2:45 PM -0500 2/25/03, <greek-list at emailias.com> wrote:
>Howdy:
>
>I want to ensure I understand what's going on with MI verb conjugations,
>and vowel contraction. The imperfect act. ind. singular of DIDWMI is
>EDIDOUN, EDIDOUS, EDIDOU. It looks to me like there is the typical
>contraction going in, that is, when O is combined with E, you get OU.
>Is that correct?

What's actually going on here is that the imperfect conjugation of DIDWMI
has assimilated only in the singular to thematic forms. Thus:
	E-DIDO + ON --> EDIDOUN
	E-DIDO + ES --> EDIDOUS
	E-DIDO + E  --> EDIDOU
but in the plural the conjugation reverts to REGULAR secondary A-thematic
endings:
	E-DIDO + MEN --> EDIDOMEN
	E-DIDO + TE -->  EDIDOTE
	E-DIDO + SAN --> EDIDOSAN

>Also, the charts in the back of Mounce seem to imply that the same MI verb
>could use both first or second aorist. He has EDWN listed as the second
>aorist 1p sing of DIDWMI, but there's a footnote with EDWKA as the first
>aorist.
>I don't recall running across a verb that used both forms. I thought it
>was either/or. Can someone comment?

That is just simply wrong. DIDWMI has two aorist stems: DWKA- which is
employed consistently in NT Koine for all of the indicative (although older
Greek uses DO- and athematic endings in the plural), DO- which is employed
in all the other moods (including participle and infinitive).

I would not myself call EDWKA a "first aorist" although I can see why some
would do so inasmuch as it's conjugated with alpha endings (I think Ward
Powers does so for instance); I would reserve the term "first" aorist for
forms with sigma stems.

MI verbs are extraordinarily pesky because they resisted for so long
assimilation to omega-type conjugation; that assimilation, insofar as it
took place, did so especially in the imperfect singular, where we also see
ETIQEIS and ETIQEI in 2nd and 3d sg., although the 1st sg. remains ETIQHN.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.mcsinternet.net/~cwconrad/


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