[B-Greek] PISTEUW

Patrick.F.O'Neill at kp.org Patrick.F.O'Neill at kp.org
Fri Feb 28 18:31:34 EST 2003


Dear b-greek,

With this message I am "delurking" to make a small comment.  With more
leisure at a later date, I may add a few words of self introduction. GREAT
list-- I'm enjoying it a lot.

Mark may be interested to know that his speculations would probably yield
correct answers if he were studying the transition from earlier Greek to
the modern language.  There are simple examples of the loss of the initial
vowel of a preposition with incorporation of the rest of the preposition
into the stem.

   upo + ago > (modern Greek) pag-  "to go"
   upo + andreuo > (modern Greek) pandreu- "to marry"

where the original sense of "to marry" was once clear from the parts of the
word: 'to place under (upo) a man (andr-)'

Yours,
Pat



                                                                                                                                            
                      "Carl W. Conrad"                                                                                                      
                      <cwconrad at artsci.wustl        To:       "Mark H. Bahr" <koine at ev1.net>                                                
                      .edu>                         cc:       b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org                                                     
                      Sent by:                      Subject:  Re: [B-Greek] PISTEUW                                                         
                      b-greek-bounces at lists.                                                                                                
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                      02/28/2003 02:58 PM                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                            




At 3:35 PM -0600 2/28/03, Mark H. Bahr wrote:
>Regarding this word PISTEUW, and this is not doctrinal, I was doing some
>study in the Greek text a few months ago, and came across an augmented
form
>of PISTEUW, and in a short mental lapse, thought, hmm, that is a
combination
>of EPI and ISTIMI, stand upon, then my mind came back and the word I have
>read so many times proved to be just the aorist form of PISTEUW.  Now,
>here's my query, as this incident got me to thinking...
>
>Would it be a possibility that possibly a primitive form for PISTEUW was
>indeed a combination of EPI and ISTIMI and the epsilon was dropped over
time
>(you know the evolving/devolving--whichever you prefer--of language) for
>ease of speech and was only preserved as an augment in the "past" (please
>don't start another aspect thread based on my use of this terminology--I'm
>only using it for convenience sake) tenses?  Again, this is mere
speculation
>(and nothing to really fret over), but something that would be enjoyable
to
>look into.  Even if it is a possibility, I do know that in Koine usage, it
>probably evolved to mean something different from the original etymology
>(and I really try to avoid that etymological/root fallacy as much as
>possible anyway).

This is an interesting speculation, but, however much I dislike being
dogmatic about anything, it is unquestionably wrong. The etymology of
PISTEUW is well known: it is a denominative verb derived from combination
of root PIQ- and action noun-ending -TIS/SIS: PIQ-TIS --> PISTIS, gen.
PISTEWS with a digamma or U originally present in the stem: PISTEf- or
PISTEU-. The root itself takes several forms in vowel-gradation or "Ablaut"
PEIQ POIQ PIQ; the same root appears in PEIQW/PEIQOMAI; the Indo-European
root is BHEIDH/BHOIDH and the root appears in Latin verbs and nouns FIDO
and FIDES. EPI and hISTAMAI have absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm
sorry to be so negative, but I think that in this case, the facts are
pretty clear.
--

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.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
---
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