[B-Greek] -MI verbs

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Sep 15 11:22:08 EDT 2003


At 7:47 AM -0700 9/15/03, John Schwandt wrote:
>Carl,
>
>Are you making a distinction between "thematic" vowels and a larger class of
>variable vowel usage?  I've viewed first aorist pattern's as having a
>variable vowel (A/E) following the sigma and the same with perfect active
>patterns following a kappa.  I've also understood the 6th principal part (I
>will use that term to avoid aorist passive :) ) as having H/E as its
>variable vowel.

Yes, I think these are two different phenomena; The "thematic" vowel as an
alternation of Omicron and Epsilon (Omicron appearing before nasals M and
N, Epsilon in all other instances) is a feature of the Proto-Indo-European
parent of Greek, appearing in Latin (3rd-conjugation verbs, especially) as
an alternation of I and U (CEDO/CEDIS/CEDUNT, archaic
CEDUMUS/CEDITIS/CEDUNT). Properly speaking there were always two types of
verb conjugation in ancient Greek: "thematic" using the alternating E/O as
a link between stem and personal endings, and "athematic" linking personal
endings directly to the stem. That is different from Alpha-endings of the
first-aorist and perfect (both first and second) that are constant except
in the 3d sg. where the thematic 3d sg. secondary ending has replaced the
A) and it is different from the "Umlauted" or "Vowel-gradation" alternation
between W/O or H/A (long- and short-A) or H/E of -MI verbs (DIDWMI/DIDOMEN,
TIQHMI/TIQEMEN/the athematic aorists in W/O (EGNWN, GNONT-), IN H/A (long-
and short-A, ESTHN/ESTAMEN), in H/E, EFANHN, FANENT- (including conjugation
of the QH forms). It may well be that the E/O alternation of the thematic
vowel is another sort of Vowel Gradation (it shows up, for instance in the
endingless vocative of -OS nouns like ANQRWPOS: ANQRWPE), but the thematic
vowel seems to be a constitutive element of one class of verbs that we call
"thematic" in at least the branch of IE that includes Greek and Latin.

>CWC: It is a vowel alternating between O and E that appears between the verb
>stem and personal ending of all "thematic" paradigms (circular definition:
>most of the verb morphoparadigms of ancient Greek are, in fact, thematic,
>and it's easier to list the exceptions than to list all the thematic
>morphoparadigms; the exceptions are: aorists in -SA-, perfects in -KA,
>perfect middle-passives in MAI/SAI/TAI, aorists (including all -QH- FORMS) IN
>N/S/(T)/MEN/TE/SAN), present and imperfects in MI.)

-- 

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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