[B-Greek] New Student Question
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Feb 1 16:51:07 EST 2004
At 2:40 PM -0500 2/1/04, Skip Tyler wrote:
>I am sorry for this basic question. I am 50 years old (rather old to start
>studying Greek). I am using Mounce's BBG book and his Analytical Lexicon.
>
>In his book BBG the second and third noun rules are:
>
>2. Every neuter word has the same form in the nominative and accusative.
>3. Almost all neuter words end in alpha in the nominative and accusative
>plural.
>
>In his Lexicon the second and third noun rules are:
>
>2. Almost all neuter word has the same form in the nominative and
>accusative.
>3. All neuter words end in alpha in the nominative and accusative plural.
>
>Which of these is correct? Thanks.
I've seen Harold's response to this and would only add that, while the
original neuter plural nom./acc. ending of nouns in -OS was -EA, that
sequence very early became long alpha which in turned changed to eta. Thus
the rule that nominative/accusative plurals of nouns ends in alpha needs to
be supplemented by the note that -EA neuter plurals contracted and became
-H neuter plurals.
--
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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