[B-Greek] Reduplication

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jan 30 19:22:00 EST 2004


At 9:16 PM +0000 1/30/04, <dhoxworth at charter.net> wrote:
>><Carl>
>>There's this difference: in present stems the reduplication is done with
>>an iota, in the perfect with an epsilon (although "Attic" reduplication
>>repeats a whole syllable (AKHKOA for AKOUW, EGRHGORA for EGEIROMAI,
>>etc.--fortunately there are only half a dozen of those, although we see
>>one of them in the aorist: the stem AGAG for AGW, aorist HGAGON).
>
><doug>
>so that covers form but what about meaning? is there any connection there?
>
>Doug Hoxworth
>MABTS candidate at Luther Rice Seminary

I know of no distinctive semantic force to reduplication except that it
contributes to formation of a tense-stem; I guess it ought to be mentioned
(although all the grammars DO mention it) that certain kinds of verbs in
double consonant stems use an augment in place of reduplication in forming
the perfect stem: e.g. ESTALKA from STELLW. So one should consider
reduplication, at least, so far as the perfect tense is concerned, as a
formative element. It has been argued that in older (pre-classical) Greek a
reduplicated present tense was transitive while the unreduplicated present
tense was intransitive: MIMNW is itransitive, "await" (the foe, the
visitors) while MENW is intransitive, "wait/stay." But I don't think that
is a signficant factor for most of historical Greek.
-- 

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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