[B-Greek] Nonindicative forms of DIDWMI

Mark Lama markosl80 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 24 15:35:48 EST 2004


 
 
Polycarp66 at aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 3/24/2004 10:59:44 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
chidical at hotmail.com writes:
Can anyone explain to me why the Infinitive forms of DIDWMI appear to be 
irreqular (e.g., DIDONAI instead of DIDOIN for the present active, DIDOSQAI 
instead of DIDOUSQAI for the present middle, etc.)
__________

Other than a few contraction issues, DIDWMI is a fairly typical member of the 
family of -MI verbs. I would suggest that you review them. They appear in 
Smyth §416 on pp. 135 ff. As to why, perhaps Carl can enlighten you regarding 
the history of this form.

gfsomsel
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It is interesting to see what happened to DIDWMI and the other -MI verbs in later Greek. Modern Greek has DINW (and I think also DIDW) for DIDWMI. These forms I would assume to be derived from DIDWNW, in turn from DIDOW, i.e., an O-contract, which was how Chidi was expecting the verb to behave. So it appears that Greek novices today aren't the only ones to have problems with the -MI verbs. The Greeks apparently did too!

Mark Lama


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