[B-Greek] Jn 1:1 HN (was) cf. ESTIN

DJNordlund at aol.com DJNordlund at aol.com
Tue May 4 16:44:34 EDT 2004


In a message dated 5/4/2004 1:23:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
KwonO at upstate.edu writes:

Do I understand from the responses that:

       HN is 'past' tense of ESTIN; 

while one of my resource (Interlinear Scripture Analyzer which was from
http://www.concordant.info/ ) says 

      HN is 'past' tense (imperfect) of EIMI.

thus ESTIN and EIMI are essentially same meaning?  

I thought the two are different  words (one of being about 'existing' and
another one being about 'being' (copulative).

Sorry for keep asking; my electronic resources (Gk dictionaries etc) are
out of reach once my computer had conked out.

Oun J Kwon, M.D.
SUNY Uptate Med University
Syracuse, NY

------------Reply-------------

EIMI is the lexical form of the verb, which is usually the 1st person, 
singular, present, active, indicative form (I have been told).  I has a number of 
shades of meaning including (but not limited to) :

I am, exist, live, am present.

ESTIN is the 3rd person, singular, present, active, indicative form of EIMI, 
while HN is the 3rd person, singular, imperfect, active, indicative form of 
EIMI.  They are both just different conjugations of the same verb, EIMI, and 
hence share the same core meaning but with different aspect.

Being a rank amateur, I have probably said more than I know.  But that is my 
understanding of this question.

Dan Nordlund



More information about the B-Greek mailing list