[B-Greek] Origin of Infinitive

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun May 9 10:02:47 EDT 2004


At 6:51 AM -0700 5/9/04, Eddie Mishoe wrote:
>Is this explanation generally agreed to:
>
>The so-called Infinitive Mood had its origin in the
>Dative and Locative cases of a verbal noun. LUEIN
>meant originally "for loosing" or "in loosing."

Pretty much. It's a bit more complicated; the ending -AI is what's argued
for. the oldest form of the infinitive of EIMI was -EMENAI which was
attached
-- 

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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