[B-Greek] Origin of the Infinitive
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon May 10 16:44:02 EDT 2004
At 9:45 AM -0400 5/10/04, Stephen C. Carlson wrote:
>Kevin Smith <kgsmith at webmail.co.za> wrote:
>>I hope this is not off-topic, but I am curious as to how EINAI shifted
>>from an infinitive in Koine to an indicative in Modern Greek.
>
>I wouldn't assume that EINAI "shifted" (the infinitive had been
>lost or replaced for quite some time) instead of supposing that
>Mod Gr EINAI was erected independently on analogy of EIMAI
>and EISAI in the first and second persons, respectively. The
>history of Greek shows strong pressures of analogy in the
>formation of this verb.
Stephen is right, of course, as usual. I suppose that since everyone who
has gotten beyond a semester of Greek know the present and imperfect of
EIMI, there is little occasion for students to look at the entry for EIMI
in BDAG; to do so, however, is instructive regarding the variant forms
found in the Hellenistic Koine and to note that evidence of the verb's
shift gradually into the middle voice begins in the Ptolemaic era (i.e.
beginning 3d c. BCE). This happens of course, precisely in the period
during which many grammarians claim that the middle voice is dying out. The
second set of excerpts are from Geoffrey Horrocks' very useful history of
the Greek language:
BDAG:
EIMI (Hom.+) impv. ISQI, ESO IPol 4:1, ESTW-also colloq. HTW (BGU 276, 24;
419, 13; POxy 533, 9; Ps 103:31; 1 Macc 10:31) 1 Cor 16:22; Js 5:12; 1 Cl
48:5; Hv 3, 3, 4;-3 pers. pl. ESTWSAN (ins since 200 BC Meisterhans3-Schw.
191; PPetr III, 2, 22 [237 BC]) Lk 12:35; 1 Ti 3:12; GJs 7:2. Inf. EINAI.
Impf. 1 pers. only mid. HMHN (Jos., Bell. 1, 389; 631; s. further below);
HN only Ac 20:18 D, 2 pers. HSQA (Jos., Ant. 6, 104) Mt 26:69; Mk 14:67 and
HS (Lobeck, Phryn. 149 'say HSQA'; Jos., Ant. 17, 110 al.; Sb 6262, 16 [III
AD]) Mt 25:21, 23 al., 3 sg. HN, 1 pl. HMEN. Beside this the mid. form HMHN
(pap since III BC; Job 29:16; Tob 12:13 BA), s. above, gives the pl. HMEQA
(pap since III BC; Bar 1:19) Mt 23:30; Ac 27:37; Eph 2:3. Both forms in
succession Gal. 4:3. Fut. ESOMAI, ptc. ESOMENOS. The mss. vary in choice of
act. or mid., but like the edd. lean toward the mid. (W-S. §14, 1; Mlt-H.
201-3; Rob. index; B-D-F §98; Rdm.2 99; 101f; Helbing 108f; Reinhold 86f).
Also s. ENI.
==========
Geoffrey Horrocks, _Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers_,
Longman, 1997.
§5.11 Later Christian Literature
§5.11.1 (The Apostolic Fathers) (d) The beginning of the transfer of the
verb 'to be' from the irrregular -MI paradigm to the regular middle
paradigm in -MAI. This seems to have begun ... with the recharacterization
of the 1sg. imperfect HN as HMHN, a form which is already well attested in
the Ptolemaic papyri, and served to distinguish the 1sg. from the
homophonous 3sg.; Phrynicus (130) naturally stigmatizes it. from this base
a largely middle paradigm was gradually built up in more popular registers
ofthe Koine through the later Roman and early Byzantine periods,the major
exception being the forms of the 3sg./3pl.present indicate, which derive
from the use of the accented preposition ENI, first used synonymously with
the compound ENESTI 'there is/are', but later as a simple replacement for
classical ESTI/EISI 'is/are'. The form was eventually adapted to the rest
of the paradigm, with first the suffix (-NAI) then the stem (EI-)
recharacterized on the model of 1sg./2sg. EIMAI/EISAI. We thus obtain the
following paradigm for the early/middle Byzantine period:
Present: EIMAI/EISAI/ENI
EIMEQA/EISQE/ENI
Past: HMHN/HSO/HTO
HMEQA/ESASQE/HTAN
§11.8.5 (Imperfective stem-formation) (a) The fate of the -MI verbs
... The case of EIMI 'I am' ... In the 3sg. and 3pl.present,however, the
form ENI, a reduced version of ENESTI/ENEISI 'there is/there are', had
already come to be used widely for ESTI/EISI, and this strongly resisted
replacement. It was, however, phonologically adapted over time to the rest
of the new paradigm (cf. 1/2sg. EIMAI, EISAI, first to ENAI, and finally to
EINAAI. Similarly, the original 3pl. past HSAN also survived strongly but
this was eventually subject to influence from the new 3sg. HTO to give HTAN.
========
--
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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