[B-Greek] What is the relation of "the Verb Stem" and "the Aorist Stem"?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu May 27 13:44:18 EDT 2004
At 10:59 AM -0400 5/27/04, Clwinbery at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 5/26/2004 11:03:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>fwgk5942 at mb.infoweb.ne.jp writes:
>
>> On 2004.5.26, at 11:39 PM, David Lew wrote:
>>
>> > What is the relation of "the Verb Stem" and "the Aorist Stem"?
>> >
>> > In the "Learn New Testament Greek" by John H. Dobson, p. 108, he says,
>> > " we study ... verbs in which one stem indicates continuing or
>> > repearted action (present stem), but a different stem indicates single
>> > or completed action, or action where there is no reference to
>> > continuation or repetition (aorist stem).
>> >
>> > And in "New Testament Greek: An Introductory Grammar" by Eric G. Jay,
>> > p. 16, he says,
>> > " it is convenient ... in such cases to speak of verb stem and present
>> > stem".
>> >
>> > My question is: Is the "Verb Stem" the "Aorist Stem"?
>> > Å@Å@Å@Å@Å@Å@Å@Å@David Lew
>>
>> David, Greek verbs have a general verb stem, and six tense stems, i.e.
>> a present stem, a future active stem, an aorist active stem, a perfect
>> active stem, a perfect middle/passive stem and an aorist passive stem.
>> Terminology may vary depending on the book/teacher, but the point to
>> remember is that there's one "verb stem" and six "tense
>> stems" each of
>> which is supposedly formed from the verb stem.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Raymond Regalado
>
>The best source for a discussion of this is Funk, Vol III, pp. 56-57. The
>six classes of the verbs are determined by Funk according to how the
>present stem is formed. In class I verbs the present stem equals the verb
>stem. On the present stem the present and imperfect are formed. In class
>II verbs the present stem equals the verb base plus tau, etc. Knowing the
>rules of morphology is essential to understanding the forms of the verb
>and the morphological changes that enable the reader to identify the
>tense, voice, mood, person, number of the verb.
>
>BALLW, a class III verb, equals the verb stem BAL plus a consonantal iota
>which produces BALLW for the present form. When such verbs takes a second
>aorist the verb stem equals the aorist stem. Augments are not part of the
>stem and thus drop off outside the indicative mood. Reduplication, on the
>other hand, is a permanent part of the stem and appear in all moods, and
>even in the infinite forms. The perfect stem of BALLW is BEBLHK(A), The QH
>stem is BLHQE/H.
>
>Again, Funk's entire presentation on the verb is excellent.
Alas, if only it were readily accessible! It is excellent, as so much about
it (we're talking about Funk's _Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of
Hellenistic Greek-, c1973, last printed in 1977. I may undertake the
project of typing up this section and making it available as a PDF file. In
the meantime, my own work of several years ago may be helpful; it was
originally part of materials that I prepared to supplement the JACT
_Reading Greek_ course which I taught for several years. This is a 14 page
PDF document which I have entitled, "Overview of the Ancient Greek Verb";
it consists of a section A that tabulates all the endings of the finite
verb as well as infinitives and participles, and a section B that catalogs
the six tense-systems in terms of roots and stems formed from those roots
and illustrates the linking of stems and endings by presenting "synopses"
of a particular person and number. It can be accessed (option-click to
download) at:
http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/AncientGreekVerb.pdf
Of course, these charts are concerned strictly and solely with morphology;
I haven't altered the traditional designations of the -QH- forms as
"passive" despite my conviction that they would be better designated by a
term such as MP2 to indicate that they too, like the MAI/SAI/TAI/MH/SO/TO
morphoparadigms, may bear EITHER a middle OR a passive semantic function in
any particular verb form, depending upon what the verb is.
--
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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