[B-Greek] RE: second aorist participle accent shift
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Mon Sep 20 13:43:44 EDT 2004
>>Schwandt egrapsen
>> second aorist participles normally shift their accent one place nearer
>> the ultima. This can really help since present and second aorist
>> participles are often confused.
>KAI Decker APEKRIQH
>The stem change is far more obvious here than an accent shift.
Actually, while both writers above are correct,
this is a useful observation for students who are hearing the language in
class.
"listen" to the following:
LU'ontes
laBON'tes
The first is continuative/open-ended, while the second is aoristic/closed.
The difference is heard, even though neither verb has a '-SANTES'.
Granted, if students had learned vocabulary based on LU'ein//LU~sai and
lamBA'nein//laBEIN~, they would already recognise which category of
participle was being used.
But when hearing a new word in a context where they might be encouraged to
guess the meaning and keep reading, then the shifted accent allows them to
put the new word in the correct category. This contextual guessing is one of
the basic language learning skills that helps students when learning modern
languages and we want to encourage as wide a reading in a language as
possible.
[[For those interested, the sound of the accented -O'Ntes ending can be a
continuative participle when spelled with W-mega: agaPW~Ntes. The Greeks
were able to live with that structural ambiguity during the
Hellenistic/Roman/Byzantine/modern era.]]
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Hebrew University, Rothberg International School
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
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