[B-Greek] Second Aorists with First Aorist Endings

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Thu Oct 6 21:38:40 EDT 2005


On Oct 6, 2005, at 8:24 PM, David Thiele wrote:

> Wenham (and persumably other introductory grammars) mention the  
> phenomenon of certain second aorists found in the New Testament  
> which can take first aorist endings.  Is this also a feature of  
> classical Greek or does it represent a "mistake" made in the  
> Hellenistic world?

It is a phenomenon that is already present in Homeric Greek, where  
there are two second aorists in alpha: HNEGKA along with HNEGKON and  
ECEA, which Smyth seems to derive from ECEUSA with loss of sigma and  
simplificaiton of EU (or from ECEfA -- where "f" represents a  
digamma). In the Koine there is an incremental use of forms such as  
EIDA and HLQA that are concurrent with EIDON and HLQON, but the alpha  
endings ultimately came to supplant the older thematic endings,  
ultimately even supplanted the -ON thematic endings of the imperfect.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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