[B-Greek] hESTWTA

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Tue Sep 20 09:33:22 EDT 2005


On Sep 20, 2005, at 9:01 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:

> Luke 5:2 contains
>
> KAI EIDEN DUO PLOIA hESTWTA PARA THN LIMNHN
>
> Why is there no -K in the Perfect ptc. hESTWTA?

This is what's called a "Second Perfect" of hISTHMI/hISTAMAI (I'd  
prefer this verb be lemmatized as hISTAMAI since the active form is  
actually the causaative and the intransitive standard form is in fact  
the middle). The older form of the perfect tense of hISTAMAI is  
hESTAA, a form found more commonly in Homer and archaic Greek  
literature than at later times, when the "First perfect" hESTHKA is  
standard. However one is likely to see the participle of the "Second  
perfect" hESTWS (although "active" the "Second Perfect" had no voice  
distinction and often, as in this instance, corresponded with a  
middle lemma. Curiously one find both the "First perfect" participle  
hESTHKWS and the "Second perfect" participle hESTWS quite commonly  
throughout the GNT. But as I've repeatedly noted, the Koine is a  
language is flux with concurrent older and newer equivalent forms.

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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