[B-Greek] Analytical Greek Lexicon

Bert de Haan b_dehaan at sympatico.ca
Sat Jan 28 18:46:15 EST 2006




George F Somsel <gfsomsel at juno.com>wrote
>To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>CC: b_dehaan at sympatico.ca
>Subject: Re:  [B-Greek] Analytical Greek Lexicon
>Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:18:29 -0500
>
 >Carl has already responded to you regarding some of this, but I would
>like to answer from a different perspective.When you look up an inflected
>form in an analytical lexicon, you find out the lemma, the parsing (of a
>verb) and a gloss. What you do not find out is how to detect for yourself
>why that particular instance is parsed as the analytical parses it. For
>this you need to study an *** elementary *** Greek grammar. It will
>introduce you to those elements which distinguish the various forms.  You
>will learn things such as the following. In Charles' ICC commentary on
>Revelation he has the quotation ?ap?a? ?? t. de?t??? ???? ???e? ?t?
>??????? ? ?e?????? ?a? ????ß?? ? ?de?f?? a?t?? ?p? ???da??? ???????sa?
>PAPIAS EN T. DEUTERWi LOGWi LEGEI hOTI IWANNHS hO QEOLOGOS KAI IAKWBOS hO
>ADELFOS AUTOU hUPO IOUDAIWN ANHiREQHSAN Let us look at just one verb in
>this -- ANHiREQHSANThe first thing that will probably be noticed if you
>have studied the formation of the various tenses is the - QH -.  This
>signifies the aorist passive and the ending - SAN - is the 3 pl of the
>aorist passive.  If this is to be an indicative, we would expect to see
>an augment.  AN -, however, doesn't look like an augment.  What it does
>look like is the form of the preposition ANA used in composition.  This
>then makes us look at the vowel - Hi -.  The - i - would indicate that
>the unaugmented vowel is actually a diphthong.  This proves to be correct
>since the verb is AIREW with the combining form of the preposition ANA.
>This is therefore a 3 pl aor passive of ANAIREW.  This is how the process
>works.  First, however, you must learn the principles of verb formation
>and study the paradigms.
>george
>gfsomsel
>___________

Thanks George.
Your example verb with explanation is a good one.  It is the sort of verb 
that might give me trouble.
However, I would not just look it up but then I would want to understand the 
form.
Actually, usually it is not so much the form that stumps me but at times I 
have trouble seeing the verb from which it is derived.
When I looked up ELQWN (which is not really a hard word), as soon as I saw 
ERCOMAI I said; "Of course it is"
It seems to be the MI verbs that I have to look up more than any other. Not 
so much because they are harder but my memory work is not quite up to snuff. 
I guess that proves your the point you and Carl were making. DO YOUR MEMORY 
WORK.
Thank you.
Bert de Haan.





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