[B-Greek] Verb Stems and Liquid verbs

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Apr 28 08:21:23 EDT 2007


On Apr 27, 2007, at 7:31 PM, Delbert Flora wrote:

>
> 1. I'm under the impression that the 'stem' of a verb is what  
> carries its
> basic meaning. ARCW and ARCOMAI have different meanings due to the  
> Active or
> Middle form. How does the meaning of the verb change when it  
> retains the
> same stem?
>
> How does Voice affect meaning of a stem?

This is two different questions in itself
This is rather more complex than might appear.
(1) Don't confuse the terms "stem" and "root" with regard to a Greek  
verb.
	(a) A verb "stem" is the form of a root from which all conjugated forms
	in a particular tense/aspect can be seen to be derived; the "root"  
of the
	verb is the form from which all the tense/aspect "stems" can be said
	to be derived. For example the root of the verb PEIQW/PEIQOMAI
	is PEIQ/POIQ/PIQ (the root takes three forms with vowel-gradation
	or "Ablaut" of the vocalic element between the consonants). The
	present stem is PEIQ; the future STEM is PEIS (PEIQ + S);
	the first-aorist stem is PEIS(A) as seen in EPEISA; the second-aorist
	stem is PIQ as seen in EPIQOMHN; the perfect active stem is
	PEPOIQ; the perfect middle-passive stem is PEPEIS (from PEPEIQ
	+ S).

(2) The root in ARCW/ARCOMAI is the same as that of ARCH, which
	may mean "beginning, start" or "principality, rule, command,
	governance." It's hard to find an adequate English word to express
	simply the key notion, but "firstness" or "initiative" is not far off.
	ARCW (active) means "be first" or "have initiative" among or
	over others (this is usually indicated by means of a partitive genitive
	case form -- e.g. ARCEI TWN STRATIWTWN "he has command
	over the troops"; ARCOMAI (middle) means "take initiative" in doing
	something (this is usually indicated by a participle of another verb --
	e.g. ARCETAI ANAGINWSKWN "he begins reading."_

(3) How voice affects the meaning of a stem depends very much on
	the particular verb and kind of action it represents. In the present
	tense a middle voice form is often intransitive where the active
	is causative, e.g. EGEIROMAI "wake up, rise up" but
	EGEIRW "awaken, raise up"; PEIQOMAI "trust, obey" but
	PEIQW "convince, cause to trust." Or the active form may
	indicate simply an action performed while the middle form
	may indicate action performed on one's own behalf: e.g.
	KEIREI "he cuts hair (of someone)" but KEIRETAI "he gets
	his hair cut." For more on this see my page http://tinyurl.com/2cggn7

> 2. With liquid verbs, the Aorist Active tense formative is A, not  
> SA. My
> tutor says this is incorrect. Mounce uses the liquid verb MENW and  
> gives the
> Aorist Active as EMEINA, which demonstrates the formative is A not  
> SA. But
> my tutor says that the S is seen in the I added to the stem, called
> compensatory lengthening. The S actually drops out when it touches  
> the N,
> and to show the dropping of the S, the stem changes from E to EI.  
> Is this
> right and is this important to distinguish?

Yes, that's true.
What's important to understand is how phonetic principles have altered
the otherwise predictable changes that a verb root may undergo in
taking on different stem-forms -- or even in the conjugation of a single
stem form, e.g. (earlier LEGONTI 3d pl. pres. indic. act. becomes
LEGOUSI with change of T to S and loss of N between O and S, then
compensatory lengthening of the O to OU. I have a PDF file which
covers some of this phonology as it bears upon alterations of  
(otherwise)
predictable inflections of nouns, verbs, etc.:
http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/CompPhon.pdf

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





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