[B-Greek] DEIKNUMI: 2S endings variation
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Apr 1 16:03:53 EDT 2008
On Apr 1, 2008, at 2:59 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:
> Ladies and Gentlemen:
> Thank you all for your responses.
> Dr. Winbery: I'm curious about morphology [as I suspect this list is
> despairingly aware...]. I own a MBG which is generally excellent but
> has "holes" [as all grammar / grammar-type books seem to have]. I've
> noted your own publication. If you'd be interested [off-list!] to
> describe it in contrast to MBG, well, I've not bought a book for at
> least 2 hours now... ;-)
>
> But to the matter in hand, I'd really like to confirm that when
> Mounce, conjugating DEIKNUMI [as opposed to DEIKNUW], in the P-A-I
> for 2S, DEIKNUEIS, it is wrong. If one of your students presented
> that to you, you would...
>
> As a novice++, I am keen not to waste time learning inaccuracies. I
> am looking to scribble a correction in my BBG if necessary.
To be perfectly frank, I don't know what the truth is about Mounce's
accounting for the form EPIDEIKNUS. I'm not sure that I ever had a
personal copy of BBG -- it's not a textbook that I ever admired -- and
if I did have a copy, it's not one of the textbooks that I've bothered
to retain in my reference library which had to be pruned out
considerably when I closed up my office at retirement. BUT, I would
say this:
For my part I would not consider DEIKNUW as a different verb from
DEIKNUMI; rather I would consider omega-verb conjugational forms as
variants of the present system of DEIKNUMI; after all, whichever form
is used for the present tense, the future active is regularly DEIXW,
the aorist active is regularly EDEIXA, the perfect active is regularly
DEDEICA, the perfect middle-passive regularly DEDEIGMAI. BDAG notes in
the very opening listing of tense-aspect-voice morphology that present-
system forms in DEIKNUW for this verb are as old as Herodotus --
that's Ionic dialect and it is 5th century BCE! It is really not as if
we were dealing with two different verbs here, any more than we are
dealing with a different verb in the seven instances of the middle
APEKRINAMHN as opposed to the 213 forms of the "passive" APEKRIQHN. So
in English, some have "dreamed" while others have "dreamed" but it is
"dreaming" that both those who say the one and those who say the other
are talking about.
I would NOT look to elementary textbooks of Greek for the
"unquestionable facts" about ancient Greek verb morphology. Nor would
I rely with any special confidence upon the Perseus parsing tool or
upon a parsing guide such as Perschbacher or the Friberg AGNT or
ANLEX. I have found much more reason to be confident of Smyth's
paradigms and notes regarding Homeric and dialectic forms on the
paradigms for verbs. An unabridged lexicon (LSJ-G, BDAG) ordinarily
lists the variant forms of paradigms that have been found in extant
ancient Greek texts, and I think that's a better reference to consult
-- better by far than any Greek primer textbook!
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
> > Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 08:48:49 -0600
> > To: cwconrad2 at mac.com
> > From: winberycl at earthlink.net
> > CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] DEIKNUMI: 2S endings variation
> >
> > >In Acts 19:28 it certainly is a present active participle, but the
> > >form given in the question was not identified and unaccented; the
> form
> > >could certainly be either a present active participle (nom. sg.)
> or a
> > >present indicative active. The other forms of EPIDEIKNUMI in the
> GNT
> > >are all first aorists.
> > >
> > >On Apr 1, 2008, at 7:29 AM, Kokkee Ng wrote:
> > >
> > >> Isn't EPIDEIKNUS a pres ptc form rather the 2 sg P-A-I?
> > >>
> > >> Kokkee Ng
> > >> Bible College of Malaysia
> > >>
> > >> Carl Conrad wrote:
> > > >> On Mar 31, 2008, at 11:07 PM, Carlton Winbery wrote:
> > >>>
> >
> > Yes, both EPIDEIKNUS and APODEIKNUS appear in the NT as participles.
> > Jim Brooks and I listed DEIKNUS as a possible 2nd sing but we put it
> > in brackets showing that the form did not appear in our
> literature. I
> > forgot about the brackets. We also gave it as an example the present
> > participle of a class IV.M verb without brackets. P. 359 A
> Morphology
> > of NT Greek. We gave forms in brackets so that students would have
> > complete conjugations but would not necessarily need to memorize
> > them. I memorized the indicative form and forgot about the
> > participle. I should not type out of my head any more.
> > Carlton Winbery
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