[B-Greek] KERDAINW: Not a liquid?

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Nov 6 05:43:53 EST 2008


On Nov 6, 2008, at 12:06 AM, Scott Kennedy wrote:

>
> This is a great brain puzzler! From a quick search of the TLG, the  
> form can first be seen in Herodotus' future infinitive KERDHSESQAI,  
> but then it does not appear in any work before the Hellenic Age,  
> which would seem to be a good indication it is a feature of Ionic  
> Greek. As to the proposed origin of this feature, I would say it  
> comes from the original form KERDANEW in the future where the AN  
> proved unstable and the verb was for a time KERDEW from which you  
> get if you regularize it KERDHSW and KERDHSA, which appear  
> frequently in the New Testament and Josephus afterwords. If it  
> helps, the Modern Greeks got sick of the irregular verb and have  
> almost regularized it with κερδίζω, κέρδισα, κερδήθηκα, κερδισμένος,  
> in which the passive aorist κερδήθηκα still retains a last bit of  
> Koine Greek's attempt to regularize the verb.
>
> Scott Kennedy  > Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 19:42:53 -0800> From: javajedi2 at yahoo.com 
> > To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: [B-Greek] KERDAINW: Not a  
> liquid?> > Based upon the Aorist form KERDHSA, it appears that  
> KERDAINW is not acting like a liquid, but Nu is a liquid consonant.  
> Why doesn't this behave like q normal liquid, such as MENW in the 1  
> Aorist? Thanks.> > Ken> > > > ---> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek 
> > B-Greek mailing list> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

What's been missed in responses thus far, I think, is that the root of
  the verb is KERDA and that the present-tense stem has a nasal  
formative
element -NyW which, following standard phonological process, involves
metathesis of the consonantal Iota to a vocalic iota and so to a  
diphthong
with the root KERDA: KERDANyW --> KERDAINW -- BUT: that
present-tense formative element -NyW will be found ONLY in tense/aspect
forms based upon the present stem.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






More information about the B-Greek mailing list