[B-Greek] DEIKNUMI in the Imperative

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Jan 14 05:24:24 EST 2009


On Jan 14, 2009, at 12:19 AM, George F Somsel wrote:

> My initial reaction was that δείκνυθι [DEIKNUQI] appears to  
> be a passive form.  A search of NA27, LXX, Apostolic Fathers and  
> Josephus uncovered a few -Q- forms which were universally passives  
> (with no DEIKNUQI appearing).  BDAG also confirms that -Q- forms are  
> passive.

Some confusion here, I think. And I think it's fair to say there's no  
more confusing item of ancient Greek verb morphology than active  
imperative endings, especially in the singular (-TE being universal  
and regular in the plural!).

(1) For one thing, the "active" QI (TI when dissimilated as in passive  
-QHTI forms) should not be confused with the QH "passive" (actually  
middle-passive) voice infix.
(2) Mounce's BBG form DEIKNUQI is dead wrong for the present active  
imperative; both DEIKNU and DEIKNUE are found, the former the  
athematic form, the latter thematic, the reason being that the -NUMI  
present tenses were pretty clearly the earliest -MI verb forms to  
develop new thematic equivalents: DEIKNUW = DEIKNUMI (just as  
considerably later AFIW became an equivalent form of AFIHMI before  
ultimately supplanting it (cf. Smyth §746).
(3) It looks to me, then, that Mounce goofed in BBG, but then got it  
right in MBG.
(4) There are more 2 sg. active imperative endings than most people  
are ordinarily aware of:
	(a) Thematic verbs use the thematic infix -E added to the tense-stem  
(Present and 2 Aorist)
	(b) Regular Athematic verbs (the -NUMI verbs, including, e.g. OLLUMI  
= OLNUMI) use the simple present stem without any ending
	(c) Irregular Athematic verbs (hISTHMI, DIDWMI, TIQHMI, -hIHMI) show  
partial assimilation to thematic formation: hISTH is regular (present  
stem with no added ending), DIDOU is contracted from DIDOE (thematic  
vowel added to present stem), TIQEI is contracted from TIQEE (thematic  
vowel added to present stem), -hIEI is contracted from -hIEE (cf.  
Smyth §751)
	(d) Irregular Athematic verbs use -S in the (2nd) aorist: DOS, QES, - 
hES (forms of hIHMI are, of course, all compounds; a GNT form that's  
common is the aorist 2 sg. imperative AFES).
	(e) Irregular Athematic verbs use -QI in the (3rd) aorist: STHQI  
(from ESTHN); since the "aorist passive" forms are really 3rd aorist  
active forms with ACTIVE endings, they too use -QI: FANHQI (from  
FAINW), DIALLAGHQI; as noted above, dissimilation of the Q in QI  
occurs when the imperative ending follows upon the "passive" infix QH:  
ARQHTI, BLHQHTI, etc. We also see this -QI imperative ending in the  
irregular verbs EIMI and OIDA both of which show the 2nd sg.  
imperative ISQI (ἴσθι), while the 2nd sg. imperative of EIMI  
(εἶμι) "go" is IQI -- and this doesn't appear in the GNT.

I've tried to cover all the bases in the above summation, but it  
wouldn't surprise me if something has been inadvertently omitted.

> ________________________________
> From: Stephen Baldwin <stbaldwi at hotmail.com>
> To: B- Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:52:40 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] DEIKNUMI in the Imperative
>
>
> Ladies and Gentlemen:
> An easy parsing question to greet the New Year.
> Again, I am striving for truth amid textbooks that say different  
> things:
> This is what I have:
> DEIKNUMI 2S P-A-Imp
> Mounce MBG (ss71.3): DEIKNU
> Mounce BBG: (ss70): DEIKNUQI
> Smyth (ss419): DEIKNU
>
> So I think I'm questioning the accuracy of BBG.
> Robertson [p327] informs that indeed non-thematic imperatives were  
> often just the stem and thus "forms like hISTH, DEIKNU are  
> pertinent". This is a big vote against DEIKNUQI, as also is Smyth.
> He [Robertson] also says [as we know] that QI is used for non- 
> thematic stems.
>
> So what am I to do with BBG's DEIKNUQI as present active imperative?  
> Is it a legitimate Koine form for 2S-P-A-Imp?
>
> Any help appreciated!
>
> Steve Baldwin
> stbaldwi at hotmai.com
>
>
>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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