[B-Greek] Etymology of QEOPNEUSTOS in 2 Timothy 3:16

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Jul 28 23:16:43 EDT 2009


On Jul 28, 2009, at 10:24 PM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

>
>
> Thank you to all three of you for the replies.
>
> What I am really looking for is not the semantic aspect of the  
> origin of QEOPNEUSTOS--now that some views have been expressed on  
> this I, too, will give my view in another post--rather the  
> morphological process whereby QEO-PNEU-STOS is derived from QEOS and  
> PNEW. Was I correct in using the word "etymology" for what I wanted?  
> Specifically I wish to know the following:

I wondered at the outset whether this wasn't what you really wanted to  
find out., rather than etymology.

>
> (1) How does the sigma of QEOS come to be dropped?

The -S- is a nominative ending, not part of the word stem; QEO- is the  
stem.

> (2) How does PNEW become PNEU?

The root of this verb is PNEf/PNEU ("f" representing digamma, the  
archaic consonantal "w", while U is the vocalic form); PNEf- will be  
used with a follwoing consonant, "f" with a following vowel -- but the  
digamma evanesced in very early Greek history.

> (3) Why is a sigma inserted between PNEU and the TOS ending?

-TO- is a suffix used with verbal stems to form verbal adjectives in  
TOS/ON; I think (but am not sure) that the --S-  is a euphonic  
consonant to facilitate pronunciation.

Of course, knowing this does not provide any particular insight into  
the usage of the word.

If you're really interested in all this, there's a great deal to  
learn; the whole topic of Greek phonology (Smyth, Part I) and then the  
whole business of word-formation (Smyth, Part III). You really ought  
to own your own hardback copy of Smyth -- there's scarcely any more  
valuable reference work for ancient Greek grammar that's really handy;  
but you can consult the online version at Perseus, however awkward it  
may be:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0007

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






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