[B-Greek] moulton pages

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Sep 25 15:44:01 EDT 2009


On Sep 25, 2009, at 3:20 PM, Randall Buth wrote:

> Some maybe good news
> Part two of Volume Two was published in 1920, so the verb PDFs may
> be public domain by all counts.
>
>
> As mentioned, Howard is a nice start, but when wants to say
> 'I flew'
> or
> 'I will fly'
> the verb will not be listed, even though highly irregular, because  
> only
> the regular PETOMAI (present) is in the NT.
>
> Job 20:8 has EPTH for 'he flew'.
>
> but the Thomas Infancy Gospel has PETΑSQENTA as an
> aorist participle, which shows a different formation for this verb.
> Thomas Infancy would produce EPETΑSQH 'he flew', and
> Attic Greek also attested EPTATO.
> And the Sybil even has IPTATO (>IPTAMAI present)
>
> Which is why one needs to check things out.
> We can conclude that flying was irregular before the advent of  
> airplanes.

But this also nicely illustrates a prevailing tendency in linguistic  
change in Hellenistic Greek:
The older MP forms of PETOMAI in the aorist, whether the athematic  
EPTH and EPTATO, tend to take QH forms later, while still bearing a  
"middle" semanatic value (intransitive verbs of motion tend to be  
middle). Surely nobody would try to associate a passive meaning with  
PETASQHNAI.

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

> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Michael Aubrey <mga318 at yahoo.com>  
> wrote:
>> Volume II of Moulton Howard & Turner is still under copyright, I'm  
>> not sure
>> if you can post the pdfs online. The book was published in 1928 &  
>> it appears
>> (according to my copy that it was renewed in 1963. Either way, it's
>> definitely after the 1923 cut off.
>>
>> Mike







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