At 7:14 AM -0500 8/19/97, James H. Vellenga wrote:
>
>However, this prompts another related question which has been
>nurdling around in my mind for some time. There are a few
>adjectives in Koine Greek, KLHTOS and EKLEKTOS among them,
>which we often find ourselves translating by English participles
>-- "called" and "elect(ed)" in these cases. Moreover, they
>seem almost to function semantically like participles in some
>cases -- as here, where the election is "according to" and
>"for the purpose of".
>
>It makes me wonder if etymologically these forms, seemingly
>related to particular verbs, and especially with the -TOS
>ending, are derived from some ancient or proto-Greek form
>that actually was a participle. I.e., is it more than an
>accident that we find ourselves translating these as English
>participles?
In a word: Yes.
Andrew L. Sihler, _New Comparative Greek and Latin Grammar_, #564.
"Verbals in *-to- (the Latin passive participle and the Greek verbal
adjective in -TO-). These are formally identical with the Veic. pple.
in -ta- and the Germanic passive participles to weak (dental preterite)
verbs, as Go. fulliths = NeoEnglish
filled, lagiths = NeoEnglish
laid. They reflect a Proto-Indo-European verbal adj.
formed with -to-, originally built directly to the zero grade root,
with the consequence that the formation was insensible to the
distinctions of the varioufinite stems--inchoative, causative, and
others ..."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/