Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

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Sebastian Satkurunath
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Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Hi,

I'm just learning about liquid verbs, and the book I'm using (Duff) talks about how you can use accents to differentiate between Present and Future for verbs like μενω and κρινω which don't change stems. But there aren't any stem changes between Imperfect and Aorist, and obviously in most person/number combinations you can differentiate between Imperfect and Aorist by the endings, but that doesn't work for the 3rd person singular.

Looking at ἤγειρεν - https://biblehub.com/greek/e_geiren_1453.htm, there appear to be 21 instances, all of which are being shown as Aorist, but how can you tell? Is there a convention or is it just a question of working it out from context? Or have I in fact missed some obvious reason why "she was raising" would be formed differently?

Cheers,

Sebastian
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Sebastian Satkurunath wrote: February 28th, 2023, 9:41 am Looking at ἤγειρεν - https://biblehub.com/greek/e_geiren_1453.htm, there appear to be 21 instances, all of which are being shown as Aorist, but how can you tell? Is there a convention or is it just a question of working it out from context? Or have I in fact missed some obvious reason why "she was raising" would be formed differently?
For the third person singular, both the aorist and imperfect of ἐγείρω is ἤγειρε(ν). They can only be disambiguated by context which is usually fairly clear. If it is referring to a complete act of raising it is aorist. If it is referring to an incomplete act of raising (e.g. to provide a temporal reference frame for another verb in the aorist), then it is imperfect.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Sebastian Satkurunath
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Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Re: Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Thanks, that's helpful. I'm torn between being frustrated that figuring out any individual case is likely to require a level of comprehension that I'm not going to reach any time soon, and relieved that I had at least correctly understood the textbook...
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
Jason Hare
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Re: Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Jason Hare »

I recommend using Wiktionary’s inflection for various ancient Greek verbs. It isn’t necessarily exhaustive, but it provides a lot of information. In this case, look at the inflection of ἐγείρω on that site. Compare the aorist (ἤγειρα) to the imperfect (ἤγειρον) and see that the 3s form is identical in both.
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
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Sebastian Satkurunath
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Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Re: Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Oh, that looks immensely helpful, thank you. I've added it to my ever growing list of useful resources. I can't say how glad I am that I'm learning Greek now, rather than at school, when the internet was decidedly less useful. With a bit of luck before long I'll get to the point of being able to figure out enough things for myself that the questions I find myself needing to bring here will become a bit less basic and more interesting...
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
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Re: Differentiating Aorist and Imperfect 3rd person singular liquid verbs

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

Very useful indeed. I've tried Wiktionary a few times to check Latin noun case endings, which was indeed useful. I didn't know you could also check Greek grammar with it. Will add it to my resources also.
Dewayne Dulaney
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