Hello. I've just bought a copy of the Guided Annotating edition of the Tyndale Greek New Testament. In addition to space for notes, this has a glossary with parsing at the foot of each page, and I was puzzled to find the following note on the form ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
μεγαλύνω - vb 3rd sg, aor act indic
I would have assumed that ἐμεγάλυνεν was an imperfect rather than a second aorist, based on its having the same stem as the present. However, my Greek is undoubtedly rusty - I’m old enough to have learned it at school, which is why I wanted bigger print than my old pocket-sized GNTs - so I wondered if I was missing something. But BADG gives the form ἐμεγάλυνον as the imperfect, and the Middle Liddell states ‘only in pres. and impf.’ The Android app I mostly use - BART - also parses it as aorist, but translates it as ‘was magnifying’ which seems contradictory. The Word desktop software, on the other hand, parses it as imperfect, as I would have expected. Is this just a mistake, or am I still missing something?
Parsing of ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
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Re: Parsing of ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
Hi, John, and welcome back to B-Greek! ἀσπάζομαί σε.
The form that you’ve asked about is ambiguous. If you think about it, the imperfect is built on the present stem. In this case, the stem is μεγαλυν-, which receives an augment (ἐ-) and takes the endings -ον -ες -ε(ν) -ομεν -ετε -ον. You can see that ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) fits the 3s form. However, this verb has an asigmatic first aorist that simply takes the -α of the aorist -σα ending, which results in the following aorist forms, which you can compare to the imperfect below and see that 3s is ambiguous:
AORIST
ἐμεγάλυνα (-σα)
ἐμεγάλυνας (-σας)
ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) (-σε(ν))
ἐμεγαλύναμεν (-σαμεν)
ἐμεγαλύνατε (-σατε)
ἐμεγάλυναν (-σαν)
IMPERFECT
ἐμεγάλυνον (-ον)
ἐμεγάλυνες (-ες)
ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) (-ε(ν))
ἐμεγαλύνομεν (-ομεν)
ἐμεγαλύνετε (-ετε)
ἐμεγάλυνον (-ον)
Hope that helps!
[ I code my posts to be displayed with the fonts EB Garamond for English and GFS Porson for Greek. You may choose to install them for their beauty, if you like. ]
The form that you’ve asked about is ambiguous. If you think about it, the imperfect is built on the present stem. In this case, the stem is μεγαλυν-, which receives an augment (ἐ-) and takes the endings -ον -ες -ε(ν) -ομεν -ετε -ον. You can see that ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) fits the 3s form. However, this verb has an asigmatic first aorist that simply takes the -α of the aorist -σα ending, which results in the following aorist forms, which you can compare to the imperfect below and see that 3s is ambiguous:
AORIST
ἐμεγάλυνα (-σα)
ἐμεγάλυνας (-σας)
ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) (-σε(ν))
ἐμεγαλύναμεν (-σαμεν)
ἐμεγαλύνατε (-σατε)
ἐμεγάλυναν (-σαν)
IMPERFECT
ἐμεγάλυνον (-ον)
ἐμεγάλυνες (-ες)
ἐμεγάλυνε(ν) (-ε(ν))
ἐμεγαλύνομεν (-ομεν)
ἐμεγαλύνετε (-ετε)
ἐμεγάλυνον (-ον)
Hope that helps!
[ I code my posts to be displayed with the fonts EB Garamond for English and GFS Porson for Greek. You may choose to install them for their beauty, if you like. ]
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
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Re: Parsing of ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
By the way, if you throw it into the parsing machine on Diogenes, you get the following:
1. ἐμεγάλῡνεν, μεγαλύνω (make great): aor ind act 3rd sg
2. ἐμεγάλῡνεν, μεγαλύνω (make great): imperf ind act 3rd sg
This correctly shows that the form can be either tense.2. ἐμεγάλῡνεν, μεγαλύνω (make great): imperf ind act 3rd sg
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
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Re: Parsing of ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
Ah - thanks Jason. So I was missing something. Stems ending in liquids/nasals. I've probably got into the habit of recognising any such verbs that don't have different aorist stems by their endings - e.g. ἐκρινα, although I don't know if that form actually occurs in the NT - and forgotten about the reason they don't have a sigma - which obviously falls down in the third singular. I assume this ambiguity doesn't occur very often in the NT?
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Re: Parsing of ἐμεγάλυνεν in Lk 1:58
You assume correctly. The difference between imperfect and aorist is almost always visible.John M Tait wrote: ↑February 17th, 2025, 1:30 pm Ah - thanks Jason. So I was missing something. Stems ending in liquids/nasals. I've probably got into the habit of recognising any such verbs that don't have different aorist stems by their endings - e.g. ἐκρινα, although I don't know if that form actually occurs in the NT - and forgotten about the reason they don't have a sigma - which obviously falls down in the third singular. I assume this ambiguity doesn't occur very often in the NT?
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel