Perfect active participle of τελέω ?

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Anthony Appleyard
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Perfect active participle of τελέω ?

Post by Anthony Appleyard »

The perfect active participle of φιλέω is πεφιληκώς, but τελέω is one of those -έω verbs where the ε becomes εσ and not η, by an 's' reappearing which drops between vowels. While writing some Homeric-style Greek poetry, I needed an perfect active participle form of τελέω, so I guessed τετελεσκὼς, as in "οὒκ ὃν πολεμὸν τετελεσκώς " = "not having accomplished his war". Is that an allowed usage?

Hylander
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Re: Perfect active participle of τελέω ?

Post by Hylander »

See LSJ:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Dtele%2Fw

The form τετέλεκα occurs in Attic; the forms τετέλεσμαι and τετέλεστο occur In the Iliad. But you probably want aorist here, not perfect, and ουχ, not ουκ. And you have to be careful that you're using τελέω in precisely the right sense, consistent with Homeric usage.
Bill Walderman

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Re: Perfect active participle of τελέω ?

Post by Timothée »

As Hylander implicitly says, the normal classical (Attic) form is τετελεκώς. It’s of course ahexametrical(?).

Τετελεσκώς has a nice idea in its formation. However, the κ-perfects are quite restricted in attestation in Homer: unless I’m mistaken, they occur rarely elsewhere than in singular indicative and conjunctive of stems in long vowel.

And to echo Hylander a little more, the perfect (all reduplicated tenses, actually) mainly denotes state that results from some past action or event, like τέθνηκα. Check if this is concordant with what you want to say.

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