ginomai, gegona, gegenomhn: overlapping forms?

[muminustrollus]

Is ginomai a deponent verb?

In that case how can it have a form both for perfect active gegona
and a form for perfect passive/middle gegenhmai? Is not just one form enough? The same seems to happen with the aorist with egenomhn and egenhthen.

Could anyone translate these forms so that I can see the difference between them or provide meaningful examples?

Another question is: why do I encounter ginomai in Mounce and gignomai in my Greek-French dictionary? Is ginomai koine Greek for gignomai?

[Bert]

I am hardly qualified to answer your questions but I'm sure that someone will correct me if I go way off into left field.

Is ginomai a deponent verb?

Yes γίνομαι is called a "deponent" verb. This verb is either used intransitively or as a passive (with an agent) or middle. I think that in the Greek mind all "deponent" verbs are that way.

In that case how can it have a form both for perfect active gegona
and a form for perfect passive/middle gegenhmai? Is not just one form enough? The same seems to happen with the aorist with egenomhn and egenhqen.

ἐγενόμην is an older form, in the NT getting replaced by ἐγενήθην.
I am not sure if this is also the case with γέγονα and γεγένημαι but I think it is. One form would be enough but who is going to tell them . Languages change and here we are in the middle of a change and have ended up with two forms for the same meaning.

Could anyone translate these forms so that I can see the difference between them or provide meaningful examples?

I don't think there is a difference in meaning between the two aorist forms. I am not sure about the two perfect forms but I think they are pretty well identical too.

Another question is: why do I encounter ginomai in Mounce and gignomai in my Greek-French dictionary? Is ginomai koine Greek for gignomai?

That's right.
For an explanation of Greek voice (that makes sense to me) check out http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/NewObsAncGrkVc.pdf.
This paper is quite technical. The following one is a little shorter and a bit easier to understand.
http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/UndAncGrkVc.pdf

[Moerus]

Gignomai is a deponent verb. But deponent verbs are not as easy in Greek as they are in Latin. In Greek 'deponent' signifies that the verb has passive or medium forms, but active sense.
Sometimes there are deponentia with future and aorist passive forms, but also deponentia with future and aorist medium forms. There are also deponentia with a passive form in the future, but a medium form in the aorist or vice versa.
But a second thing is that there are also active forms in Greek with passive sense. But with deponents these active forms with passive sense get an active sense also cause off the deponent character of the deponentia and so they become variants of the exspected forms. With some deponents these active forms have an other meaning than the medium / passive forms.

I must confess: this is a difficult way to say this!

With gignomai:

gignomai is a deponent. ginomai is an other form with exactly the same meaning. Ginomai is mostly found in later Greek and also in the Koine (New Testament Greek, ...).

Gegona and gegenhmai are both used with the same meaning for the perfect of gignomai. Egenomhn and egenhthen are bothe used for the aorist of gignomai with the same meaning.


Greetz,

Moerus.

[mingshey]

Well, this is a hard food to digest for me, but just a comment about the form 'ginomai'. If you are aquainted with the modern greek pronunciation, it's not a big surprise to find such a form in late greek. Gamma is weakened and even pronounced like 'y' as in [size=150]γένεσις[/size] - /yenesis/. So, to find a gamma disappearing between i and a nasal is not a big deal. (But I would expect the iota before the disappeared gamma to be lengthened to fill in the place of gamma)
To look at the reverse case, the Hebrew `omora with a gutteral(?) aspiration(`) is transcribed as gomora in LXX.
Or, saying without refering to transcriptions for Hebrew, you can see how gamma is close to a nu, or at least to a nasal: [size=150]συν[/size] + [size=150]χρονος[/size] becomes [size=150]συγχρονος[/size]