verb forms

[Scyld Scefing]

should the verb stems with digamma be also memorized?
and those in parentheses, are they the second aorist, etc; should all variations be learned thoroughly?

[annis]

should the verb stems with digamma be also memorized?
and those in parentheses, are they the second aorist, etc; should all variations be learned thoroughly?

Where are you seeing all of these? If in Pharr, can you give us section numbers?

[Scyld Scefing]

for example, pharr's lessonXII in the vocabulary: there is [face=SPIonic] anassw ([/face]F[face=SPIonic]anak-, anaco ; andanw , s[/face]F[face=SPIonic]ade, euadon [/face].

I know that present, future and aorist must be memorised, but what about these forms in parentheses? I suppose that some are useful for predicting irregular verb forms and others are the so called second aorist, but how much effort should I put in memorising them?How important they are?

[annis]

I know that present, future and aorist must be memorised, but what about these forms in parentheses? I suppose that some are useful for predicting irregular verb forms and others are the so called second aorist, but how much effort should I put in memorising them?How important they are?

It depends on how much you care about the meter. The digamma accounts for plenty of oddities in scanning. Otherwise it's usually just easier to memorize the principal parts, after a glance at the forms in parentheses to note the root in case it explains something strange.

If you have it in you to become a philologist the roots will call to you on their own to be learned.

[Scyld Scefing]

yes, it starts to make sense now!
It's more of a help than a hindering to learn the forms in parentheses and know something about Ablaut. Maybe you can interiorize this as technique for quickly dealing with verb forms, knowing where ablaut is more likely to occur, how sigma changes sometimes the augment (Exw, but esxon), etc.... (?!)

It was easier to learn Pheugw this way.

I also think about developing a technique for quickly recognizing verb types in greek, cataloguing them in my mind according to their types:deponent, -mi, deponent in just such and such parts, or defective, etc...It's a little weird, but I think it works at least in a more regular language like old english where verbs belong to seven ablaut grades and the few exceptions are mostly explained by the sound changes.

Could greek also be learned more easily having in mind sound changes that explain the irregular verb forms?

[annis]

yes, it starts to make sense now!
It's more of a help than a hindering to learn the forms in parentheses and know something about Ablaut.

Absolutely. On my (ever-growing) list of things to write up as a tutorial either for here or Aoidoi.org is a quick-n-dirty overview of historical lingustics for Greek. Knowing some basics of things like ablaut can make learning vocabulary a bit less awful.