Back to square one...

[Lex]

Hi, all. I've been gone for a long time, because I was so frustrated about the lack of learning tools that fit my learning style (lazy ), such as a "5,000,001 Ancient Greek Verbs Fully Conjugated". Anyway, I have completely forgotten what little I had learned about Greek. I looked at Marinone on Amazon as a potential learning tool, but thought it would only frustrate me more (parts are in Italian, and I don't know if it covers Homeric, which is what I'm mainly interested in).

But I bought a copy of the Logos Iliad, and am going to give it another try. I decided to try a "text-directed" approach, where I take lines of Homer, look up the lexical forms of words (thanks, Logos!) and try to decline them.

I'm stuck on line 1, word 2.

OK, in my cheap version of Liddell/Scott, I find (with diacritical marks that don't show up here):

"ΑΕΙΔΩ - Att. contr. αδω; impf. ηειδον, Ep. αειδον, Att. ηδον: fut. αεισομαι, Att. ασομαι, Dor. ασευμαι; rarely αεισω, Att. ασω, Dor. ασω: aor. I ηεισα, Ep. αεισα, Att. ησα: -Pass., aor. I ησθεν: pf. ησμαι: -to sing ..."

Stripping out the parts I think I don't care about, I get...

"ΑΕΙΔΩ - impf. Ep. αειδον: fut. αεισομαι: aor. I Ep. αεισα: -Pass., aor. I ησθεν: pf. ησμαι: -to sing ..."

Going to my copy of Goodwin and Gulick, I find:

"463. The principal parts of a Greek verb are the first person singular indicative of the present, future, first aorist, first (or second) perfect active; the perfect middle, and first (or second) aorist passive; with the second aorist (active or middle) when it occurs. If there is no future active, the future middle is generally given (450)."

My copy of Pharr has something very similar.

What I get from this is that the principal parts are (in Epic):

present indicative active
αειδω
future indicative active
αεισομαι
first aorist indicative active
αεισα
first perfect indicative active
?
perfect indicative middle
?
first aorist indicative passive
ησθεν

Is ησμαι 1st perfect indicative active? Perfect indicative middle? And is a mere human expected to be able to figure out how to determine the principal parts of vowels based on a lexicon entry, much less conjugate them?

[Lex]

BTW, I can't change my profile.

[annis]

BTW, I can't change my profile.

That should be working for you now.

[annis]

Hi, all. I've been gone for a long time, because I was so frustrated about the lack of learning tools that fit my learning style

Welcome back!

Is ησμαι 1st perfect indicative active? Perfect indicative middle?

If it ends in -μαι it has to be middle.

And is a mere human expected to be able to figure out how to determine the principal parts of vowels based on a lexicon entry, much less conjugate them?

Yes.

Many verbs are missing parts, or, even more fun, have several versions of one part (if there are several, they will differ in transitivity usually, though there are some dialect extras). With a little practice you will eventually be able figure these out. Smyth's grammar has an appendix on verb forms that you'll find very helpful.

Edit: G&Gs is ok, too.

[Lex]

Welcome back!

Thanks. I'll try to stay away from the political threads this time around.

If it ends in -μαι it has to be middle.

Ah. Thanks. I'd never got as far as middles before. So αειδω has only five principal parts?

And the profile works now. Thanks again.

[annis]

So αειδω has only five principal parts?

Yep.

[Lex]

The adventure continues...

Goodwin & Gulick (461) tells me that the future tense system contains the future active and middle, while the (1st or 2nd) passive system contains the (1st or 2nd) future passive (as well as the (1st or 2nd) aorist passive). Smyth (368) agrees. Schoder & Horrigan's "map of the Greek verbs" tells me that the future tense system has active, middle and passive. Pharr tells me (888) that "The aorist passive has active endings; the other forms of the passive have middle endings."

Does this mean that the Homeric future has an active and a middle/passive, and that Attic has a separate future passive? I'm confused.

[annis]

Does this mean that the Homeric future has an active and a middle/passive, and that Attic has a separate future passive?

Despite superficial similarities, there are some pretty important differences between the verb system of Epic and later Greek. The meaning of the perfect is one important difference, for example.

The only distinctly passive forms, as apposed to medio-passive, are the aorist passives in -(θ)ην, the futures formed from that stem and the future passive perfect. Sihler notes that these aorists without the theta are often intransitive or stative in meaning, rather than passive, and Carl Conrad even goes so far as to say that the -θην aorists aren't intrinsically passive. In any case, except the aorists in -(θ)ην these passives are very rare in Homer — there are only a whopping two examples of futures on the aor.pass. stem in Homer (Monro §65).

Short answer — yes.

[Lex]

Short answer — yes.

Thank you again.

[mingshey]

Hi, Guys!
I'm downloading this from Million Books Project.
Have you been using it? How would you rate it?

[annis]

I'm downloading this from Million Books Project.

Chad introduced me to Veitch recently. There are reprints available for not too much cash. Veitch's personality comes through in many articles, which is entertaining. It's a fascinating work, but not one I've yet needed to stare at to solve a problem.

[mingshey]

Chad introduced me to Veitch recently. There are reprints available for not too much cash. Veitch's personality comes through in many articles, which is entertaining. It's a fascinating work, but not one I've yet needed to stare at to solve a problem.

Thanks! Your review is always to the point.

[Lex]

-Pass., aor. I ησθεν: pf. ησμαι: -to sing ..."

I was out of town on business, and away from my books, and am just getting back to Homer. And, no big surprise, I'm getting confused again. I think of the man who had one watch, and knew the time, and the man who had two watches, and was never sure. I look at different references, they disagree, and I get confused. Anyway... back to αειδω. It has the following tense systems (I think):

Present
αειδω

future
αεισομαι (no future active)

1st aorist
αεισα

no 1st or 2nd perfect system

perfect middle
ησμαι

1st passive
ησθεν [edit]ησθην

These tense system names are according to Pharr (807).

My questions are:

1) If the perfect middle is ησμαι, why is this listed under "-Pass." in the entry from little Liddell quoted above? Or is it? What does the "-Pass.," attach to?

2) Does this get conjugated according to the 3rd column of Pharr (925) (perfect middle of dental stems)?

3) I downloaded the Kalos package and looked up αειδω. It has ηεισμαι instead of ησμαι. What's up with that? Am I to assume that little Liddell is correct and Kalos is kakos, or is this another variation thing?

[edit]
4) ησμαι in my copy of little Liddell has no accent marks. I take it that, following the rule that final -αι is usually considered short for purposes of accentuation, there would be a circumflex over the η?

[modus.irrealis]

1) If the perfect middle is ησμαι, why is this listed under "-Pass." in the entry from little Liddell quoted above? Or is it? What does the "-Pass.," attach to?

With the perfect, the middle and passive aren't distinguished and it seems that Liddell lists under Med. only those forms that are exclusively middle, and the other forms, whether they're only passive or both middle and passive under Pass.

2) Does this get conjugated according to the 3rd column of Pharr (925) (perfect middle of dental stems)?

I'd say yes, since there's no indication otherwise that I can find.

3) I downloaded the Kalos package and looked up αειδω. It has ηεισμαι instead of ησμαι. What's up with that? Am I to assume that little Liddell is correct and Kalos is kakos, or is this another variation thing?

Since the Kalos form is not listed in the lexicons, I'd assume the program is wrong. My guess is that it uses some kind of algorithm to generate the forms unless it knows the verb is irregular and it doesn't know it in this case.

4) ησμαι in my copy of little Liddell has no accent marks. I take it that, following the rule that final -αι is usually considered short for purposes of accentuation, there would be a circumflex over the η?

Yes.

[Lex]

1) If the perfect middle is ησμαι, why is this listed under "-Pass." in the entry from little Liddell quoted above? Or is it? What does the "-Pass.," attach to?

With the perfect, the middle and passive aren't distinguished and it seems that Liddell lists under Med. only those forms that are exclusively middle, and the other forms, whether they're only passive or both middle and passive under Pass.

Hmmm... weird.

3) I downloaded the Kalos package and looked up αειδω. It has ηεισμαι instead of ησμαι. What's up with that? Am I to assume that little Liddell is correct and Kalos is kakos, or is this another variation thing?

Since the Kalos form is not listed in the lexicons, I'd assume the program is wrong. My guess is that it uses some kind of algorithm to generate the forms unless it knows the verb is irregular and it doesn't know it in this case.

Also weird. It's only the first verb in the Iliad! But, I suppose it was too much to ask that a downloadable program is that good.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

[Lex]

I think I've finally figured out how to conjugate one whole (defective!) Homeric Greek verb, αειδω. Whoohooo!

Now I wanted to go back to review my first noun, μηνιν.

Obviously, this ends in a ν. Why? I find in Pharr (685) that for a third declension noun, if the stem ends in a consonant (such as μηνιδ-), the end is usually -α. That would make μηνιδα, not μηνιν.

I did find this in Kaegi (39.2):

"Barytones with dental stems in -ις and -υς form the acc. sing. (like the -ι and -υ stems, 46 seqq.) in -ιν and -υν."

Is there anything in Pharr or Monro that says something similar? (I can't find it, if there is.) Does the above in Kaegi generally apply to Homeric Greek as well as Attic?

The vocative of μηνις: is it μηνις or μηνι? I understand the rule in Kaegi (36.5), would mean the vocative is either the same as the nom., μηνις, or the stem μηνιδ- with the δ dropped because it can't end a word. But how do you know which? [edit]Is there a hard and fast rule, or is it semi-arbitrary?

Am I being too anal here? I am a computer programmer by education, so I look for hard and fast rules. I'm starting to think I should take up a nice regular language... like Esperanto!

[jk0592]

Well, according to Pharr, we have μῆνις,ιος,ἡ (60) which is the same type as πόλις,ιος, ἡ, (704). So, since we have at the acccusative singular πόλιν, we therefore have μῆνιν.
There are quite a few variants in the third declension, and it is painful to memorize them.

[Lex]

Well, according to Pharr, we have μῆνις,ιος,ἡ (60) which is the same type as πόλις,ιος, ἡ, (704). So, since we have at the acccusative singular πόλιν, we therefore have μῆνιν.

Oh. So I'm not even working with the right stem? Ugh. I thought from some reference (I don't remember which now) that the stem was μηνιδ-, a dental stem, similar to ελπις, ελπιδος, so I was looking at Pharr (693), 3rd column, παις, παιδος. Αnd now that I look at little Liddell, the Attic genitive is μηνιδος, so the reference was correct for classical Greek. But not apparently for Homeric? Ah.

There are quite a few variants in the third declension, and it is painful to memorize them.

I'm noticing, to my chagrin, that there are quite a few variants in most of Greek. Is Latin nearly as painful in this respect? What about modern Indo-European languages that have literatures worth reading? What are the least painful modern languages?

[Lex]

I did just find this: (Pharr 690)

"Words ending in -ις and -υς in the nominative singular, but with dental mute (τ, δ, θ) stems very rarely drop the mute and take the accusative singular ending (-ν) of vowel stems."

I missed that the first time around. This would perhaps apply if μηνις had a dental stem in Homeric (which jk0592 was kind enough to inform me that it doesn't). This essentially says the same thing as Kaegi, but just says "rarely" instead of laying out the "barytone rule". Does anyone know if this barytone rule was a regular feature in Homeric?