Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

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Lex
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Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by Lex »

What is the imperfect indicative active of εἴρω? Since the word historically started with a vau, I'm not sure whether to use a temporal or syllabic augment, and my little Liddel isn't helping.

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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by Swth\r »

This form has never been found in text... :?
But what "εἴρω" do you exactly mean? a)"To fasten together", or b) "to say"?

I suppose "εἶρον" would be the form in both cases... Since middle voice imperfect of b) is found as "εἴρετο", "εἴροντο", and aorist of a) as "εἶρα"... :roll:
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Lex
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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by Lex »

Swth\r wrote:This form has never been found in text...
Ah. I suppose that would be why Liddell/Scott had nothing to offer.
Swth\r wrote:But what "εἴρω" do you exactly mean? a)"To fasten together", or b) "to say"?
b) "to say".

I was practicing conjugation on all the verbs in chapter 12 of Pharr (present, imperfect, future, and aorist indicative active), to drill the paradigms into my head. (After this, I start chapter 13, and I'm reading actual Homer! Whoohoo!) But if a form is not extant, I guess I needn't bother drilling it.

Thanks.

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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by annis »

In later Greek you'd use the imperfect ἔλεγον for this. The just plain speaking sense of λέγω isn't primary in Homer, and I'd probably use a form of ἀγορεύω for an Epic imperfect.

I just did a dig through Wordhoard to see how ἀγορεύω gets used in Homer, and made an amazing discovery —
  • Of the 102 times it occurs in the Odyssey, it is not at the end of the line a mere 10 times.
  • Of the 64 times it occurs in the Iliad, it is not at the end of the line 10 times.
  • common non-final idiom: καί μοι τοῦτ' ἀγόρευσον ἐτήτυμον, ὄφρ' ἐῢ εἰδῶ· (Od 4.645, Od 13.232, Od 14.186, Od 24.297, Od 24.383, Od 24.03, Homeric Hymn 3.468)
It does occur in the imperfect, but is never augmented for metrical reasons (-u- cannot be made to fit into the hexameter).
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by Lex »

Is πείθω (persuade) another of those words with no imperfect? The 2nd aorist is πέπιθον; would that be the imperfect as well? And how does one tell from a lexicon if there is no imperfect?

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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by spiphany »

The imperfect of most verbs is formed normally from the first principle part (the stem for the present tense). Any exceptions to this should be noted in the lexicon.

Now, εἴρω is one of those annoying verbs which doesn't follow any of those nice patterns...if the lexicon gives a long list of individual verb forms, chances are it's wierd and only appears in specific forms. If the lexicon doesn't give much morphological information, the verb is probably pretty regular.
IPHIGENIE: Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS: Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE: Das ist's, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.
(Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris)

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Re: Imperfect Indicative Active of εἴρω

Post by Lex »

OK. Thanks.

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