γεγάασι

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giusee
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γεγάασι

Post by giusee »

Hi all,
I have some troubles with a verbal form (obviously when I have my greek exam in 3 weeks...). I was translating Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι of Hesiod and at line 108 I found the verb "γεγάασι".
So I searched online and on my vocabulary, and they told me that this is an epic form for γεγονάσι as the third person plural of the perfect indicative from γίγνομαι.
But I didn't fine any explanation of this changing of the verbal theme (because my grammar writes only -γεν/-γν/-γον for γίγνομαι that is apofonich).
So I tried to separate the parts: γε-γά-ασι (the reduplication -γε and the desinence -ᾱσι) but what is this "γα"?
First of all, the double α made me to suppose immediatly a διέκτασις, but this ancient phenomenon corcened only verbs in -αω, and then I don't know how I would apply it in this case.
Anyway do you have any idea of what happened in the difference γεγάασι-γεγονάσι?
I'm stuck and you're my last hope... (I'm sorry for my english..maybe in Italy we give importance only to classics and nothing to modern languages)
Thanks all!

Jean Putmans
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Jean Putmans »

the -γα- is a result of „Ablaut“ in indo-european (Kühner-Blass, vol. II page 95-96 : https://archive.org/details/p2ausfhrlic ... 6/mode/2up; and Schwyzer,vol. page 767:
https://books.google.nl/books?id=p1RRIc ... ik&f=false : in Google you have to scroll-down a lot, pages 766-767 are shown!).

Also Smyth points for γα < γν (page 691 and § 573).

Jean Putmans
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Jean Putmans »

addition:

Very explicit on -γα- < -γν- (the -ν- here is a so called syllabic sonorant n̥) is Szemerenyi, 1996, Page 289 (https://archive.org/details/szemerenyii ... 1up?q=dual).

IN case you want to see the indo-european ancestors of Greek vowels you should have a look at the schemes Krahe has in his german booklet (https://archive.org/details/Krahe-Hans- ... 3/mode/2up : Vowels page 45, consonants: 67)

giusee
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by giusee »

Oh, yeah I forgot it!
Really I found this phaenomon already with the accusative plural desinence in the third declination, where it gives -ν with vowels (like in πόλι-ν) but gives -a with consonants (like γίγαντ-α), but I ignored its use also in verbs.
Anyway, I suppose (but I'm not sure) that the form -γν won over -γα maybe due to its linguistic ease, because it allows to avoid hiatus and then a contraction with the vowls of the desinences of perfect.

Thank you very much, now I undestand it and also why Hesiod didn't write γιγονάσι.

Hylander
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Hylander »

Using N for the syllabic sonorant --

Originally, the perfect stem would have alternated between ο-grade -γον- (from -γοΝ-) in the singular and zero grade -γΝ- in the plural (and dual). Cf. οἶδα~ἴδμεν.

Before the ending -αντι, beginning with a vowel, from -Ντι, we would expect the zero-grade stem to be -γν-, yielding γεγνᾰντι>γεγνᾰνσι>γέγνᾱσι.

However, it seems that the zero-grade form of the stem of the first and second person plural, which would be -γᾰ- from -γΝ- before endings beginning with consonants (-μες, -τε) has been generalized to the 3rd person plural, yielding γεγάαντι>γεγάανσι>γεγάᾱσι. See Ringe, The Linguistic Roots of Ancient Greek, p. 217.
Last edited by Hylander on Tue Jan 28, 2025 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bill Walderman

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Mitch
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Mitch »

Wow Bill that looks like an excellent book -- wish I could afford it! Added to my "Someday" Amazon wishlist :-P

But clicking on Ringe's author's link on the Amazon page for that book led me to other books by Ringe including "An Introduction to Grammar for Language Learners" which I've just ordered and should probably be read *first* by everyone before they try and tackle an intermediate/advanced Greek grammar like Smyth or CGCG, I think.
Cheers,
Mitch Tulloch

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Re: γεγάασι

Post by markcmueller »

Bill,

Would you mind writing a few lines about The Linguistic Roots of Ancient Greek? Past discussions of books on Textkit led me to read Storia delle lingue letterarie greche and Origins of the Greek Verb. The latter one sometimes went over my head, but I found them both fascinating and would not have discovered them without the discussions on Textkit -- which I think you participated in.

Mark

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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Hylander »

The Linguistic Roots of Ancient Greek came as a slight disappointment to me. I find it difficult to follow and, honestly, aimed at someone who already has a more substantial grounding in Indo-European linguistics than I (though it begins with an overview of PIE phonology and morphology). It does convey the complexity of the subject matter with lots of detail, but I found it hard to see the forest for the trees. It cost me nothing -- I bought it with Amazon points. I wouldn't recommend it for someone who, like me, doesn't have an extensive academic background in historical linguistics.

I still haven't found a convenient treatment in English of the evolution of Greek. Sihler's Comparative Grammar is difficult to use, especially since the main lines of the Greek story gets somewhat lost in the effort to treat both languages in parallel. In French, I find Lejeune on phonology and Chantraine on morphology much easier to follow, though these are quite dated, as is Rix in German. The first part of Storia delle lingue letterarie grecche gives a useful sketch of the pre-history of Greek in Italian, and the rest of that book is excellent on the individual literary dialects.
Bill Walderman

markcmueller
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by markcmueller »

Thank you, Bill! I'm quite interested in PIE and was pleased to see an up-to-date discussion of the state of thinking about PIE and how Greek developed out of it. I read the Amazon preview of the PIE linguistics and thought that this is really out of my league. I was wondering if it got easier in the rest of the book -- apparently not.

I'm going back to Italy in the fall (Umbria), so it's a good time to reread that chapter in Storia delle lingue letterarie greche where I see I have multiple notes and underlining on every page. If anyone knows some Italian, this is not a difficult book to read.

Mark

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Paul Derouda
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Re: γεγάασι

Post by Paul Derouda »

I tried to learn Italian reading that book! With knowledge of French, a dictionary and Google translate it wasn't too difficult indeed. Of course, at some stage something came up and I abandoned my reading project, but I was able to read a significant number of pages. Well written academic writing can work as an "easy reader"!

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