I may have discovered errors in the 2nd edition of Reading Greek. I shall try to keep a record of them and post them to the board. The following may be my mistake and not an error in the textbook. On page 131 there is an exercise on word shape and syntax. We are asked to translate a text written in the present and change verbs to the imperfect or the aorist. One verb is νικῶσι which is to be put into the imperfect. So I wrote ἐνίκων. I was surprised to see ἐνίκησαν in the answer key which I take to be the aorist. Actually, the aorist makes more sense to me in the context because it refers to an action limited in time. I checked Perseus which lists it as either imperfect or aorist. However, Morpho in Logeion agrees with me. What am I missing?
Could you point us to where that is?
Yes, I used the Greek Word Study Tool linked to Perseus. Here is is http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=enikhsan&la=greek. Then I used Morpho which is part of Logeion here https://logeion.uchicago.edu/morpho/νικάω.
Interesting. I’ve always avoided that tool because of the obsolete beta-code interface. Clicking around, I don’t see any way to get it to tell you whether there are certain specific texts where they think ἐνίκησαν is actually used as the imperfect. They also don’t make it clear what their source of data is, or how frequent the two possibilities are. My guess is that the source of data is the perseus treebank (constructed by humans), and that there are one or two places in the entire corpus they analyzed in which the human looking at the text thought that ἐνίκησαν had the semantics of being the imperfect, so they tagged it that way regardless of the aorist form.
Here’s a listing of usages in Homer, generated from their treebank:
present
νικᾶν (1), νικᾷ (2), νικᾷς (1), νικῶντες (1)
imperfect
νίκα (1), νίκων (1), νικάσκομεν (1), ἐνίκα (8), ἐνίκων (2)
future
νικήσουσι (1), νικησέμεν (2)
aorist
νίκησα (1), νίκησε (1), νίκησεν (1), νικήσαντι (5), νικήσας (1), νικήσει᾽ (1), νικήσῃ (4), νικηθέντι (2), νικηθεὶς (1), νικῆσαι (2), ἐνίκησα (1), ἐνίκησας (2), ἐνίκησεν (1)
The given lemma νικάω is an exact and unique match to the database, including accentuation.
total matches: 25, total occurrences: 44
As you would expect, all stems with aorist-style sigma are future or aorist, not imperfect.
Thank you, Ben. I have found the Perseus tool to be quite unreliable. Far better to invest the time and energy in mastering the grammar than to take shortcuts.
Well, it’s a tool. I’ve found the Perseus treebank data to be extremely accurate, and it encompasses far more information than any human brain could possibly recall accurately, including all kinds of exceptions, dialectical forms, and so on. But what is being presented by that particular web page is probably just a quick and dirty computer-generated summary of all the laboriously human-performed tagging. For instance, I noticed recently that in Homer, the treebank tagged τε as being a word whose part of speech was a particle – except for two times out of 4300, where it was tagged as some other part of speech! I don’t think that necessarily means that those are mistakes in the treebank; some human somewhere had to override the software’s defaults because they judged it not to be a particle in those particular cases.
I flipped through the index of Smyth, where he does have entries for stuff like the imperfect used with the meaning of the present in certain contexts. But I didn’t find anything for the aorist used with imperfect meaning. So I’d guess it’s your textbook that is inaccurate, not Perseus, and you really have found an error.
I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. ἐνίκων is imperfect, ἐνίκησαν is aorist. No need for guessing or flipping through indexes. It’s simply a mistake in the answer key.
Some time ago I participated in a reading group dedicated to JACT Reading Greek. I also noticed some (possible/probable) errors and recorded them. Below is a list of such instances.
Reading Greek
Grammar
Page 41, c, 1, b
… Ἕλλην ἐστι… → … Ἕλλην ἐστὶ…
Page 42, E
πῶς δὲ οὔ; → πῶς γὰρ οὔ;
Page 52, a
ποιήτης → ποιητής
Page 57
σέ σοῦ σοί → σε or σέ σου or σοῦ σοι or σοί
… ἡμᾶς δὲ οὐ. → … ἡμᾶς δὲ οὔ.
Page 64
ἐργοῖς → ἔργοις
Page 71
τὰ πλῆθη → τὰ πλήθη
Page 110
τριήρεσι(ν) → τριήρ-εσι(ν)
Page 112
σῳζω → σῴζω
Page 118
Accent missing (ἀμῡνω)
Page 119
δήλοω → δηλόω
Page 122
ἡγήσαμην → ἡγησάμην
Page 130
τυγχάνουσι → ἔτυχον (?)
Page 135
ποιεῖν, ‘to stop’ → ‘to make’
Page 153, Item 172
αὐτ-ός, -ή, ό (‘self, same’); αὐτ-όν, -ήν, ό (him, her, it) → αὐτ-ός, -ή, ό (self, same; he, she, it)
Page 157, B-C, 2, f
ἀν-αιρέω → ἀναιρέω (otherwise, why not ἀπ-έρχομαι [a.], κατα-λαμβάνω [b.]?)
Page 159
ὄν → ὃν
Page 193
Ἕλλην- → Ἑλλην-
Page 193
πᾶς παντ- → πᾶς (παντ-)
πᾶς, πᾶσα, πᾶν (παντ-) (for it does not apply to πᾶσα as well)
Page 195, B-C, 3, 6
λόγους. → λόγους;
Page 196
εἴπετε μοι → εἴπετέ μοι
Page 197, Contract Verbs
τιμίυντων → τιμώντων
δουλοῦ → δηλοῦ, etc.
Page 211
active → active and middle
Page 213
δώ-σω → δώσ-ω, δώ-σομαι → δώσ-ομαι
Page 216
ἀλήθης → ἀληθής
Page 224, line 23
ἐλεγόμεν → ἐλεγόμην
Page 337
Accent missing: ἀφῑασι(ν)
Page 343
διακεῖμαι → διάκειμαι
Page 363, bottom of page
‘letter 364’: This is the page number - should be removed. Moreover, he text appears to be broken here, with no logical continuation on the next page.
Page 343 (iv)
(acute) → ́ (acute)
Page 377 (ii)
εἰμί → εἰμι (?)
φημί → φημι (?)
Page 386, last line
Ἕλλην- → Ἑλλην-
Page 387, (i), (iii)
(νυκτ)- → (νυκτ-)
ῥήτορσι → ῥήτορσι(ν)
Page 388, (vi), table
+σι → +σι(ν)
πρᾶξις
-τος → -τος >
Page 403
παύῃ → παύσῃ
παύηται → παύσηται
Page 409
τίμα: The circumflex should be replaced by a straight bar.
Page 410
τῖμῶσα, etc.: replace circumflex by straight bar
Page 411
δουλοῦσᾱς: οῦ → ού
Page 412
ποιεῑται: εῖ
Page 413
ποιεῑσθε: εῖ
Page 418
δοθ(σι)ν → δοθῶσι(ν)
Page 425
ἑιστ → εἱστ-
Page 429
δεικνύοιμην → δεικνυοίμην
Page 440
εἶρηκα → εἴρηκα
Page 441 (πωλέω ‘sell’)
ἀπεδόμην → ἐπώλησα; πέπρακα → πεπώληκα; ἐπράθην → ἐπωλήθην
Page 443 (ἀνά)
πόταμον → ποταμόν
Page 444
(κατά)
πόταμον → ποταμόν
πετρᾱς → πέτρᾱς
(μετά)
χρύσον → χρυσόν
(παρά)
νεών → νεῶν
ἐνίαυτον → ἐνιαυτόν
μαθητών → μαθητῶν
Page 445
πάροντα → παρόντα
Page 446
ὰλλὰ → ἀλλὰ
Page 452
κελεύομεν σε → κελεύομέν σε or κελεύομεν σὲ
Page 453
χρησιμοὶ → χρήσιμοι
Page 454
ἀνόητός ἐστίν → ἀνόητός ἐστιν (?)
Page 457
μή’ → μή,
Page 460, Notes, (ii)
ἀμαρτάνεις → ἁμαρτάνεις
Page 462
ἤρετο με → ἤρετό με
Main clause, (ii)
τρεπῶμαι → τρέπωμαι
Page 480, 3a (x2)
λίμην → λιμήν
Page 481 (footnotes)
2 The footnote numbers should start with ‘1’
4 (2x) βασίλεως → βασιλέως
Page 484 (i) Note
αἰτέω τινα τι → αἰτέω τινά τι
Page 485 (ix)
μέτεστι → μέτειμι (?)
Page 486 (top of page)
μέλει → μέλω (?)
Page 488
νύξ → νὺξ
Page 492 (para. 452)
μεγας → μέγας
Page 493 (‘share’)
μέτεστι → μέτειμι (?)
Page 497
ο ι → οι
Thank you Vasile. I must say, it’s a little discouraging to see so many errors. It makes me wonder whether I want to invest my time doing all the exercises if they’re not reliable. I couldn’t find anything on the board. Is there a reading group for JACT?