Re: re perfect passives

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:10:57 -0500

At 10:10 AM -0500 9/23/96, John Oaklands wrote:
>Hi Carl
>
>Thanks for your input on my query. I've been tutoring a young guy who
>failed his second semester Greek--he failed the first too but was permitted
>to take a second exam. This time he can't do that. He still has to sit the
>exam with the students this year but with a teacher who uses a different
>methodology. So I'm helping him with that. But the real problem has been
>that they've also required him to do a USA second semester correspondence
>course. They have exercises with things like I asked about which appear
>neither in NT Greek nor the LXX! stuff he's never use. It seems like a
>waste of time and energy, as well as the fact that it turns some of these
>young guys off Greek. But I also have him do a lot of reading from the
>Greek NT at least and that is helping to motivate him and to put the grammar
>into a more meaningful setting.

Yes, I've done this sort of thing myself on occasion, usually trying to help somebody through the second semester of work begun in a textbook that I would never have chosen, but the fellow has to continue at the point where he left off, of course.

>You wrote EGRAMMENOI, but I take it that you mean GEGRAMMENOI?

No, this is correct: the spelling tends to follow a rule governing reduplication in the case of verbs beginning with consonant + L or R: they augment instead of reduplicating to form perfect stem. But one does find GEGRAMMENOI in Homer and earlier Greek (usually in the sense "draw" rather than "write."

You also
>wrote ELHUQASI(N) but that should probably be ELHLUQASI(N)?

You're right on the mark here: I left out a -LU- syllable.

I have seen
>Mounce on the questions I asked about but wanted to check further. So thank
>you.

You're most welcome

>By the way I was into your web site home page yesterday--I've been there
>before--and I find it most interesting and informative. I need to spend
>some more time there.

You're welcome there too; I think several of my links are probably out of date, but I try to update it every couple months.

Best wishes, cwc