I agree with Carl Conrad that students must learn to deal with verbs by
dealing with the constitutuent elements. I emphasize to students learning
to reconstruct the forms by using the principal parts. For the regular
verbs, the students must be able to take the stem of the verb and put it in
the identifying form for each of the six principal parts. eg. PISTEUW,
PISTEUSW, EPISTEUSA, PEPISTEUKA, PEPISTEUMAI, EPISTEUQH (for Hellenistic
Greek). For those verbs where the stem changes, students must memorize all
forms when they learn vocabulary. ERCOMAI, ELEUSOMAI, HLQON, ELHLUQA.
Sort of like "go," "went," and "gone" in English. Students must learn to
parse verbs by recognizing the PP stem and by knowing what forms are built
on each stem.
Carl,I would like to have a copy of your handout on constituent elements.
I have the requisite fonts and a Power Mac.
Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Chair, Division of Religious Studies
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
voice 318 487-7241
fax 318 442-4996