At 11:43 PM -0600 11/7/97, Nichael Cramer wrote:
>Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
>> I have a few pedagogical problems here:
>
>> 1. How can you look at a verb form in the GNT, say, LALW, and know that you
>> should look it up in the dictionary as LALEW? Is there any way?
>
>My experience has been that understanding why the differences in the
>ending arise goes a long way towards answering exactly this type of question.
I think there's a pretty simple answer to Jonathan's question. If you find
a form of LALW in what you recognize as present or imperfect indicative,
you'll find a circumflex over the spurious diphthong resulting from the
contraction of stem-vowel and thematic vowel:that's the clue that you need
to look up this verb with the expectation that it will be -EW (but the same
applies to -OW and -AW verbs: once you UNDERSTAND the pattern of
contractions in each of these--and understanding them is the key, not just
memorizing them--there should never be a problem of knowing what to look
for when you go to the lexicon.
Let me add another pointer, something I think is obvious, but that I've
found helpful to students: when you see an H or an W in the stem of what is
obviously an aorist, future, or perfect tense form, i.e. a stem combination
like HSA or WSA, HQH or WQH, HK or WK, or, in the perfect middle-reflexive
simply H or W, you know that you'll find the one with the W with an OW
ending in the lexicon, while the one with the H may turn out to be either
EW or AW, since both E and A result ultimately in a lengthened form as H.
>> 2. Is it helpful to learn the uncontracted forms as well as the contracted
>> forms, or should I just teach the contracted forms (as I have for the -EW
>> verbs).
>
>I would answer this simply as Mounce does: That is, by learning the base,
>uncontracted form + the rules for contractions, you simply end up having to
>memorize less stuff in the end than had you simply committed the raw
>endings to memory. (And by having all of those rules under your belt, you
>have the jump on other verb forms where those rules are also applicable.)
Precisely. I would only add that it helps to understand the phonological
principles underlying these contractions also (as I hinted in my original
response to this), such as that omicron originally seems to have been
pronounced as a SHORT closed O (like the O in GO when quickly pronounced),
but that when it contracts with another omicron or with an epsilon (no
matter whether the epsilon preceded or followed the omicron, i.e. EO or
OE), then the resulting vowel sound is the spurious diphthong spelled OU
which was probably pronounced as a LONG closed O (like the OW in BLOW). Of
course, it is also true that as soon as we introduce this phonology and
start talking about "original" pronunciations underlying the contractions,
we are confessing (a) our reliance upon hypothetical, although by no means
improbable, reconstructions of the "original" sound, and (b) that our
Erasmian pronunciation (or whatever other pronunciation we happen to be
using) is mere convention and has relatively little to do with the way
Greek was ever pronounced at any time other than in the schoolroom.
And Jonathan added a third question:
>3. Robertson points out that -AW and -EW endings are sometimes confused in
>the GNT. Is this worth pointing out to beginners?
My (library copy) of Robertson is at the office, so I can't check it
readily, but are you sure he doesn't say this about -OW and -EW endings
instead? It is the fact I've underscored above, that EO, OE, and OO all
yield the spurious diphthong OU, that accounts for identical forms and
potential confusion, as for instance with 3d plural forms like POIOUSI and
DHLOUSI, where the first OU results from contraction of EO, the second OU
from contraction of OO.
But the point of confusion between -AW and -EW verbs, it seems to me, lies
in the fact that both E and A lengthen as stem vowels into H in all forms
outside of the present system. But I don't know just what Robertson may be
referring to without having a look at it.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/