From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 09 1995 - 09:28:58 EST
At 8:25 PM 12/8/95, Phil wrote:
>Carl Conrad Wrote:
>>Is anyone for Greek?
>Yes, I am. I have a general question about the differences between
>classical Greek and Koine. Could some of those on the list that work with
>both plase give me a fairly concise list of the major differences between
>the two?
This is off the top of my head, so it won't be complete and perhaps won't
even hit the highest spots, but others will perhaps respond and add to the
list of items I can think of. It should, of course, be remembered that
neither what we call Classical nor what we call Koine is a static or
homogeneous entity; there are dialectal differences, social-level stylistic
differences, concurrent alternative forms of words and constructions in a
language that is always in flux, etc., etc., etc.
But if we take Attic Greek of the 5th and 4th centuries as standard for
Classical (and ignore Homeric and literary Ionic, Aeolic and Doric), then
I'd say, for a general observation, that Classical Greek is more nuanced in
its capacity to differentiate between perceived (or even imagined) shades
of quality, quantity, contingency, and the like. I often tell beginners in
the first class that Attic Greek has one more of each grammatical category
that they're likely to expect in a language: number (dual in addition to
singular and plural), tense (aorist in addition to pres, impf, fut, and the
3 pf tenses), mood (optative in addition to indic, imptv, subj), voice
(middle in addition to active & passive), a full array of participles for
each tense-system and voice, etc. I also tell them that the Greek noun is
pretty easy to learn, but they'll spend years coming to understand the
verbal system (if any of us ever does so completely).
Now many of the distinguishing features of Classical Attic DO survive in
Koine, even if in alternate formations. But here are a few differences:
(1) Ionic spellings (and pronunciations) such as -SS- for Attic -TT-,
primarily owing to Macedonian Ionic-speakers taking the lead in
administration and commerce in the Hellenistic cities at the outset.
(2) Pronunciation differences (most of which don't really show up in
spelling). The vowel/diphthong system has probably gone through most of the
changes to the way vowels and diphthongs are pronounced in modern Greek.
Very likely many of the consonants have also done so (B->V, D->th, e.g.).
(3) A marked tendency for the alpha-endings of the 1st aorist to be used on
2nd aorist stems (ultimately, in modern Greek, even on imperfects).
(4) MI-verbs increasingly assume -W-verb conjugation: e.g. AFIHMI -> AFIW.
(5) The optative mood has more or less ceased to be used in old ways,
survives for the most part in expressions like Paul's MH GENOITO, which
possibly isn't even undestood by the speaker/writer as a verb form but as
an exclamation. As a consequence the subjunctive must function even in
secondary sequence as the optative functioned in Classical Attic. e.g.:
Attic: HLQEN hO ADELFOS MOU hINA TAUTA hHMIN AGGELEIE.
Koine: HLQEN hO ADELFOS MOU hINA TAUTA hHMIN AGGELHi.
(6) The (hINA + subjunctive) clause, used almost exclusively in Classical
Attic to express purpose in primary sequence, has in Koine become a
multi-functional verbal noun almost equivalent to an infinitive or gerund
(in modern Greek it DOES serve as an infinitive).
(7) The use of the articular infinitive expands, particularly with a
genitive article TOU (and normally without the original governing
preposition hENEKA) to express purpose. Even otherwise, the articular
infinitive's capacity as a verbal noun seems to run parallel to that of the
(hINA + subj) clause.
(8) Case usage: constructions found even in Attic become more common, as
PROS + acc. as equivalent to a dative with a verb of speaking for indirect
object; EN + dative to express the instrumental notion, where Attic more
commonly used no preposition and generally limited the use of EN to
locative function. This is a matter of tendency rather than an absolute
distinction between Attic and Koine.
That's a short list of things that come to my mind without checking a
grammar. It is far from complete. One of the more interesting short
histories of the Greek language is an out-of-print little book by the
George Thomson (the mad Marxist British Hellenist of Manchester and
Prague!) entitled, aptly, _The Greek Language_. I'd like to learn of what
others might deem good summaries of linguistic change in Greek.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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