From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 19 1998 - 11:42:55 EST
At 9:07 AM -0600 1/19/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>Maybe I should start by telling you want I want to accomplish: in "Little
>Greek 101", I will need to discuss verb morphology. I would like to be able
>to present the morphemes as meaningful units.
>
>Ward Powers has done a rather good job of presenting morphemes as
>meaningful units in his book, "Learn to Read the Greek New Testament". I
>see this as a real strength of his book - I think that this approach makes
>it much easier to learn the morphology. There are two things that keep me
>from adopting his approach lock, stock, and barrel:
>
>1. I suspect that the verb stem does grammaticalize aspect; this is not
>part of Ward's system.
>2. The "aspect slot" in Ward's system is the connecting vowel before the
>ending. This is fine for aorist and imperfect, but not really helpful for
>future and present.
Yes, and this particular remark reminds me that I have intended for some
time to write a lengthy response to his thorough account (in two or three
separate posts) of the Aorist some two months ago, but I've never gotten to
it. Nevertheless, what I want to say about it is really rather simple and
probably not very helpful: Ward argued (1) that, because more than 80% of
sigmatic aorist forms display a -SA- stem, the "morph" for the sigmatic
aorist is -SA-, and (2) that in those sigmatic aorist forms where the
A-element is missing, it was "elided" before the following vowel. This
formulation bothers me, not because I think it is impractical as a
pedagogical device (I think it works very well, in fact) but because I
believe it is inaccurate historically from a diachronic perspective on the
development of Greek verb morphology: (1) I believe that the A-element
actually derives historically from the original 1st-person and 3rd-person
"secondary" endings (-M and -NT respectively) and spread from these through
the rest of the conjugation; but (2) I believe that the A-element never
appeared in those other forms in which a vocalic element already followed
(e.g., the active infinitive ending in -AI, the active imperative in -ON);
and (3) I don't believe that elision is a viable explanation because, so
far as I have been able to ascertain, elision occurs when two distinct
words, one ending in a vowel, a second beginning with a vowel, interact
with normal loss of the word-ending vowel. Such is the case with the
adverbial prefixes which were clearly originally independent words that
came to be used and written before augmented finite verb forms. My
objection to Ward's formulation, therefore, is not that it doesn't
adequately describe the phenomena of NT Greek sigmatic aorists, but rather
that it is historically inaccurate, in my judgment.
>I do think that the basic "morph slots" approach is a good one. My goal is
>to write a beginning grammar, not to conduct extensive original research in
>Greek, but I also want to make sure that the things I say are helpful and
>accurate.
>
>In the active indicative, I see these sets of markers:
>
>1. The augment (present or absent)
>2. Reduplication (present or absent)
>3. The stem
>4. Future time marker (sigma)
>5. Endings (primary or secondary)
>
>At 07:17 AM 1/19/98 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>>Is that what the traditional approach really does point to? I would have
>>thought it is traditional to understand the present, aorist, and perfect
>>stems to grammaticalize aspect, but I'd be leery of going beyond that.
>
>If that is a safe, reasonably traditional statement, then I'm already
>half-way home. After reading your message, I looked up "morphology" in
>Fanning, and found this statement, which I had previously read and forgotten:
>
>"The distinction of aspect from tense was supported in the early period by
>two lines of argument advanced by Curtius and others. The first support
>cited was *morphology* of the Greek verb-system. The discovery that the
>augment was associated with past-time value and that among the three
>normally augmented forms (aorist, imperfect, pluperfect) there remained a
>further distinction of aspect associated with the verbal stems was regarded
>as firm evidence of this distinction." -- Fanning, "Verbal Aspect in NT
>Greek", p. 16
>
>Is this a fairly established view? If so, I can use it directly without
>fear...
>
>A footnote states:
>
>"...the verbal suffixes (in addition to the augment) reflect a distinction
>of past and non-past, which intersects in a complicated way with
>indications of mood, voice, person, and number. Also, the augment was
>optional in some eras of ancient Greek usage, though past-time value was
>apparently retained."
>
>The phrase "intersects in a complicated way" worries me a little...all I
>want is a simple, reductionist theory that can be phrased in 25 words or
>less, is completely true, accounts for all the data, and which nobody would
>dispute.
" ... a consummation devoutly to be wished ..." --but probably to be wished
for in vain. The complications have chiefly to do with phonological changes
that have taken place in the history of the Greek language such that
consonantal endings have vocalized or otherwise undergone mutation through
loss of intervocalic sigma, intervocalic iota, or combinations of sonant M
and N with S. My guess is that if you get a nice, simple, reductionist
theory in 25 words or less, you will have to sacrifice (1) complete truth,
(2) complete accounting for all the data, AND (not OR) (3) indisputability.
But of course I would not want you to stop trying ... ;-)
>To be perfectly frank, my own grasp of verb morphology is rather inadequate
>- one of the reasons I am writing "Little Greek 101" is to improve my own
>grasp of Greek, and one of the advantages of writing an online grammar is
>that you can get people to review it and point out the mistakes before you
>throw it at beginners.
Well, surely one of the most valuable pedagogical devices is for learners
to engage in teaching. I'm grateful to both my teachers and to the authors
of textbooks I've used, but I've probably learned more from students I've
taught than from other sources.
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/
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