Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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ObsequiousNewt
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Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by ObsequiousNewt »

1. What is the regular accent of the α athematic middle 2sg imperative? Smyth 424b(2) would imply that it's e.g. **πριῶ, and 426c would support this (except that it only refers to -οῦ imperatives), however the actually attested form is paroxytone πρίω, although 424c note 2 lists ἐπριάμην as an exception, but it only lists it as an exception w.r.t. subjunctive and optative. So is it (ἐπί)πτω (from -πέτομαι) or (ἐπι)πτῶ? I can't find either form in Perseus' corpora.
2. On a similar topic, why is ἔβην (from βαίνω) listed as being similar to ἔγνων (from γιγνώσκω) and not ἔστην (from ἵστημι)? I can't see any differences between the conjugations of ἔβην and ἔστην. Does it have something to do perhaps with uncompounded subjunctive?
3. Subjunctive of -έδρᾱν: is it -εδρῶ, -εδρῇς, -εδρῇ or -εδρῶ, -εδρᾷς, -εδρᾷ (from α+ῃ after ρ)?
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by anphph »

2. ἔστην

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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by jeidsath »

1) The infinitive πρίασθαι is an exception too. But see 417 which gives the conjugation of ἐπριάμην in full. -μι verbs tend to be irregular in their imperatives. See 617 about πέτομαι. Smyth says that ἐπτάμην follows ἐπριάμην.

2) So there are a number of these strong aorists: ἔβην, ἔγνων, ἔδραν, ἔφυν and others.

3) ἔδραν is defective. But the subjunctive is δρῶ. Or are you asking about it in composition?
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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jeidsath wrote:1) The infinitive πρίασθαι is an exception too. But see 417 which gives the conjugation of ἐπριάμην in full. -μι verbs tend to be irregular in their imperatives. See 617 about πέτομαι. Smyth says that ἐπτάμην follows ἐπριάμην.
So the regular forms are ἀνάπτω, ἀπόπτω, ἀπόκτω, κατάκτω?
jeidsath wrote:2) So there are a number of these strong aorists: ἔβην, ἔγνων, ἔδραν, ἔφυν and others.
But what, if anything, distinguishes ἔβην, ἔτλην, ἔπτην, ἔφθην, Ionic ἔδρην from ἔστην? I see nothing "weak" about ἔστην (only the passive, which doesn't even belong to ἵστημι, has short ᾰ.)
jeidsath wrote:3) ἔδραν is defective. But the subjunctive is δρῶ. Or are you asking about it in composition?
In or out of composition—the question is whether they have ᾱ or η.
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by Hylander »

1) "Smyth 424b(2) would imply that it's e.g. **πριῶ."

Smyth's paradigm (416) gives πρίω, i.e., recessive accent.

Apparently, 424b(2) relates to the second aorist middle imperative of thematic verbs, not the second aorist middle of -μι verbs.

424(c) Note 2 lists ἐπριάμην among other verbs as having recessive accent in the subjunctive and optative, i.e., the normal rule for finite verb forms, but to the extent that this is an exception, it's an exception to the exception stated in Note 1 that "In athematic optatives the accent does not recede beyond the diphthong containing -ι-, the sign of the optative mood".

2) Smyth gives εγνων as the paradigm for the athematic second aorist active of otherwise thematic verbs such as εβην--as you note, it happens to be just like εστην, which of course is an athematic verb. The vowels -η- and -ω- are part of the roots; the personal endings are added directly to the roots--that's why εγνων serves as the paradigm for the athematic second aorist conjugation of othewise thematic verbs that encompasses εβην. Why not εστην? Simply because it's not a thematic verb in the present tense, I guess.

εβην generally has the "strong" forms with long root vowel (η) in the plural (εβημεν, etc., at least in Attic Greek), like εγνων (εγνωμεν, etc.). However, -μι verbs other than εστην have "weak", i.e., short-vowel, forms in the plural. The "weak" 3rd plural form εβαν, with short alpha, occurs in a few lyric passages in tragedy (i.e., passages in an elevated, poetical register), according to LSJ:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Dbai%2Fnw

Apparently, the plural forms were orginally weak but were assimilated to strong forms by analogic levelling, except in the -μι verbs other than εστην. See Smyth 551:
551. Originally only the dual and plural showed the weak forms, which are retained in the second aorists of τίθημι, δίδωμι, and ἵ_ημι: ἔθεμεν, ἔδομεν, εἷμεν (ἐ-έμεν), and in Hom. βάτην (also βήτην) from ἔβην went. Elsewhere the weak grades have been displaced by the strong grades, which forced their way in from the singular. Thus, ἔγνον, ἔφυ^ν in Pindar (= ἔγνω-σαν, ἔφυ_-σαν), which come from ἐγνων(τ), ἐφυ_ν(τ) by 40. So Hom. ἔτλα^ν, ἔβα^ν. Such 3 pl. forms are rare in the dramatic poets.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0007

3) "Subjunctive of -έδρᾱν: is it -εδρῶ, -εδρῇς, -εδρῇ or -εδρῶ, -εδρᾷς, -εδρᾷ (from α+ῃ after ρ)?"

It's ἀποδρᾷ. It occurs in the 3rd singular in Thucydides 7.86.4:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D4

It doesn't have augment, of course.

-διδρασκω/-εδραν only occurs in composition--usually αποδιδρασκω/απεδραν, which means "to run away" or "escape", as a slave or captive, for example.

I wouldn't get too obsessive about knowing every form of every Greek verb if I were you; otherwise you'll drive yourself insane. For one thing, in many instances there are parallel forms. LSJ is generally a good place to look up obscure forms if you know or recognize the present active indicative form, but it's of no help here.
Last edited by Hylander on Thu Oct 29, 2015 12:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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Hylander wrote:1) "Smyth 424b(2) would imply that it's e.g. **πριῶ."

Smyth's paradigm (416) gives πρίω, i.e., recessive accent.

Apparently, 424b(2) relates to the second aorist middle imperative of thematic verbs, not the second aorist middle of -μι verbs.

424(c) Note 2 lists ἐπριάμην among other verbs as having recessive accent in the subjunctive and optative, i.e., the normal rule for finite verb forms, but to the extent that this is an exception, it's an exception to the exception stated in Note 1 that "In athematic optatives the accent does not recede beyond the diphthong containing -ι-, the sign of the optative mood".
That's my quandary. The statements given by Smyth are not exactly consistent with respect to the -ην imperative. I can't find any citation of a compounded -πτω or -πτῶ in Perseus' corpus, which admittedly is not exhaustive.
Hylander wrote:Why not εστην? Simply because it's not a thematic verb in the present tense, I guess.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. Although—would it have a different uncontracted subjunctive?
Hylander wrote:3) "Subjunctive of -έδρᾱν: is it -εδρῶ, -εδρῇς, -εδρῇ or -εδρῶ, -εδρᾷς, -εδρᾷ (from α+ῃ after ρ)?"

Apparently, it's ἀποδρᾷ. It occurs in the 3rd singular in Thucydides 7.86.4:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D4
Aha! Many thanks.
Hylander wrote:I wouldn't get too obsessive about knowing every form of every Greek verb if I were you; otherwise you'll drive yourself insane. For one thing, in many instances there are parallel forms. LSJ is generally a good place to look up obscure forms if you know or recognize the present active indicative form, but it's of no help here.
I'm a Wiktionary contributor, and trying to rewrite the conjugation tables—and these questions came up when I was checking over the listed forms. I can always put down "unknown", though, if it's really unknown.
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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4. What is the Doric (yes, I know that Doric is a dialect group, but nobody is speaking about the separate dialects) contracted form of -ᾰο-/-ᾰω-/-ᾰοι-? Smyth implies -ᾱ-/-ᾱ-/-ᾳ-, or -ω-/-ω-/-ῳ- in final syllables (§653, §59.3 D), but Buck states that it's always -ω- (§41.2), and doesn't even mention any examples of -ᾱ-.

Evidence I have found is conflicted and supports either statement. Besides the evidence given by both sources (from Smyth, γελᾰοντι > γελᾶντι; from Buck, νικᾰομες > νικο̄͂μες, συλᾰοντα > συλο̄͂ντα, ἡβᾰωντι > hε̄βο̄͂ντι) I find in LSJ διαπεινᾶμες (supports Smyth, but apparently maybe from -ᾱο-), ἐκβῶντας (supports Buck), ἐπεγγυάμενοι (supports Smyth?), ὀπτᾶντες (supports Smyth).
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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Smyth reflects "literary" Doric--the Doric of choral poetry by Alcman, Steisichorus, Pindar (who was actually a Boeotian from Thebes), etc., as well as the superficially Doricized Attic of Athenian drama, and the Doric (which isn't entirely Doric) of Theocritus and Callimachus. These varieties of literary Doric by no means uniform, but they could be understood by educated people throughout the Greek world, who were familiar with their most salient features.

Buck is reporting epigraphic evidence of many local dialects actually spoken in specific communities, not pan-Hellenic literary languages.

Even "Attic" is not uniform, but the term "Doric" embraces a wide variety of literary and spoken languages that were used over several centuries in widely scattered communities in Greece, Northern Africa, Southern Italy and elsewhere, and these are far less uniform than Attic. There must have been little mutual intelligiblity among some of these communities.

So I'm afraid that I think the quest for the treatment of α-contract verbs in "Doric" isn't going to yield a definitive answer that covers all of these varieties of "Doric."
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by ObsequiousNewt »

Yeah, and I'm aware of that (and literary Doric is what I'm looking for anyway), but, even then, Buck tends to give information about literary features—and moreover, if this feature didn't exist in any dialect, then where did it come from? Extension of ᾱο/ᾱω?
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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bump?
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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Did Hylander not tell you all you need to know? There are various kinds of literary Doric, and the phonologies are not consistent. αο (and of course αω) become ω in Attic, and mostly in Doric too, but the Alexandrian scholars who determined the transmission tended to privilege the α over the ο, hence e.g. Theoc. γελᾶντι (Attic γελῶσι). Maybe they put alpha wherever they could; "Doric alpha" often appears where where it shouldn't. — Or was Syracusan Sicilian really -ᾶντι rather than -ῶντι? I doubt it, but I don’t honestly know. (Willi’s Sikelismos probably tells us. Or see what Gow has to say. Or Horrocks?) — But we can’t even be sure what Theocritus wrote, since papyri are not altogether consistent when it comes to dialect forms, and even when they are that might only reflect later levelling.

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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by ObsequiousNewt »

Ah, well, then, thanks for the information.
More questions:
5. Is -ιη- ever attested in the uncontracted forms of contract verbs? i.e. "ποιεοίην", "δοκεοίησᾰν", etc.
6. Aeolic athematic contract verbs (and only contract verbs?) apparently have -αιμι instead of -ᾱμι. Why? (Analogy from -αισι/-αισα... but in that case, why not -οιμι and -ειμι for -όω/-έω?)
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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

Post by mwh »

You’re welcome.

5. I have no idea. Of course this is οι-η not ι-η.
6. Hamm’s Grammatik zu SuA might be one place to look.

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Re: Athematic -α- aorists and other questions

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ObsequiousNewt wrote: 5. Is -ιη- ever attested in the uncontracted forms of contract verbs? i.e. "ποιεοίην", "δοκεοίησᾰν", etc.
For what I know, -ιη- in the optative is usually "old", which is to say original, not a Greek innovation. The aforementioned phenomenon of the strong grade gradually coming to displace the zero grade is also perceived in instances where an extraneous -η- (representing the strong grade or guna) is inserted in plural forms of the aorist optative passive, where the zero grade is expected; thus ε-ἴη-μεν can sometimes appear where ε-ἶ-μεν is expected. The aorist passive is (as far as I know) always athematic.

Very much the same story with the perfect, really. ἕστη(κ)α vs. ἕσταμεν.
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