Regarding verbs that are supposedly labial, palatal, lingual

[malolosgreencat]

So I'm now at lesson 22.

http://daedalus.umkc.edu/FirstGreekBook/JWW_FGB22.html

And I don't understand anything anymore. The last page that I understood something was lesson 21. And I'm not even sure I understood it correctly.

What makes a verb a lingual mute or palatal mute or labial mute? If the first letter in the verb starts with one of those?

Please help.

[C. S. Bartholomew]

So I'm now at lesson 22.

http://daedalus.umkc.edu/FirstGreekBook/JWW_FGB22.html

And I don't understand anything anymore. The last page that I understood something was lesson 21. And I'm not even sure I understood it correctly.

What makes a verb a lingual mute or palatal mute or labial mute? If the first letter in the verb starts with one of those?

Please help.

The end of the "stem" and the beginning of the "ending" undergo euphonic change, for example altering the final letter of the "stem" and the first letter of the "ending" (ἐ-λελειπ-σθον) ἐ-λέλειφ-θον.

209. The concurrence of consonants in the stem and endings (note the forms in parenthesis) occasions euphonic changes, according to the following principle:
1. A labial mute (π β φ) before μ changes to μ; with σ it forms ψ; before τ and θ it becomes (or remains) respectively π and φ.
a. When μμμ would thus result, one μ is dropped, as πέμπω, send, πέπεμ-μαι (πεπεμπ-μαι), πέπεμψαι, πέπεμπ-ται, etc.

[mwh]

What makes a verb a lingual mute or palatal mute or labial mute? If the first letter in the verb starts with one of those?

1. Lingual mutes are sounds made with the tongue (Lat. lingua) against the upper teeth or a bit higher. In Greek these are δ, τ and θ. (Sound them out and notice where your tongue is.)
Palatal mutes: γ κ χ
Labial mutes (made with the lips): β π φ. (Again, try it and see. Note φ is not an f-sound but just an aspirated π.

(Note. “Mutes” are also called stops, and linguals are also called dentals.)

2. Mute verbs are verbs that have one of these letters directly preceding the inflected ending, -ω –εις –ει etc. — It doesn’t matter what letter the verb starts with.
So λείπω is a labial mute verb, ἄγω a palatal mute one, and πείθω a lingual mute one.

3. As the tables show, a mute that bumps up against another consonant is liable to change to a different sound/letter, in a consistent and predictable way.
E.g. –πμ- becomes –μμ- (πμ is not a possible sound in Greek), so 1st sing. perfect middle&passive of λείπω is not λέλειπμαι but λέλειμμαι.

You don’t have to learn the terms and you don't have to learn the rules, but they can help you understand the forms.

Any clearer now?

[mwh]

Optional addendum to my 1. above. A good way to organize and remember the mutes (aka stops) is as a two-way table:
β π φ
γ κ χ
δ τ θ
Read across you have first the labials (βπφ), then the palatals (γκχ), then the linguals (aka dentals: δτθ).
Read down you have another triple set of three. Τhe letters in the last row (φχθ) are the aspirated forms of those in the middle row (πκτ, unaspirated), while the letters in the first row (βγδ, also unaspirated) have a different but equally close phonetic relation to those in the middle row.

βγδ happen to be in alphabetical order, so it makes a good mnemonic, but that’s just by coincidence.


Incidentally, rule 209.1.a in the book, copied by SCBartholomew above, is misstated, since it applies only to πέπεμμαι (theoretically reduced from πέπεμμμαι from πέπεμπμαι, neither of them real forms) and not to πέπεμψαι or πέπεμπται, which have undergone no phonetic adjustment. (ψ in πεπεμψαι is just another way of representing πσ.) I mention this only because as it stands in the book it might confuse you if you bother to read it. But if this clarification leaves you still more confused, forget it.

Are we having fun yet?

[malolosgreencat]

How much do I have to learn...or at least write down in my own words so I could understand it, if all I wanted was to make simple sentences for my story?

For example: "May an oval shield as tall as me appear on my back!"

[polemistes]

You have to learn Greek to do that, and learn it very well. Your example sentence is not very complex, but there are many things you need to know in order to form it in Greek, and being able to decline and conjugate words correctly is not even scratching the surface of it. You need to know that optative is used to form a wish, and you wouldn't know that unless you had a fairly good grasp of the whole Greek verb system and syntax rules in general. You need to know how to do comparison, and maybe the hardest of all, how to use prepositions, since they can't be translated directly from English, but you have to learn a hundred rules for each preposition. Although "ἐπί" often means "on", you can't be sure it does so in your context. The next sentence will have a lot of different thing you need to know, and you don't know what you need to know until you know it, and therefore, as I said, you need to know Greek to write Greek, even the simplest sentence. Even when a sentence is formally correct it could be unidiomatic, anyone who knows Greek would feel that this is not the way to express what you are saying. So in addition to learning all the vocabulary, forms and rules, you have to read a lot in order to get the feeling for the language.

If you aren't interested in learning Greek so you can read Greek literature, learning to write Greek will not be worth your effort. But if you are interested in reading, I promise you it is worth everything you put into it.

[Timothée]

“He who would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom.” This holds true for most everything, including learning Greek. Learning Greek is a process of many years. You need to have some kind of motivation within to do that. That need not be more than all the rewards, small and great, one gets during this trip.