Part fourteen of a tour through Greek inflectional morphology to help get students thinking more systematically about the word forms they see (and maybe teach a bit of general linguistics along the way).
Now we summarize our middle distinguishers. As we did for PA-6a, we’ll include the upsilon for PM-6a.
| PM-1 | PM-2 | PM-3 | PM-4 | PM-5 | PM-6a | PM-7 | PM-8 | PM-9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INF | Xεσθαι | Xεῖσθαι | Xοῦσθαι | Xᾶσθαι | Xῆσθαι | Xυσθαι | Xεσθαι | Xοσθαι | Xασθαι |
| 1SG | Xομαι | Xοῦμαι | Xοῦμαι | Xῶμαι | Xῶμαι | Xυμαι | Xεμαι | Xομαι | Xαμαι |
| 2SG | Xῃ or Xει | Xῇ or Xεῖ | Xοῖ | Xᾷ | Xῇ | Xυσαι | Xεσαι | Xοσαι | Xασαι |
| 3SG | Xεται | Xεῖται | Xοῦται | Xᾶται | Xῆται | Xυται | Xεται | Xοται | Xαται |
| 1PL | Xόμεθα | Xούμεθα | Xούμεθα | Xώμεθα | Xώμεθα | Xύμεθα | Xέμεθα | Xόμεθα | Xάμεθα |
| 2PL | Xεσθε | Xεῖσθε | Xοῦσθε | Xᾶσθε | Xῆσθε | Xυσθε | Xεσθε | Xοσθε | Xασθε |
| 3PL | Xονται | Xοῦνται | Xοῦνται | Xῶνται | Xῶνται | Xυνται | Xενται | Xονται | Xανται |
and if we capture the common elements in each row:
| PM-1 | PM-2 | PM-3 | PM-4 | PM-5 | PM-6a | PM-7 | PM-8 | PM-9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INF | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι | -σθαι |
| 1SG | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι | -μαι |
| 2SG | -{ι} | -{ι} | -{ι} | -{ι} | -{ι} | -σαι | -σαι | -σαι | -σαι |
| 3SG | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται | -ται |
| 1PL | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα |
| 2PL | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε |
| 3PL | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται | -νται |
Notice that, other than the contraction happening in 2SG obscuring the historical σαι, and unlike the active, there is no difference between the thematic and athematic endings.
That does mean, however, that the INF is no longer completely predictive of the other forms and, in fact no cells are (2SG getting close but failing because of the -ῇ ambiguity).
- INF, 3SG, and 2PL can’t distinguish within the set {PM-1, PM-7}
- 1SG, 1PL, and 3PL can’t distinguish within the set {PM-1, PM-8}, the set {PM-2, PM-3}, or the set {PM-4, PM-5}
- 2SG (at least if ῇ) can’t distinguish within the set {PM-2, PM-5}
That means, even if you had the INF, 3SG, AND 2PL of a word, you might not be able to predict its other forms (but if you had a single one of those other forms, all the rest would be predictable). And if you had the 1SG, 1PL, and/or 3PL of a word, you might not be able to predict its other forms (but again, if you had a single one of those other forms, all the rest would be predictable).
This mirrors the ambiguous categories we’ve already seen.
| PM-{1, 7} | ε in INF, 3SG, and 2PL |
| PM-{1, 8} | ο in 1SG, 1PL, and 3PL |
| PM-{2, 3} | οῦ in 1PL and 3PL |
| PM-{4, 5} | ῶ in 1PL and 3PL |
Plus:
| PM-{2, 5} | ῇ ending in 2SG |
Also, without accentuation, PM-4 and PM-9 would be indistinguishable in INF, 3SG, and 2PL. And, similarly, PM-1 and PM-2 in 2SG.
In the next part, we’ll look at the MorphGNT to see whether the distinguishers here and in part 13 fully cover all present infinitive and indicative verbs in the SBLGNT. We’ll also look at some frequency data. How (relatively) common are each of the paradigms we’ve identified? Which seem to be productive and which not? We’ll also briefly touch on words that change inflectional class (and hence paradigm) and what role ambiguous forms might play in this.