Part twenty-seven 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).
Let’s finish our survey of imperfect middle endings in the indicative with the athematic verbs.
| IM-6 | IM-7 | IM-8 | IM-9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | Xύμην | Xέμην | Xόμην | Xάμην |
| 2SG | Xυσο | Xεσο | Xοσο | Xασο/Xω |
| 3SG | Xυτο | Xετο | Xοτο | Xατο |
| 1PL | Xύμεθα | Xέμεθα | Xόμεθα | Xάμεθα |
| 2PL | Xυσθε | Xεσθε | Xοσθε | Xασθε |
| 3PL | Xυντο | Xεντο | Xοντο | Xαντο |
The classes are similar to their IA- equivalents except there is no ablaut between the singular and plural.
| IM-6 | -νυ- verbs like δείκνυμι | stem ends in ῠ |
| IM-7 | τίθημι, ἵημι and their compounds | stem ends in ε |
| IM-8 | δίδωμι and compounds | stem ends in ο |
| IM-9 | ἵστημι and compounds | stem ends in ᾰ |
The intervocalic sigma in 2SG generally does not drop out in the athematics although it sometimes can, particularly in IM-9 which seems to be the class most starting to merge with the thematics. Note, though, that the lack of circumflex in this case eliminates confusion with an IM-4 2SG.
The lack of circumflex in the 3SG and 2PL also eliminates confusion with IM-4 in those cells.
IM-7 can be confused for IM-1 in the 3SG and 2PL, though.
In the next few posts we’ll summarise the inference rules and ambiguities for the imperfect and look at some type and token frequencies, just like we did for the present.