Part twenty-nine 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).
In this post, we review the imperfect middle distinguishers in much the same way as we did the imperfect actives in Part 28 and the present middles in Part 14.
| IM-1 | IM-2 | IM-3 | IM-4 | IM-5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | Xόμην | Xούμην | Xούμην | Xώμην | Xώμην |
| 2SG | Xου | Xοῦ | Xοῦ | Xῶ | Xῶ |
| 3SG | Xετο | Xεῖτο | Xοῦτο | Xᾶτο | Xῆτο |
| 1PL | Xόμεθα | Xούμεθα | Xούμεθα | Xώμεθα | Xώμεθα |
| 2PL | Xεσθε | Xεῖσθε | Xοῦσθε | Xᾶσθε | Xῆσθε |
| 3PL | Xοντο | Xοῦντο | Xοῦντο | Xῶντο | Xῶντο |
| 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 |
and if we capture the common elements in each row:
| IM-1 | IM-2 | IM-3 | IM-4 | IM-5 | IM-6 | IM-7 | IM-8 | IM-9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1SG | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην | -μην |
| 2SG | -{ο} | -{ο} | -{ο} | -{ο} | -{ο} | -σο | -σο | -σο | -σο/-{ο} |
| 3SG | -το | -το | -το | -το | -το | -το | -το | -το | -το |
| 1PL | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα | -μεθα |
| 2PL | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε | -σθε |
| 3PL | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο | -ντο |
Just as with the present middles, other than the contraction happening in 2SG (in this case obscuring the historical σο), there is no difference between the thematic and athematic endings.
As with the other paradigms we’ve seen, some cells across inflectional classes have identical distinguishers and so those cells alone can’t identify the inflectional class (and hence all the other forms in that class). In particular:
- 1SG, 1PL, and 3PL can’t distinguish within the set {IM-1, IM-8} or within the set {IM-2, IM-3} or within the set {IM-4, IM-5}
- 3SG and 2PL can’t distinguish within the set {IM-1, IM-7}
- The 2SG can’t distinguish within the set {IM-2, IM-3} or within the set {IM-4, IM-5}.
Or to flip it around:
| classes | characteristics |
|---|---|
| IM-{1, 7} | ε in 3SG, 2PL |
| IM-{1, 8} | ό in 1SG, 1PL; ο in 3PL |
| IM-{2, 3} | ού in 1SG, 1PL; οῦ in 2SG, 3PL |
| IM-{4, 5} | ώ in 1SG, 1PL; ῶ in 2SG, 3PL |
Notice, that 1SG, 1PL, and 3PL are the ones with a theme vowel in -ο- and 3SG and 2PL are the ones with a theme vowel in -ε-. There is, of course, nothing magical about this. Cells with an omicron theme vowel will fall together with athematic stems ending in omicron and cells with an epsilon theme vowel will fall together with athematic stems ending in epsilon.
But notice also that cells that fall together because of contraction with an omicron theme vowel will be distinct in contractions with an epsilon theme vowel and vice-versa.
That means that you just need a cell for a person-number that takes an omicron theme vowel and a cell for a person-number that takes an epsilon theme vowel the two of them are enough to give you the inflectional class. In this sense, the ablaut of the theme vowel actually works to counteract the ambiguity caused by contraction.
This is the sort of systemic view of morphology that I think is very important, rather than just thinking of things in terms of parts of words being combined together.
In an upcoming post we’ll check whether this covers all the imperfect middles in MorphGNT.