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Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-11-09, 22:03
by księżycowy
Heck with it, I'm going to start adding grammar notes. Redundancy be damned! :twisted:

O Noun Declensions:
Feminine and Masculine Nouns ending in -ος





SingularDualPlural
Nominative-ος-οι
Genitive-ου-οιν-ων
Dative-ῳ-οιν-οις
Accusative-ον-ους
Vocative-οι


Neuter Nouns in -ον





SingularDualPlural
Nominative-ον-ᾰ
Genitive-ου-οιν-ων
Dative-ῳ-οιν-οις
Accusative-ον-ᾰ
Vocative-ον-ᾰ


There are also some notes on the accentuation of the nouns in this class but I haven't exactly finished taking those notes and digesting them. Though from what I've read thus far the accent stays steady except when an omega forces a change, if I remember correctly.

More to come. :wink:

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-12-23, 22:45
by Lur
I have a small innocent question.

Why did they use a different form of the letter for final s and s in the middle of a word? Where they pronounced differently?

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-12-23, 23:39
by księżycowy
There is no real difference in pronunciation between the two. They are just different forms of the same letter.

It's not like Greek is alone in this either. :wink:

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-12-27, 19:07
by Lur
Maybe originally there were several shapes for the letter and they ended up with both. It just called my attention because it seemed the only letter in the alphabet to do that. :)

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-12-27, 21:55
by md0
ς is a descendant of 'lunate sigma', which looked like a "c" (cf. Cyrillic letter С for /s/) which was in the norm during the Middle Ages. You can still see that form of sigma in typefaces use in religious publications and signs, and also humorously used online (in which case is substituted by a Latin "C").
Now, "c" was often connected with the following letters, hence the forward stroke in "σ", and we can assume that by the time press was introduced in Greece, the connective form "σ" and the normal form "c" were too engraved in people's minds to give up on them.

Ironically enough, the non-obligatory alternative forms of letters survive in modern handwriting, but σ and ς are no longer interchangeable :D
(others are: θ-ϑ, ε-ϵ, κ-ϰ, π-ϖ, φ-ϕ Ω-Ο)

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2012-12-29, 0:43
by księżycowy
That's right, I remember reading about "c" now that I think about it. Thanks for the info Meidei! :D

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-05-28, 23:24
by księżycowy
Back from the dead, this thread returns!! :D

In addition to taking a Koine Greek course over the summer I plan on supplementing the course work with the material in the JACT Greek course. This way I can get extra reading practice and learn any differences between Attic and Koine Greek. At some point I will probably go over Mastronarde's book fully too. For class we are using Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek.

Eventually I'll probably do the same thing I'm doing for Biblical Hebrew, I'll go through Classical and Koine Greek readings and parse and translate them. But it'll be a bit before I start doing any of that. :P

For now I'll share what we've gone over in class so far. We mostly learned the nominative and accusative forms of 1st and 2nd declension nouns. We are also suppose to learn the remaining two cases for next class.

More to come.

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-06-19, 12:14
by księżycowy
We have now made it through the prepositions (which are a pain in my ass!), the present tense of εἰμί, adjectives, and now we're learning the verbs proper starting this week.

Prepositions
Largely nothing major to report here, they are just like in English:
ἐν - in
ἐν τῷ οἶκῳ - in the house [ὁ οἶκος - the house (nom.)]

The only note is that the prepositions in Greek take certain cases (sometimes more then one case to accomplish different means).

The thing that is driving me nuts is just the fact that I can't seem to get them all to stick to my brain. :evil: I guess more Anki and reading is in order.

εἰμί




SingularPlural
1st Personεἰμίἐσμέν
2nd Personεἶἐστέ
3rd Personἐστί(ν)εἰσί(ν)


The third person forms have movable nu, which means that if the following word begins with a vowel, a nu is added to the end of a verb. In the New Testament, the movable nu tends to be there regardless.

ἦν - he/she/it was
This was also thrown in with the other forms to remember in the chapter.

Adjectives
These largely follow the same exact case forms as the nouns. So there is hardly any need to reproduce a chart for them.

Word order is interesting with adjectives:
ὁ ἀγαθός λόγος - the good word (1st position)

ὁ λόγος ὁ ἀγαθός - the good word (2nd position)

ὁ ἀγαθός ἐστιν - the good [word] is . . .

ὁ λόγος ἀγαθός - the word [is] good

Verbs I'll post a bit later.

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-06-19, 12:26
by Levike
księżycowy wrote:ὁ λόγος ἀγαθός - the word [is] good
Was it a tendency to forget about "is" or was this only a very occasional thing?

Can "is" be used for "there is/there exists"?

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-06-19, 16:12
by księżycowy
I would love to be able to answer those questions, but I can't with much confidence. I'll see if my textbook says anything. In the meantime maybe someone with more knowledge of Greek will stop by.

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-07-17, 18:26
by księżycowy
Been a bit too long since I've posted here. Yes, I'm still working on Koiné Greek. (I kind of have to, with my class and all :lol: )

Levike wrote:
księżycowy wrote:ὁ λόγος ἀγαθός - the word [is] good
Was it a tendency to forget about "is" or was this only a very occasional thing?

I don't know of the frequency of either construction (with and without εἰμί), but both can be found. Sorry to take so long to answer your question.


Since I've last posted we've covered quite a bit of ground in class: the present active indicative of verbs, present middle/passive indicative of verbs, third declension of nouns, and the personal pronouns.

Verbs:
They are largely regular from the three forms I've learned so far. The main things that are unique are the contract verbs (which usually have a circumflex accent on the last syllable in addition to the vowel shifts) and the verbs that are present middle indicative (which function as present active indicative verbs).

So, for example:
λύω - I loosen, untie (present active indicative)
λύεις - you loosen, untie
λύομαι I am being loosened, untied (present passive indicative)

-but-

ἔρχομαι - I come, go (present middle indicative) [not passive]

αγαπῶ - I love (present active indicative, contract verb)
αγαπᾷς - you love
αγαπῶμαι - I am being loved (present passive indicative, contract verb)
[The contract verb is an alpha stem, αγαπα-, lexical form = αγαπάω]

Third Declension Nouns:
Two things of note are the dropping of some ending consonants and the morphing of other consonants. Other then that, it's just another set of endings to learn.

Tau stems drop the tau when it is at the end of the noun.
For example:
ὄνομα - name (nom. sing., stem = ὄνοματ-)
ὀνόματος - name (gen. sing.)

Nu stems drop the nu when it preceeds a sigma:
τίς - who (nom. sing.; stem = τίν-)
τίνος - who (gen. sing.)

Certain sounds combine together and morph into another Greek letter:
π + σψ
β + σψ
φ + σψ
κ + σξ
γ + σξ
χ + σξ

As exemplified in:
σάρξ - flesh (nom. sing.; stem = σαρκ-)
σαρκός - flesh (gen. sing.)

Personal Pronouns:
I'm only going over the 1st and 2nd person pronouns for now.
Nothing major to report, aside from the curious change in form between the singular and plural forms.
ἐγώ - I (nom. sing.)
ἡμεῖς - we (nom. pl.)

σύ - you (nom. sing.)
ὑμεῖς - you (nom. pl.)

And the curious change from gamma to mu in the first person singular forms.
ἐγώ - nom.
μου (ἐμοῦ) - gen.
μοι (ἐμοί) - dat.
με (ἐμέ) - acc.
(The forms with the accents and epsilon beginning are emphatic forms)

More to come.

Re: księży - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-07-24, 19:54
by HoneyBuzzard
Levike wrote:
księżycowy wrote:ὁ λόγος ἀγαθός - the word [is] good
Was it a tendency to forget about "is" or was this only a very occasional thing?

I don't know of the frequency of either construction (with and without εἰμί), but both can be found. Sorry to take so long to answer your question.


In the New Testament at least it's extremely common. If anything, it's including a copula that's the exception, particularly for a predicate adjective.

It always slows me down because I have to read these sentences twice - once to look for a verb and a second time assuming a dropped copula.

Re: księżyc - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-07-25, 0:26
by księżycowy
Thank you for that clarification.

It's good to know I have that to look forward too. :P

Re: księżyc - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-07-25, 13:10
by HoneyBuzzard
You're welcome. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one studying Koine.

Are you still using Mounce's BoBB? If you're using the workbook, there's an online key on Zondervan's website. Of course it might not mean as much if you're using it in a classroom setting.

Re: księżyc - Ἑλληνική

Posted: 2014-07-25, 20:26
by księżycowy
Coolness!

And yes, I am still using BoBG. My teacher told us about the online stuff, so after my class ends (next week :doggy: ) I'll start using the online stuff to help correct my exercises. I don't want to leave my Greek studies hanging like I did the Hebrew.