Some Comments on the Greek Middle-Passive

From
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2007-August/044099.html

Why the Middle Voice can represent passive sense

On Aug 16, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Kevin Riley wrote:

... I am still puzzling over how a form that is subject focused - the middle - came also to be used to represent the passive where the subject is not the focus, and need not appear at all. ...

I've been meaning to respond to the above question -- or puzzlement -- for several days, but I've decided that I'll forgo a longer and fuller response at this point and try do deal directly with the question why one set of endings associated fundamentally with middle voice, could also be used to represent the passive.

The simple answer is that the middle (or middle-passive) forms (and that's BOTH the μαι/σαι/ται, μην/σο/το endings of the present, imperfect, aorist, future, perfect, and pluperfect -- and a piddling number of non-periphrastic future perfects like κεκλησομαι (not in the GNT) -- AND the -θη- endings in the aorist and future) are all fundamentally marked for subject-affectedness, and this includes verbs and verb-forms where the subject is patient, undergoer, beneficiary or recipient).

When the verb in question is really transitive, then the middle-passive form can have a passive sense because the patient of the process has become the subject of the verb, but in several other cases -- and especially in the case of intransitive verbs -- the middle-passive form simply indicates that the subject is:

• BOTH subject and patient (direct reflexive, e.g., χυραται ο Γοργιας, "Gorgias shaves himself"), or
• BOTH subject and beneficiary or recipient (indirect reflexive, e.g., λυεται ο ιππευς την ιππον, "The rider unties his mare"), or
• BOTH subject and undergoer (intransitive, e.g., εγειρεται το παις, "The child wakes up").

One of the major difficulties for English-speakers trying to understand the Greek middle-passive is that they tend to think of voice in terms of transitive verbs and an active-passive polarity, whereas the Greek voice-system is not so much concerned with transitivity as it is with verbs UNmarked for subject-affectedness and verbs MARKED for subject-affectedness.

- Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)

No Class August 18 & 25 - Next Class September 1

Per my August 16 email, due to the absence of most people and the church consecration on August 25 (see below), I'm asking you to work on your own these next three weeks. I.e.:

• The Week of August 18-24: Read and study Lesson 10, memorize the vocabulary and verb paradigms, and do all the Exercises. Imperfect Active Indicative, and Imperfect forms of ειμι.


• The Week of August 25-31: Read and study Lesson 11, memorize the vocabulary and verb paradigms, and do all the Exercises. Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative.

Though this is new material, it is not difficult, and if you do your daily work, you will easily master the material. That's what I like about Croy - he gives you the essentials, he gives it to you in small sizes, and he gives you lots of Exercises to put your new knowledge to use. The Exercises really are the key: If you study the grammar and memorize the vocabulary, you should be able to do the Exercises and get most of them correct - which means that you have learned the material.

I'll post the Answers to the Lesson 10 and 11 Exercises here on the class blog in plenty of time for you to do the work and review your answers. I already have audio files through Lesson 15, and I'll get the vocabulary posted, too. (Note: You already have the full vocabulary for the course in this file, Class Vocabulary, which lists the words in Lesson order; my vocabulary lists are just cut-and-pasted from this master list.)

WE WILL NEXT MEET ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, AT 9:15 A.M. We'll briefly review Lessons 10 & 11 (and the Exercises you did), and have a quiz on the material, and we will preview Lesson 12. Thus, we'll stay on track and won't miss a beat.

Call or email me with any questions you have or any problems you encounter. Those of you who have been on vacation have told me that you are keeping pace on your own. BE SURE TO KEEP READING THE BLOG.

Class Notes: August 11, 2007

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 9: Important Sections and points (but read all the Sections):

53. See the Sidebar for the vocabulary list of all words, including the extra words, as well as for audio files of the vocabulary.

55. & 56. Memorize the forms of the Present Middle and Passive Indicative. Note that the endings are identical.

57. Memorize the form of the Present Middle/Passive Infinitive.

60. As I mentioned in class, "Deponent Verbs" is the usual term for these verbs that have Middle/Passive forms with Active meanings, and for which there are no Present "Active" forms of the verb (i.e., forms that end with -ω, -εις, -ει, -ομεν, -ετε, -ουσι) in the literature. Dr. Carl Conrad has written several essays on why he thinks the term "deponent" mischaracterizes these verbs. You can read his essays here. I will continue to refer to them as "deponent verbs" because that is how the textbook treats them.

62. Do all the Exercises and check your answers. See the Sidebar for Exercises Answers.

Our reading next week will continue at Mark 1:35.

Aids to Learning Prepositions

Here is a diagram showing the spatial meanings of many of the prepositions you will be learning. I found this on the Internet, and if I find a better one, I'll use that.


And ... here are some fun pictures from Teach Yourself New Testament Greek by D. F. Hudson that someone posted on the Internet:

John Rylands Papyrus 470

Read my post about John Rylands Papyrus 470, our oldest copy of a still-used prayer to the Theotokos.

Class Notes: August 4, 2007

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 8: Important Sections and points (but read all the Sections):

48. See the Sidebar for the vocabulary list of all words, including the extra words, as well as for audio files of the vocabulary.

49. Memorize the forms of the Demonstrative Pronoun.

50. This section is important. In simple terms, demonstrative pronouns used with a noun are in the predicate position, but are translated as attributive adjectives (e.g., "this man," not "this is the man"). When standing alone, they function as a pronoun and can be translated as "this/that (man/woman/thing)," "these/those (men/women/things)"; or "he/she/it," "they."

51. This section is very important to understand. The position of αυτος in the Greek is like its position in English. E.g.:

• INTENSIVE ("self"): Predicate - "The man αυτος" or "αυτος the man" = "The man himself" or "Himself the man"
  
• IDENTICAL ("same"): Attributive - "The αυτος man" or "The man the αυτος" = "The same man" or "The man, the same [one]"

Since as a pronoun (Lesson 7) αυτος is third person, whenever you see it used with a 1st- or 2nd-person personal pronoun (εγω, συ, ημεις, υμεις) and a corresponding 1st- or 2nd-person verb ending (-ω, -εις, -ομεν, -ετε) (even if the subject is not expressed), you know αυτος is modifying the 1st- or 2nd-person pronoun as an intensive adjective, and is not functioning as a personal pronoun. I.e., it's "I myself," "you yourself," "we ourselves," "y'all yourselves" is/are doing (whatever the verb says), and not "he/she/it/they" is/are doing (whatever the verb says).

52. Do all the Exercises and check your answers. See the Sidebar for Exercises Answers.

Our reading next week will continue at Mark 1:25.

Doing the Exercises

As I mentioned at our last class (July 21), the most important thing in this course is for you to do all the Exercises for each Lesson (after first learning the vocabulary and grammar for the Lesson).

Attending all the classes won't ultimately benefit you if you aren't doing the work. Conversely, if you read all the Lessons and do all the Exercises, you can largely master the material without attending the classes.*

I know it can seem like a bit of drudgery at times, but be faithful in doing all the Exercises and coming to the classes and you will be pleased a few weeks from now with what you have learned and how far you have come since the course began. Once we learn a few more verb tenses, and especially when we begin studying participles, you will begin to see how understanding New Testament Greek can enhance your Scripture studies in ways that no amount of reading English translations can do.

* Someone may ask: "Well, then, why should we come to the classes, since the Answers to the Exercises are on the class Blog?"

• For one, you won't know what you might be doing wrong if don't have me to ask.
• For another, while you will know what you know by working on your own, you won't know what you don't know. Croy's book gives the basic and most important information, but sometimes the topics need a bit more explanation, and I'll try to give you that when it seems necessary. I'll also tell you what I think is of greater or lesser importance, as well as occasionally give you tips on how best to learn the material.
• For a third, you won't get the class interaction and reading and pronunciation practice if you simply do this on your own. Being able to read the Greek text by sight and out loud is an important part of learning the language and becoming comfortable with it. The links in the Blog Sidebar as well as the Greek Pronunciation CD will help you with pronunciation - if you have not already done so, listen to all the lessons on the CD so you'll know how all the letters and letter combinations are to be pronounced. (If you're opting for the Phonemic Koinê Pronunciation, pronounce η as the "ay" in "say," and both υ and οι as a French "u"; on the CD these are all pronounced as "ee.")
• And finally, if no one comes to the classes, then I'll stop teaching the course, including posting on the Blog, and you really will be on your own!!

Class Notes: July 21, 2007

We will not meet on Saturday, July 28. Our next class will be Saturday, August 4, at 9:15 a.m.

The Lesson 6 quiz was simply a test on:
a) all the words (including the extra words) for Lesson 6, and
b) the "extra" words (LXX & NT, plus the other words I've given you to learn) up to this point, and
c) the Definite Article paradigm.

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 7: Important Sections and points (but read all the Sections):

41. See the Sidebar for the vocabulary list of all words, including the extra words (no LXX/NT words for Lesson 7), as well as for audio files of the vocabulary.

42. The main enclitics you will encounter in New Testament Greek are:

• Forms of ειμι except for ει ("you (singular) are") - Section 43
• Forms of the indefinite pronoun and adjective τις/τι - Lesson 27 Section 192
• Unstressed oblique (i.e., non-nominative) forms of εγω ("I") and συ ("you" (singular)) - Section 45

43. Memorize the Present Indicative of ειμι. FYI - the Present Infinitive of ειμι is ειναι ("to be") - Lesson 24 Section 168.

45. Memorize the forms for the First, Second and Third Personal Pronouns, singular and plural. You already basically know the Third Person Personal Pronoun because it uses the same pattern and endings as the Definite Article and the First and Second Declension Nouns.

46. This section is very important to understand.

47. Do all the Exercises and check your answers.

See the Sidebar for Lesson 7 vocabulary and audio files and Exercises Answers.

If you have time, preview Lesson 8, esp. Section 51 on the other uses of αυτος.

Our reading will continue at Mark 1:16.

Class Notes: July 14, 2007

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 6: Important Sections and points (but read all the Sections):

33. See sidebar for vocabulary list of all words, including LXX, NT and extra words, as well as for audio files of the vocabulary.

35. Note the distinctive Vocative Singular form of First Declension Masculine nouns.

36. A preposition and the object of the preposition, together with any intervening modifying words (e.g., the article), constitute a "prepositional phrase." Study this section so you understand how the meaning of a preposition depends on the case of the object of the preposition. As the text says, "the prepositions that are used with more than one case may have very different meanings with different cases."

39. This is an important point. As I said, no one seems to know why neuter plurals often take singular verbs, but you will see this time and time again when reading the Greek New Testament.

40. Do all the Exercises, of course, and check your answers with the answers given in the Sidebar.

Next week, July 21, we will again meet at 9:15 a.m. If we go past 11:30 a.m. (and I suspect we will), we will likely start the class at 9:00 a.m. thereafter (but no earlier).

How NOT To Learn Biblical Greek

The following blog post (from Withering Fig) has some interesting comments.

Re: (3) Skip to Koinê: Even though you are first learning New Testament Greek (which is also what I did), it's probably a good idea at some point to take a class in Attic Greek or work through an Attic Greek textbook on your own (which is what I am slowly doing as I teach this course), so you'll have a better understanding of the language and also be better able to read and understand the Church Fathers and early Christian liturgical texts and prayers.

How NOT To Learn Biblical Greek

In a recent article I alluded to some issues with language study in modern theological training (though, for more on this, you should hop over to Ancient Hebrew Poetry and the conversations going on in and around there). So, I thought I’d just list out some of the major problems that I saw amongst my fellow students at the University of Texas and Harvard.

(1) "Reading" Through Perseus

By far, the most egregious error that students make is the extensive use of sites like Perseus, or software like Logos or Accordance.

DISCLAIMER: I am not at all saying that these are useless tools or that they shouldn’t be used.

What tends to happen is this. New students of these languages stumble upon these tools and realize that they have a cheat-sheet at their disposal. Rather than taking the time to properly learn the language, they run rough shod through conjugations and declensions and end up in the world of the text without anything firm to latch on to. Essentially, they fake their way through class, which leads them to fake their way through interpretation in "the real world."

I have seen this from just about every level of student: total newbies all the way up to folks working on their dissertations (and, to be honest, even professors at major universities).

(2) Study for the Exam

When studying a language like ancient Greek it is totally possible to study just before a quiz or exam, and then faithfully reproduce all of the appropriate endings of such-and-such declension, resulting in a fat 'A' on the ol' report card. I know this because I did it for my entire first year of Greek! Man, that was a mistake...

The reality is that if I had studied correctly the first time, I would not have had to go back and relearn so much in my second year. When I crammed for the test, I came out of the test with a great result on paper, but I immediately lost whatever it was I had "learned."

We’ve heard it a million times, but it’s true: you retain so much more information when you study it several times over a long period of time. Set aside time each day to study. Drill grammar and vocabulary into your brain everyday—not just for the test.

(3) Skip to Koinê

Now, there are some different schools of thought on this issue, but this is mine: the best place to start your study of ancient Greek is with the Attic dialect.

Here’s the thing, the New Testament was mostly written in a type of Greek known as "Koinê." This is an "easy" Greek (for the most part), a low style. So many students go straight to Biblical Greek, bypassing Attic (the Greek dialect prevalent in and around Athens during the time of Aristotle, Plato, and the like). The result is that when they are faced with a difficult Greek passage, they don’t know what to do ("what the heck is an optative?!?").

When I was learning guitar, I very much wanted to learn on an acoustic guitar before moving to an electric guitar. Why? Well, the strings on an acoustic guitar are heavier and more difficult to push down against the fretboard. Consequently, I was really building the little muscles in my fingers. When it came time to wail on the electric axe—no problems. If I had learned first on an electric, then moving to the acoustic might be difficult because my fingers might not have been strong enough to play the notes.

Likewise, we should build our Greek muscles by learning a more difficult form of the language and then moving to the easier form.

"But, Stephen," you might say, "I am interested only in Christianity. Why do I need that Attic stuff?" Well, that's a great question. In the 2nd century AD (CE for my PC friends), a movement began in various parts of the Roman Empire to revive the style of the hallowed Greeks. This is a period commonly referred to as "The Second Sophistic." What does this have to do with Christianity? Quite a lot! Many important church fathers write in a high "atticized" style. If you want to learn anything about them or what they thought about a particular text, you’ll need to have some Greek skills.

Conclusion

No matter what you do, practice is essential. I strongly suggest using flash cards and daily schedules. Treat it like exercise. Heck, get religious and fanatical about it. Do it with friends if that motivates you. Just find some way that keeps you doing it day in and day out.

Now that I am out of school, this is the hardest part for me. So, what did I do? I started blogging!

Class Notes: July 7, 2007

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 5: Important Sections and points (but read all the Sections):):

27. Memorize the vocabulary and the extra vocabulary (see Sidebar for Lesson 5 vocabulary). There are no extra words from the LXX-NT vocabulary (the ones you'll need to know will be included in the regular vocabulary in future Lessons), but there are eight extra words which occur 20x or more in the New Testament. An audio file of the words is in the Sidebar.

28. Memorize the definite article paradigm.

29. Memorize the forms of first and second declension adjectives. The endings are in almost every case the same as those for nouns and the definite article, so if you've memorized the definite article and the first and second declension noun endings, you already know these forms (just remove the τ from the article to get the adjective/noun endings). Note the accent rule.

A note re: the singular endings of first declension feminine nouns and adjectives that end in α:

1. In nouns (Lesson 3 Section 18):


• If the next to the last letter (i.e., the letter before the α) in a word is a ρ or a vowel (usually ε or ι), the noun will be a "Pure Alpha" type and have α in all the singular endings.


• If the next to the last letter (i.e., the letter before the α) is any other letter, the noun will be a "Mixed" type and have η in the genitive and dative singular endings.*
  


2. In adjectives (Lesson 5 Section 29):
   
   
   • If the letter before the -ος ending of the masculine form (i.e., the lexical/dictionary/vocabulary list form) is a ρ or ε or ι, the feminine form of the adjective will have α in all the singular endings.
   
   
   • If the letter before the -ος ending of the masculine form (i.e., the lexical/dictionary/vocabulary list form) is any other letter, the feminine form of the adjective will have η in all the singular endings. I.e., there are no "Mixed" type feminine adjectives; they either have α in all the singular endings or η in all the singular endings.

* Other grammars may state or explain this slightly differently. E.g., David Alan Black in Learn to Read New Testament Greek - Expanded Edition says re: nouns that if the letter before the α is a sibilant phoneme ("sound") - i.e., ζ or σ or a double letter whose sound contains σ (i.e., ξ = κσ or ψ = πσ) - then the noun will be a "Mixed" type, whereas Croy says "Mixed" type nouns are those where the letter before the α is any letter other than a ρ or a vowel (usually ε or ι).

30. This is the most important Section in the Lesson. You must be able to know whether an adjective is attributive, predicate or substantival in order to translate it correctly. By doing all the Exercises, checking your answers, and correcting (and understanding) any mistakes you made, you should be able to grasp this pretty well.

32. Do all the Exercises and then check your answers by clicking the link in the sidebar on the right for the Lesson 5 answers.

NEXT WEEK'S CLASS - JULY 14 - WILL START AT 9:15 A.M. PLEASE BE EARLY!

Class Notes: June 30, 2007

• Class Notes and Comments
• The General Principle of Greek Accentuation

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 4: Important Sections and points:

22. Memorize the vocabulary and the extra vocabulary. Read the blog entry "Learning Vocabulary" (the audio files are recorded by saying the article before the noun).

See Sidebar for Lesson 4 vocabulary and audio files, including the extra word from the LXX-NT vocabulary, plus the other extra words you are to learn (words that occur 25x or more in the New Testament).

23. Memorize the paradigm (pattern) of the endings for the Second Declension. Memorize the [definite] article if you have not yet done so. (We'll actually encounter it in Lesson 5 next week. Learn it by this week and Lesson 5 will be easy.)

26. Do all the Exercises after you have learned the vocabulary (Section 22, as well as the Lesson 2 and 3 vocabulary) and the Lesson grammar so you are really able to do the Exercises with understanding, and not have to keep looking back in the Lesson to know what to write.

Again, you will at times be introduced to things you have not yet learned, but should be able to deduce based on what you have learned, so don't feel badly if on occasion you get something wrong, or can't quite figure out how to translate something. It's purposeful.

The General Principle of Greek Accentuation

Here is what I shared about accenting from my Attic Greek textbook - from Unit Two, Section 4, p. 17 of Introduction to Attic Greek, by Donald J. Mastronarde:

Contonation and Mora. The apparently complex "rules" of Greek accentuation can be understood in terms of a single general principle involving the concepts of contonation and mora. Contonation is the combination of the rise of pitch generally thought of as the accent with the necessary return or fall to standard pitch which follows it. In the case of an acute accent, the contonation includes both the syllable on which the accent is written (and on which the pitch rises) and the entire following syllable (on which the pitch falls), if any, whether it counts as long or short. In the case of the circumflex accent, the contonation occurs on the one syllable on which the accent is written, for there are both a rise in pitch and a return to standard pitch on that syllable. A mora is the (theoretically assigned) "standard" length of a short vowel (α, ε, ι, ο, υ, and final αι and οι in most cases). A long vowel (α, ει, η, ι, ου, ω, υ) or a diphthong* (except for final αι and οι in most cases) occupies (theoretically) a time span equivalent to two morai.

The general principle of Greek accentuation is that the contonation may be followed by no more than one mora before the end of a word (or phrase pronounced as one word unit). This principle is in many respects similar to rules in other languages (e.g., Latin) which constrain the position of the accent according to the nature of the final syllables of a word. In Greek this principle limits the position of the acute and circumflex accents and requires the addition of an extra accent in some phrases consisting of word + enclitic.**

* Remember that so-called "improper" or "long" diphthongs (α, η, and ω with subscripted ι) are also always long. I am not sure why Mastronarde omits mention of αυ, ευ, and ηυ.

** For the definition of "enclitics," see Section 42 of Lesson 7 in Croy's textbook. Also see "proclitics" in Section 28 of Lesson 5.

By convention there are a couple exceptions to this principle when it comes to the enclitics εστι(ν) and τις/τι:
1) εστι(ν) following a word with a circumflex on the ultima is not accented; one would normally expect an acute on the ultima of εστι(ν); and
2) τινων (the genitive plural) following a word with an acute on the penult has a circumflex accent on its ultima; normally a disyllabic enclitic following such a word receives an acute accent on its second syllable.

Announcement for June 30 Class

I. "GRACE WEEK"

With the amount of new material being introduced each week, the next couple weeks are going to be critical for people getting up to speed with the material so as to be able to keep pace for the rest of the course. We've also had a couple people recently join us who have to catch up with us, several people were gone 6/23, and some had not yet done the Lesson 3 Exercises for the last class. ;^( As I don't want to lose anyone at this date who may be temporarily overwhelmed or falling behind, this week will be a "grace week" to allow people to catch up. On June 30 we will again review Lesson 3 and preview Lesson 4, and spend time drilling on vocabulary and paradigms.

If you're behind, use this next week to:

a. (RE)LEARN the vocabulary (including the extra words) for Lessons 2 and 3. Also see this.

b. (RE)LEARN the verb conjugation and noun declension patterns for Lessons 2 and 3.

c. MEMORIZE the [definite] article pattern. See Lesson 5 Section 28 or the charts I've given you or that are on the blog here.

d. DO all the Exercises for Lessons 2 and 3 that you did not do.

e. PRACTICE your reading/pronunciation and writing.

f. LISTEN to the CD to help with your pronunciation.

II. "TWEAKING" THE CLASS FORMAT

While I have mentioned lengthening the class, there is only so much a person's mind can absorb at a time, so I'd prefer not to do that. In order to streamline things and focus on what's most important - and hence spend the most time on those things - I am proposing the following class format, or something very similar:

1. Quiz over vocabulary words and new paradigms (i.e., verb conjugation patterns/endings and noun/adjective declension patterns/endings) that were to have been learned the previous week. NO (or very few) TRANSLATION SENTENCES for now in the quizzes, as students will have done translations the week before as part of the Exercises homework, and this adds too much extra time to the quiz. (But see step 6 below.)

2. Go over the quiz just taken.

3. Review/answer a select number of the Exercises that were to have been done that week, e.g.:

a. Three sentences each from the made-up sentences, the LXX translations, and the NT translations; and

b. Two sentences from the English-to-Greek sentences.

STUDENTS ARE TO HAVE DONE ALL THE EXERCISES SENTENCES BEFORE CLASS, THOUGH, AND NOT JUST A FEW OF EACH. Answers to the Exercises will be posted ahead of time on the blog so students can check their translations after they do them and before coming to class. This, too, will help streamline the class time. (The answers to Lessons 2, 3, 4 and 5 have now been posted - see the links on the sidebar.) Feel free to email me or even post as blog comments questions you may have about any of your translations or about grammar subjects in the Lesson(s).

4. Discuss any problems or questions students say they had with any of the translation Exercises/sentences that we don't go over in step 3. above, or about the grammar part of the Lesson.

5. Read/preview the new Lesson and additional vocabulary words. Students practice saying (and writing?) the words and the paradigms.

6. Do some of the Exercises for the new Lesson based on what we have just discussed in Step 5. This gives students the translation practice that is being reduced in the quizzes, and also gives everyone a chance to put into practice the new information.

7. Do picture-word listening/looking exercise, and do NT readings.

I will try to avoid discussing extraneous or "nice to know but not need to know" subjects/examples, as the most important thing for you to be absorbing and learning and doing is the VOCABULARY and the verb/noun/adjective/etc. PARADIGMS. I'll try to focus on things that help you learn the subject at hand, while avoiding esoteric and interesting but non-essential things, unless time allows it or it seems germane to someone's question or understanding.

Learning Greek necessarily involves a lot of rote repetition, because the words and patterns are the building blocks of the language, and you must be able to recognize and understand them. Soon, though, we will be putting your newly-learned reading skills and knowledge to work and begin reading passages from the Greek New Testament in addition to the translations you are doing each week.

Pep Talk

For most of you, and for me as the teacher of this course, the goal is that you in a reasonably short period of time learn enough to be able to read and navigate with understanding a decent portion of the Greek New Testament. This requires mastering the basic grammar and a fairly large vocabulary, and spending some time in the Greek New Testament - all of which we will do in the course.

My "1 hour a day, 5 days a week" guideline for what it takes to learn the material (esp. vocabulary memorization and review) is probably going to be kicking in for you soon, if it hasn't already. Make this course a priority for the next 8 months and you will achieve the above goal.

Get on top of the material now, be sure to do all the Exercises, and (most important of all) do the work daily and regularly - i.e., don't "cram" on Friday night! (As William Mounce writes in the Introduction to his Greek grammar: "Those who cram, perish.")

And remember: Don't let the fog and the slog overwhelm you!

If you're starting to think that learning Greek is hard work ... well, you're right! (But it needn't take 25 years; you can learn a lot in one year!)

Class Notes: June 16, 2007

ΣΟΦΙΑ. ΠΡΟΣΧΩΜΕΝ.

• Review Information
• Class Notes and Comments

• Review Information

Again, memorize the [definite] article (see Class Notes: June 9, 2007). The sooner you do this, the better off you will be for learning nouns, pronouns, adjectives, etc.

Make sure you know Lesson 2 grammar and vocabulary (as well as the alphabet!) pretty well before doing Lesson 3. Each Lesson builds on the previous weeks' knowledge, but there is repetition of grammar and words such that if you didn't quite master everything, succeeding Lessons will help reinforce what you've earlier been exposed to. However, there is sufficient new information in each Lesson that you will sooner or later (and it's usually sooner, not later!) begin falling behind if you don't do your best to master as much as you can each week.

Be sure to read out loud as much as possible. Use the CD to work on and improve your pronunciation.

• Class Notes and Comments

Important Sections and points (read every Section in Lesson 3, though):

15. Memorize the vocabulary and the extra vocabulary. Read the blog entry "Learning Vocabulary" (the audio files are recorded by saying the article before the noun).

See Sidebar for Lesson 3 vocabulary (MS Excel - as noted, you will need to install the TekniaGreek font to read the Greek characters), including the extra word from the LXX-NT vocabulary (δουλευω - shown as δουλευσατε (Aorist Active Imperative 2nd-Person Plural) in the LXX-NT vocabulary list), plus the other extra words you are to learn (words that occur 25x or more in the New Testament). An audio file of the words is in the Sidebar.

17. Read this to understand the various functions of the cases. As stated in class, verbs are parsed by Tense, Voice, Mood, Person and Number, and nouns, pronouns and adjectives are parsed by Gender (feminine, masculine, neuter), Number (singular, plural) and Case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative). Since most 1st-declension nouns are feminine, that is the Gender you will indicate for the nouns in this Lesson (the article that is listed with the noun indicates the Gender - η for feminine; ο for masculine; το for neuter).

18. Learn these forms, and how to tell if a 1st-declension noun follows the α pattern, the η pattern, or the mixed pattern. (As you can see, this only applies to the singular; the plural forms all use α's in the endings.) Note that ι is a clue that you're dealing with a dative case (whether it's a regular ι or a subscripted ι - the subscript ι is just as much a letter and part of a word's spelling as any other letter).

19. For the third time - MEMORIZE THE [DEFINITE] ARTICLE PARADIGM! ;^)

20. Read and try to remember the accent(uation) rules in the textbook.

21. Do all the Exercises. Again, make sure you know the vocabulary (Section 15, as well as the Lesson 2 vocabulary) and the Lesson grammar before doing the Exercises so you are really able to do the Exercises with understanding, and not have to keep looking back in the Lesson to know what to write.

You'll notice, e.g., in a few of the LXX sentences for Lesson 3 that Croy introduces some forms that he has not yet discussed in the book. E.g., he uses the genitive singular form of the article in sentence 1., even though he doesn't discuss the article until Lesson 5 (but we have already discussed all the article forms in class). Also, e.g., in the NT section he uses a singular masculine accusative ending in one sentence, even though you won't learn the masculine 2nd-declension noun endings until Lesson 4 (i.e., at our forthcoming class).

In other words, you will at times be introduced to things you have not yet learned, but should be able to deduce based on what you have learned. As I've looked ahead, I see he does this in future Lessons, too. So, don't feel badly if on occasion you get something wrong, or can't quite figure out how to translate something. It's purposeful.

(There are Greek to English and English to Greek vocabulary lists in the back of the book if you get really stumped, but you should rely mostly on the words and things you've learned before turning there.)

Learning Vocabulary

We've discussed various tools for learning vocabulary - e.g., flashcards and Greek vocabulary books, software programs (we haven't really discussed this one yet), etc. Choose and use whatever helps you best or most efficiently learn the words.

Most vocabulary flashcards and books, as well as lexicons, list nouns as:

nominative singular, genitive singular ending, article (to indicate the noun's gender)

E.g.:

λογος, -ου, ο and αδελφη, -ης, η

While this is the way words are listed, it might be better to memorize the words with the article first, e.g.:

ο λογος, -ου and η αδελφη, -ης

This way you will always associate the gender (ο masculine, η feminine, το neuter) with the noun, which comes in handy when dealing with 1st-declension masculine nouns like ο μαθητης or 2nd-declension feminine nouns like η οδος, since most 1st-declension nouns are feminine, and most 2nd-declension nouns are masculine or neuter.

At a minimum one should learn (memorize) the word with the article, e.g.:

ο λογος = "(the) word" and η αδελφη = "(the) sister"

and not simply as:

λογος = "word" and αδελφη = "sister"

When it comes to 3rd-declension nouns, though (Lesson 17, Section 116ff.; Lesson 25, Section 175ff.), you need to know the genitive form, too, because that contains the noun's lexical stem. (This is actually true for all declensions, but in 1st- and 2nd-declension nouns the nominative and genitive use the same stem.)

Ideally one should learn a noun (with the article, of course) in both its nominative form and its genitive form, not just the genitive ending, because even though the genitive form is regular for 1st- and 2nd-declension nouns, sometimes the accent changes.

Vocabulary Lists for the Course

I've finally completed the vocabulary lists by Lesson for the course - click on the link on the sidebar under "Class Links" that says:

Vocabulary list (MS Excel) for A Primer of Biblical Greek, expanded from the textbook to include all words that occur in the New Testament 25x or more (plus 20x-24x); Extra Words only

The list is sorted in Lesson order. Words added from the Exercises LXX/NT vocabulary lists are indicated by LN; extra words that occur 25x or more in the New Testament are indicated by +; extra words that occur 20x-24x are indicated by ++.

Because Excel sorts alphabetically according to English, the Greek ordering may not be alphabetical (e.g., it treats ζ, the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet, as a "z," the last letter in the English alphabet, and the accents and breathing marks are treated as the characters on the the keys that are used to type them). At some point I'll get around to sorting each Lesson's words in proper Greek alphabetical order.

I've input brief definitions for the + and ++ words; you have definitions for the other words, since they're in the textbook. The LXX/NT words are not in the vocabulary lists in the back of the book; they're only in the lists for the Exercises. Some of these words appear in more than one Lesson, and I've indicated the Lesson(s) in my list. Also, the forms given for the LXX/NT vocabulary are the way they appear in the Exercises, and not necessarily the lexical/dictionary form, which is what I list in the Vocabulary lists and how you should learn/memorize them. I'll double-check the definitions by the time we get to the Lesson.

If you learn all the words in the lists, you will have a very sizable vocabulary by the end of the course, quite a bit larger than what many 1st-year courses teach.

Class Notes: June 9, 2007

• Class Notes and Comments
• Memorize the [Definite] Article
• Installing the Greek Pronunciation CD
• Heads Up! for Lesson 3

• Class Notes and Comments

Important Sections and points in each Lesson (read every Section, though):

Lesson 1

1. Learn the alphabet and pronunciation of all letters and diphthongs by heart by next week.

2. Use either the Historical (Modern) Pronunciation of Greek (HPG) or Buth's Phonemic Koine Greek (PKG). I will probably at times shift between the two, as they are nearly identical.

HPG - 5 vowel system - how Greek is spoken today; pronunciation used on Caragounis CD:
1. ι = ει = η = οι = υ = "ee"
2. ε = αι = "eh"
3. α = "ah, uh"
4. ο = ω = "oh"
5. ου = "oo"

PKG - 7 vowel system - possibly historically more accurate; makes learning the spelling of words a little easier; can easily adapt to HPG/Modern Greek with only very minor changes; pronunciation used on word-picture CDs:
1. ι = ει = "ee"
2. η = "ey"
3. υ = οι = "u" (French u)
4. ε = αι = "eh"
5. α = "ah, uh"
6. ο = ω = "oh"
7. ου = "oo"

3. The "rough breathing" ("h" sound before some initial vowels or diphthongs, and initial ρ) was no longer sounded by New Testament times, though it appears in printed New Testament texts and continued to affect spelling (e.g., ουχ, rather than ουκ, was still used before vowels with a rough breathing mark).

4. Consonant clusters that can begin a word - e.g., στ (σταυρος) - are not split when dividing a word into syllables: e.g., it's α-πο-στο-λος, not α-ποσ-το-λος. The more modern initial consonant clusters like μπ ("b" sound) and ντ ("d" sound) do not appear to have been used as initial consonants in NT times, and would be split when they occur in the middle of a word when dividing words into syllables: e.g., it's παν-τες, not πα-ντες.

5. Accent rules are useful when translating from English to Greek, but are of secondary importance in this course, as you will primarily be reading and translating already-accented Greek. One should learn the rules that Croy teaches, though, as they help in spelling, and knowledge of accenting can differentiate between some words or some types of words - e.g., "liquid" verbs (Lesson 22 Section 155) differentiate between the present active indicative and the future active indicative only by the placement and type of the accent. See the earlier post, More on Accents.

Lesson 2

9. Learn the vocabulary by heart before doing the Exercises. Write out the words, make or buy and use flashcards, and/or buy vocabulary books. There is vocabulary software (some for purchase, and some for free) that some people find useful. Do whatever works best to help you learn the words. It is only by mastering a reasonable size vocabulary (which I would consider to be knowing at least all the words that occur 25x or more in the New Testament - or better yet, 20x or more) that one can begin to enjoy reading the New Testament, because one is then not constantly having to look up words. Of course, one also needs to be able to recognize the forms of the words to know what one is reading, so grammar can't be separated from vocabulary in terms of being important for being able to read the Greek New Testament.

See Sidebar for Lesson 2 vocabulary (MS Excel - as noted, you will need to install the TekniaGreek font to read the Greek characters), including the extra word from the LXX-NT vocabulary (φιλεω = "I love" - shown as φιλω (Present Active Indicative 1st-Person Singular) in the LXX-NT vocabulary list), plus the two additional extra words, αναβλεπω = "I regain my sight" or "I look up" and ναι = "yes." These come from words that occur 25x or more and are not in the book, or not in the LXX and NT Exercise vocabulary list for the Lesson. Audio files of the words are in the Sidebar.

10. Verbs have Tense, Voice, Mood, Person, Number. E.g.: Present (Tense), Active (Voice), Indicative (Mood), Person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), Number (singular, plural). When you parse a verb, you give these 5 things, plus the lexical (dictionary) form and the translation. E.g.:

λυομεν - Present Active Indicative 1st-Person Plural (PAI1P) of λυω = "We are loosening"

Nice to know (but not need to know now) information:
Tenses: Present, Imperfect, Future, Aorist, Perfect, Pluperfect
Voices: Active, Middle, Passive
Moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Optative, Infinitive, Participle (some say that Infinitive and Participle are Modes, not Moods)
Persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
Numbers: Singular, Plural

11. & 12. Learn the Present Active Indicative and Present Active Infinitive endings by heart before doing the Exercises:

Present Active Indicative

Singular
1 -ω
2 -εις
3 -ει

Plural
1 -ομεν
2 -ετε
3 -ουσι(ν)

Present Active Infinitive -ειν (no person or number)

14. Do all the Exercises. Add the word φιλεω (shown as φιλω in the list) = "I love" to your vocabulary to memorize. φιλεω is a "contract verb" (Lesson 21 Section 145), and the ε contracts with the ω so that only the ω (with a circumflex accent) is left. Though it conjugates just like λυω (Section 11), because of the way the ε contracts with the "connecting vowels" (ε or ο) between the verb stem and the ending, its verb endings look slightly different. You should still be able to recognize and translate it, though. If you are interested in seeing how the ε contract verbs like φιλεω contract in the Present Active Indicative, view the chart at Section 351, p. 242, for ποιεω.

• Memorize the [Definite] Article
  

Learn the [definite] article by heart (see below). Learn this now, even though it's in Lesson 5 Section 28 of the textbook. The usual way of learning it is doing the Singular, first across and then down, and then doing the Plural, first across and then down. I.e.:

Singular

1. nominative: masculine - feminine - neuter
2. genitive: masculine -feminine - neuter
3. dative: masculine - feminine - neuter
4. accusative: masculine -feminine - neuter
   

Plural

1. nominative: masculine - feminine - neuter
2. genitive: masculine -feminine - neuter
3. dative: masculine - feminine - neuter
4. accusative: masculine -feminine - neuter

To aid in recognizing and memorizing the article, note (per the colors in the paradigm chart):

1. the masculine and neuter forms are identical in the genitive and dative
2. for the singular and the plural, the neuter nominative and accusative forms are identical
3. the genitive plural is the same for all three genders
4. ι, whether as a full letter or as a subscript ι, is an indicator for the dative case
5. feminine forms are characterized by η or α, and masculine and neuter forms by ο or ω

Greek Article Pronunciation (HPG / Phonemic Koine Greek; u = French u)

Singular	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	oh	ee / ey	toh
genitive	too	teece / tace	too
dative	toh	tee / tay	toh
accusative	tohn	teen / tane	toh
Plural	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	ee / u	eh	tah
genitive	tohn	tohn	tohn
dative	teece / tuce	tess	teece / tuce
accusative	tooce	tahs	tah

• Installing the Greek Pronunciation CD
  

Installing the Greek Pronunciation CD:

Windows Systems

• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP or NT 4.0
• Pentium II (or higher) PC
• At least 32 MB RAM
• 50 MB free disk space for Java JRE and program files
• CD-ROM drive
  

Program Installation

• Copy all files to a new directory on your hard disk
• Run the "Install Greek Font" batch file (If this doesn't install the fonts so you see the Greek characters in the Lessons, use the usual method of installing fonts - i.e., go to Start - Control Panel - Fonts - File - Install New Font - browse to the directory/folder with the fonts - Select all)
• Restart your computer (this may or may not be necessary)
  

To Run the Program

• Go to the directory where you copied the files and run the "RUN_NTG" batch file (RUN_NTG.BAT) by double-clicking the left mouse button on the filename.

NOTE: Though my work PC (XP Service Pack 2) runs the program fine by running the "RUN_NTG.BAT" file as instructed, it freezes up on my home PC (also XP Service Pack 2). However, running (i.e., double-clicking) the "NTG.jar" file in the "NTG" subfolder runs the program with no problems.

• Heads Up! For Lesson 3
  

Be sure to learn all the vocabulary for Lesson 2, because there will be 25 new words to learn for Lesson 3!

Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants

In my pronunciation chart, I say that for the diphthongs αυ, ευ, and ηυ, the υ takes a "v" sound before vowels and voiced consonants, and an "f" sound elsewhere.

To clarify, "voiced" consonants are those which make a sound when you pronounce them, versus "unvoiced" consonants that are like a whispered sound. E.g., our English "b" is a voiced consonant, as in the word "bee"; its "unvoiced" form is our letter "p," as in the word "pea." Say "buh"and "puh" and you'll see that your mouth and lips form the same shape, but you "hear" the "b" in "buh," but don't "hear" the "p" in "puh" – hence, "p" is "unvoiced."

Thus, the voiced consonants are: β γ δ ζ λ μ ν ρ (and the rare times σ/ς is pronounced like a "z").

The unvoiced consonants are: θ κ ξ π σ/ς τ φ χ ψ

I also say that γ is a "y" (as in "yes") sound before vowels or diphthongs that are pronounced as either "ee" or "eh," and a "gh" sound elsewhere.

The "ee" vowels and diphthongs are: η ι υ ει οι

The "eh" vowels and diphthongs are: ε αι

The above is for the Historical Pronunciation of Greek (i.e., the Modern Greek Pronunciation), which has an overabundance of "ee" sounds due to what's called "itacism," the mixing up of Greek historical spellings because the underlying vowel phonemes (sounds) had merged with the sound of ι.

Though Buth's Phonemic Koine Greek (again, see my pronunciation chart) pronounces η as "ey" in "obey," and υ and οι as a French u, instead of all three as "ee" as above, a γ that precedes them - or, more specifically, that precedes the "front" vowels ι ει η ε αι (formed with the tongue in a front position) - is also to be pronounced closer to a "y" sound. On the CDs, though, Buth seems to use "gh" for all instances of γ, as I've also heard some Greeks do, and Lydia said that her Greek-speaking priest wants her to pronounce γ as a "gh" and not as a "y," so pronouncing γ as "gh" in almost all instances may be fine.

More on Accents

Greek accenting is complex - D. A. Carson wrote a 167-page book called Greek Accents: A Student's Manual (which I own but haven't fully read or studied), and his summary of the various accent rules takes nearly 5 full pages. We never spent much time on accent rules in my Greek classes; whether that was good or bad, I don't know.

There are English-to-Greek exercises in this course, but for the most part, students want to learn to read Greek and translate it into English, not vice-versa, and the Greek they're reading will already have the accents. Thus, learning all the minutiae of accent rules (which involves knowing whether a vowel - and hence a syllable - is long or short) is probably something that most will not need to do.

The General Rules of Accent
(from Greek Accents: A Student's Manual, by D. A. Carson)

GR.1 Apart from specific exceptions later to be enumerated (largely concerning enclitics and proclitics, but also related to crasis and elision), every Greek word must have an accent, and only one accent.

GR.2 An acute accent may stand only on an ultima, a penult, or an antepenult; a circumflex accent may stand only on an ultima or a penult; and a grave accent may stand only on an ultima.

GR.3 The circumflex accent cannot stand on a short syllable.

GR.4 If the ultima is long, then:

• GR.4.1 the antepenult cannot have any accent, and


• GR.4.2 the penult, if it is accented at all, must have the acute.

GR.5 If the ultima is short, then a long penult, if it is accented at all, must have the circumflex accent.

GR.6 An acute accent on the ultima of a word is changed to a grave when followed, without intervening mark of punctuation, by another word or words.

You should recognize the above as having been listed by Croy in Lesson 1, and Croy gives additional accent rules in succeeding chapters. Carson's General Rules 4. and 5. are probably the most important, per a personal response from David H. Warren (Prof. of NT and Greek, Freed-Hardeman University, Henderson, Tenn.) to my B-Greek query regarding the importance of accents. (Though his online response to me that you can read below might seem a bit sarcastic - probably because he misunderstood what I was asking - his personal response was nice and helpful.) If you want to read that discussion, my initial post was here in the May 2002 archives:

value of accents? Eric Weiss

and the responses can be read in the June 2002 archives as follows:

value of accents? dhwarren at attglobal.net
value of accents? James Forsyth
value of accents? Eric S. Weiss
value of accents dhwarren at attglobal.net
value of accents? Vincent M. Setterholm
value of accents? Eric S. Weiss
value of accents Eric S. Weiss
value of accents? David Thiele

Some terms that you may encounter in other books:

Acute accents:
oxytone: an acute accent on the ultima (from οξεια "sharp")
paroxytone: an acute accent on the penult
proparoxytone: an acute accent on the antepenult

Circumflex accents:
perispomenon: a circumflex accent on the ultima (from περισπωμενη "drawn off from around, stripped off")
properispomenon: a circumflex accent on the penult

Also:
barytone: a word with no accent (from βαρεια "heavy")

Per Carson, in modern usage, the word, not the accented syllable, is called oxytone, perispomenon, barytone, etc., whereas with Greek literature, the accent itself is called οξεια, περισπωμενη, or βαρεια, and the noun προσωδια ("accent") is supplied: e.g., οξεια προσωδια.

A century ago Herbert Weir Smyth wrote what is still a standard and exhaustive grammar for Classical Greek. Per Carson, the accent rules for Hellenistic (i.e., New Testament) Greek differ somewhat from those for Classical Greek, but you might find Weir's ACCENT: GENERAL PRINCIPLES (sections 149-187) from the first edition helpful. (The second edition is still in print, and even though it's for Classical Greek, it is probably a book you'll want to acquire at some point if you're serious about learning Greek.)

The Website for Smyth's book uses a polytonic unicode font so you can see the correct accenting of the words I use in this post. I don't think Blogger displays polytonic Greek fonts, so I've been using unaccented unicode Greek characters. If you know how I can type and display unicode fonts with the full Greek character set, including all accents, breathing marks, iota subscript, etc., in this blog so students will see them instead of square boxes in their place, please let me know!