From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 36579
Date: 2005-03-03
>Yes, sounds likely. But there is no loss of -s- in the
>
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 01:24:49 +0000, elmeras2000
>> <jer@...> wrote:
>>
>> >--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> >[JER:]
>> >> >In Modern Greek the imperfect and aorist use the endings -a, -
>> >es, -e,
>> >> >-ame, -ate, -an. In this the 2/3 sg are thematic, while the rest
>> >have the
>> >> >-a- of the aorist.
>
>> There are no mysteries in the Greek case. Classical Greek
>> had a thematic imperfect -on, -es, -e, -omen, -ete, -on, and
>> an s-aorist -sa, -sas, -se, -samen, -sate, -san (k-perfect
>> -ka, -kas, -ke, -kamen, -kate, -kasi). The -a- comes from a
>> syllabic nasal (1sg. *-sm., 3pl. *-sn.t) c.q. from pf. 1sg.
>> *-h2a. In Modern Greek, the paradigms have been levelled at
>> the desinence level, but an s-aorist remains an s-aorist:
>> the -s- is still there (allright, there are now also
>> s-imperfects).
>
>Surely the key to this development is the 2nd aorist, the zero-graded
>thematic past, also in -on, -es etc, and the sigmatic aorist in liquid
>stems, in which the -s- was replaced by lengthening of the preceding
>vowel. I have seen a Greek textbook on Modern Greek in which both
>these formations were described together as the asigmatic aorist!
>This seems to be a good starting point for seeing the two sets of
>endings simply as alternatives, presumably first in the aorist and
>thne in the imperfect.