Aorist Endings in Modern Greek Imperfect (was: Stative Verbs, or Pe

--- 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.

Richard.