Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Stephen Carlson
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
Participles and infinitives don't have person either.
Yes, which is why in fact they are called infinitives -- they are not limited with regard to person and number. So on your handy-dandy parsing sheet, you just mark tense, category and voice, i.e. εὶπεῖν, aorist active infinitive.
Well, yeah. You can think of infinitives as having mood. but if you look at the morphological structure of the infinitive, the infinitive ending replaces the personal endings (with theme vowel), e.g. λύ-ειν vs. λύ-ω, λύ-εις, λύ-ει, etc. (Similarly, with the participle λύ-ων, but inflected for case, number, and gender). So if you squint with the right eye, it looks like an infinitive is a mood, but if you squint at it with the other eye, it looks like it fills up the personal ending slot (with a non-personal ending). It's not obvious which round hole to plug the square peg of the infinitive into but the traditional parsing approach has a certain amount of convenience to it.
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Jonathan Robie
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Jonathan Robie »

cwconrad wrote:Corpora, perhaps? Or If the corpus is relatively small, like the GNT, they can be called "corpuscles."
I consider this kind of pun "corporal pun-ishment".

Both plurals are used for text corpuses / corpora.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
cwconrad wrote:Corpora, perhaps? Or If the corpus is relatively small, like the GNT, they can be called "corpuscles."
I consider this kind of pun "corporal pun-ishment".

Both plurals are used for text corpuses / corpora.
I have my own private giggle about this "Corpora" too. Along with the British, we lose the "r" after the short vowel. In Australian speech, we also tend to lose the short vowel before the "r" (lose of a syllable in fact) in words like, "strawberry".

Consequently, "corpora" on my lips sounds like "copra" :twisted: ...
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:
Participles and infinitives don't have person either.
Yes, which is why in fact they are called infinitives -- they are not limited with regard to person and number. So on your handy-dandy parsing sheet, you just mark tense, category and voice, i.e. εὶπεῖν, aorist active infinitive.
Well, yeah. You can think of infinitives as having mood. but if you look at the morphological structure of the infinitive, the infinitive ending replaces the personal endings (with theme vowel), e.g. λύ-ειν vs. λύ-ω, λύ-εις, λύ-ει, etc. (Similarly, with the participle λύ-ων, but inflected for case, number, and gender). So if you squint with the right eye, it looks like an infinitive is a mood, but if you squint at it with the other eye, it looks like it fills up the personal ending slot (with a non-personal ending). It's not obvious which round hole to plug the square peg of the infinitive into but the traditional parsing approach has a certain amount of convenience to it.
I'm sorry, but this will be another comment that will not seem to be following the flow of the conversation. I'm also sorry that it will be expressed untechnically.

A comment similar to the embolden one above could be made about the imperative, I think. The imperative is more a set of endings than it is a modification to the thematic vowel. If mood is the adding an interpretive slant to a verbal construction, then perhaps only the indicative, subjunctive and optative could be called moods. The subjunctive and optative display regular stems with endings - the addition of a iota to the thematic vowel for the optative, or its lengthening for the the subjunctive (regularly across all forms) indicates a different mood.

The syntactic structures in which indicatives, subjunctives and optatives are used are similar - but not so the imperatives, infinitives and participles. The most significant point being that the indicative subjunctive and optative are used with the nominative. For most verbs (except those that take a complement in the nominative), all "moods" (taken in the widest sense) are used with the oblique cases in what people call the direct object and with other adverbials.

To put that in another way, if we want to change the mood between indicative, subjunctive and optative, we more or less just change the mood of the verb, but for the others - imperative, infinitive or participle - we need to rewrite (rephrase) the sentence. In other words the indicative, subjunctive and optative can be used to give an interpretive slant to what is being said, while the others serve a syntactic function which is usually dependent on another verb, which does itself have a mood (in the narrow definition), for its mood (in the narrow definition).
Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Why do you say "don't have", rather than "aren't marked for". ... [In another post] Is it customary to discuss morphology at a word-by-word level rather than at a sense-unit-by-sense-unit level or is it just in discussions about Greek?
Because the discussion is about morphology. ... [In reply to another post] I don't understand this question. ... I don't see how general patterns of usage are more appositely pertinent.
That stuff that I just said is what I was sort of getting at with that comment and question, with this comment earlier:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Unopinionated (not pushing a point of interpretaion), free of interpretation or suggestion, mirrored mood (look at the verbs around me to see my mood), extrinsic modality (mood from context - opp. self-expressed intrinsic modality), mood borrowers, unexplicated mood.


[The third person imperatives are an interesting feature of the language, because they are constructed using the nominative too. But, again they are a set of endings rather than a stem modification. My feeling is that word order is less flexible in this case than for other "moods" (broad definition - including self-expressed mood and borrowed (by virtue of syntactic association) mood).]
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MAubrey
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Hughes wrote:A comment similar to the embolden one above could be made about the imperative, I think. The imperative is more a set of endings than it is a modification to the thematic vowel. If mood is the adding an interpretive slant to a verbal construction, then perhaps only the indicative, subjunctive and optative could be called moods. The subjunctive and optative display regular stems with endings - the addition of a iota to the thematic vowel for the optative, or its lengthening for the the subjunctive (regularly across all forms) indicates a different mood.

The syntactic structures in which indicatives, subjunctives and optatives are used are similar - but not so the imperatives, infinitives and participles. The most significant point being that the indicative subjunctive and optative are used with the nominative. For most verbs (except those that take a complement in the nominative), all "moods" (taken in the widest sense) are used with the oblique cases in what people call the direct object and with other adverbials.

To put that in another way, if we want to change the mood between indicative, subjunctive and optative, we more or less just change the mood of the verb, but for the others - imperative, infinitive or participle - we need to rewrite (rephrase) the sentence. In other words the indicative, subjunctive and optative can be used to give an interpretive slant to what is being said, while the others serve a syntactic function which is usually dependent on another verb, which does itself have a mood (in the narrow definition), for its mood (in the narrow definition).
Well stated. This is precisely it.

(Careful, Stephen, you might end up a linguist if you're not careful!)
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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Hughes wrote: Well, yeah. You can think of infinitives as having mood. but if you look at the morphological structure of the infinitive, the infinitive ending replaces the personal endings (with theme vowel), e.g. λύ-ειν vs. λύ-ω, λύ-εις, λύ-ει, etc. (Similarly, with the participle λύ-ων, but inflected for case, number, and gender). So if you squint with the right eye, it looks like an infinitive is a mood, but if you squint at it with the other eye, it looks like it fills up the personal ending slot (with a non-personal ending). It's not obvious which round hole to plug the square peg of the infinitive into but the traditional parsing approach has a certain amount of convenience to it.

I'm sorry, but this will be another comment that will not seem to be following the flow of the conversation. I'm also sorry that it will be expressed untechnically.

A comment similar to the embolden one above could be made about the imperative, I think. The imperative is more a set of endings than it is a modification to the thematic vowel. If mood is the adding an interpretive slant to a verbal construction, then perhaps only the indicative, subjunctive and optative could be called moods. The subjunctive and optative display regular stems with endings - the addition of a iota to the thematic vowel for the optative, or its lengthening for the the subjunctive (regularly across all forms) indicates a different mood.

The syntactic structures in which indicatives, subjunctives and optatives are used are similar - but not so the imperatives, infinitives and participles. The most significant point being that the indicative subjunctive and optative are used with the nominative. For most verbs (except those that take a complement in the nominative), all "moods" (taken in the widest sense) are used with the oblique cases in what people call the direct object and with other adverbials.

To put that in another way, if we want to change the mood between indicative, subjunctive and optative, we more or less just change the mood of the verb, but for the others - imperative, infinitive or participle - we need to rewrite (rephrase) the sentence. In other words the indicative, subjunctive and optative can be used to give an interpretive slant to what is being said, while the others serve a syntactic function which is usually dependent on another verb, which does itself have a mood (in the narrow definition), for its mood (in the narrow definition).

[The third person imperatives are an interesting feature of the language, because they are constructed using the nominative too. But, again they are a set of endings rather than a stem modification. My feeling is that word order is less flexible in this case than for other "moods" (broad definition - including self-expressed mood and borrowed (by virtue of syntactic association) mood).]
Well, imperatives are marked for person and number, hence are finite, and even "tense" in the traditional grammatical expression (yeah, we know it's really aspect here), and function as the main verbs of their clauses. A mood traditionally is the action of the verb expressed with relationship to the "real" state of events. It's indicative if from the point of the view of the speaker/writer/text it is happening, has happened, or will happen. The imperative expresses an action that the speaker wants to happen, and hence is not real. It becomes indicative when the action is performed or not performed. From that perspective, I think it's fair to call it a mood. If you want to join the crowd and redefine everything, then call it something else (they hate to be late for supper, though). All that's really necessary is that when we see the form we know it's expressing a command or request.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

MAubrey wrote:Careful, Stephen, you might end up a linguist if you're not careful!
A car-plant needs both engineers and test drivers to optimise vehicle designs. The one works from a lot of theory, the other has a more hands-on role. They both end up knowing the car, but from different points of view.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:Well, imperatives are marked for person and number, hence are finite, and even "tense" in the traditional grammatical expression (yeah, we know it's really aspect here), and function as the main verbs of their clauses. A mood traditionally is the action of the verb expressed with relationship to the "real" state of events. It's indicative if from the point of the view of the speaker/writer/text it is happening, has happened, or will happen. The imperative expresses an action that the speaker wants to happen, and hence is not real. It becomes indicative when the action is performed or not performed. From that perspective, I think it's fair to call it a mood. If you want to join the crowd and redefine everything, then call it something else (they hate to be late for supper, though). All that's really necessary is that when we see the form we know it's expressing a command or request.
There is an assumption in this discussion that there is a correlation between finiteness and mood. When the words are considered in tables or at a morphological level that might be a valid corollary or even equivalence, but I don't think they correlate so well when considered morphosyntactically.
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Well, imperatives are marked for person and number, hence are finite, and even "tense" in the traditional grammatical expression (yeah, we know it's really aspect here), and function as the main verbs of their clauses.
There is an assumption in this discussion that there is a correlation between finiteness and mood.
I disagree. It's been repeatedly stated in this thread, both by Barry in the quotation above and me earlier, that finiteness is about person marking. It is possible to mark person without marking mood, though this possibility (the so-called "injunctive" of Homer, which looks like an unaugmented imperfect or aorist but is actually a finite verbal form that is unmarked for mood and tense) has not survived into the Koine.
Stephen Hughes wrote:When the words are considered in tables or at a morphological level that might be a valid corollary or even equivalence, but I don't think they correlate so well when considered morphosyntactically.
Yeah, this gets into the linguistic controversy, which I'm not sure has been resolved, whether morphology and syntax are independent subsystems.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Category for participles, infinitives, finite verbs

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:When the words are considered in tables or at a morphological level that might be a valid corollary or even equivalence, but I don't think they correlate so well when considered morphosyntactically.
Yeah, this gets into the linguistic controversy, which I'm not sure has been resolved, whether morphology and syntax are independent subsystems.
We are fortunate in our field to have a well developed awareness of grammar. At the most uncontroversial level, an accusative (for example) is an accusative, no matter which of the declensions it follows. More controversially, there is a lack of consensus as to whether there are 3 voices or two in the Koine period.

Knowing (classical) grammar as well as many of us do we are free to abstract from the morphology to the grammar, and then to see how the grammar works in syntax. Perhaps a better way to express the high level of abstract grammatical understanding that we are fortunate to have, is to call it a grammatosyntactic analysis, rather than morphosyntactic one.

To put that another way, we are not not forced to consider whether first or second (or third) perfects are grammatically the same sort of perfect or not when considering how a perfect is used in a syntactic structure.

Even if a different system of grammar were to be put forward, other than traditional grammar, morphology will arrive at a recognisable system of grammar, and that grammar will either be used to express something or will be required by the syntax.

Thinking through in this way too, I, at least, come to the conclusion that syntax both determines what is significant and what is automatic in the choice of grammar. The indicative, the subjunctive and (especially in the classical period) the optative are more or less interchangeable within the same syntactic structures, while the participles, infinitives and imperatives each require different syntactic skills to incorporate them into a composition or to get meaning from them. It is efficient to analyse the syntactic structures that incorporated - or which are based on verbs in 4 systems, with the first one having three minor variations.

For the suggestion that Jonathan has put forward, based on his discussions with somebody called Micheal Palmer that there should be three categorisations. That is neat in itself, but not reflected in how the verbal forms are used. The syntax - patterns of use - suggest that there are four.
Stephen Carlson wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Well, imperatives are marked for person and number, hence are finite, and even "tense" in the traditional grammatical expression (yeah, we know it's really aspect here), and function as the main verbs of their clauses.
There is an assumption in this discussion that there is a correlation between finiteness and mood.
I disagree. It's been repeatedly stated in this thread, both by Barry in the quotation above and me earlier, that finiteness is about person marking. It is possible to mark person without marking mood, though this possibility (the so-called "injunctive" of Homer, which looks like an unaugmented imperfect or aorist but is actually a finite verbal form that is unmarked for mood and tense) has not survived into the Koine.
I understand the concept, being stated, of whether a verbal form - case in point, the imperative - can be the main verb of a sentence, and that that categorises it as finite. Of the verbal forms at play in the Koine period, the indicative is considered finite because it is marked in its own form for person and it is a considered a mood, the subjunctive is considered finite because it is marked in its own form for person and is considered a mood, the optative is considered finite because it is marked in its own form for person and it is considered a mood, the imperative is considered finite because it is marked within its own form for person and it is considered a mood. On the other hand, the participle is not considered finite because it is not marked within its own form for person and it not considered a mood, and the infinitive is not considered finite because it is not marked within its own form for person and it is not considered a mood. In which of those is there not a correlation between finiteness and modality OR infiniteness and non-modality?

This discussion is becoming much to circular and boring for my taste. Perhaps we are working from different definitions of mood. Let's perhaps move this discussion on by comparing theoretical assumptions...

I take the definition of mood to be "modality is what allows speakers to attach expressions of belief, attitude and obligation to statements". I take that to mean that the same syntactic pattern can be employed with different moods. That leads to the conclusion that there are three moods, while the participle and infinitive have their own syntactic structures and either perform a syntactic function, in which case, they can, in effect, "borrow" a mood or they less often stand alone. If the imperative (2nd person), is said to have modality in its own syntactic structures, then it is the only one within those structures. A mode without variance, so to speak.
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