morphology of αφίημι

How can I best learn the paradigms of nouns and verbs and the other inflected parts of speech?
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Chris Engelsma
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morphology of αφίημι

Post by Chris Engelsma »

Mark 1:34 καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν πολλοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας ποικίλαις νόσοις καὶ δαιμόνια πολλὰ ἐξέβαλεν καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν λαλεῖν τὰ δαιμόνια, ὅτι ᾔδεισαν αὐτόν.

Can someone help me understand the morphology of ἤφιεν? It's clearly from ἀφίημι, but Mounce (BBG 34.11) shows εδιδου for the imperfect 3rd singular active. Hence, I cannot account for the epsilon nun ending here. The augment is clearly there.

thanks,
cwconrad
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Re: morphology of αφίημι

Post by cwconrad »

Chris Engelsma wrote:Mark 1:34 καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν πολλοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας ποικίλαις νόσοις καὶ δαιμόνια πολλὰ ἐξέβαλεν καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν λαλεῖν τὰ δαιμόνια, ὅτι ᾔδεισαν αὐτόν.

Can someone help me understand the morphology of ἤφιεν? It's clearly from ἀφίημι, but Mounce (BBG 34.11) shows εδιδου for the imperfect 3rd singular active. Hence, I cannot account for the epsilon nun ending here. The augment is clearly there.

thanks,
Although you do need to know the important -μι verbs: ἵσταμαι, δίδωμι, τίθημι, and the compounds of ἵημι, of which ἀφίημι is the most important one, you might notice that even the paradigms for the imperfects of τίθημι and δίδωμι show partial assimilation to the conjugation of -ω verbs: ἐτίθεις, ἐτίθει as from a present τιθεω, and ἐδίδους, ἐδίδου as if from a present διδόω. In Koine Greek older -μι verbs are becoming -ω verbs. You will see lots of forms of δείκνυμι in the GNT, but you will find three forms that are clearly based on δεικνύω. The evidence for ἁφίημι/ἀφίω is more complex: you will find forms based on the older -μι verb and forms based on the newer -ω verb. What you have in Mark 1:34 is an imperfect based on ἀφίω as an omega verb.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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