Paul-Nitz wrote:cwconrad wrote:
At any rate, γνῶναι, the intransitive aorist of γινώσκειν is itself a fascinating verb. It is a verb of perception, inherently subject-affected, but is marked for subject-affectedness only in the future γνώσεσθαι, where the intentionality of the process is deliberately marked.
Paul-Nitz wrote:
Carl, I had been understanding -θῆναι -ηναι forms as subject affected (ἑαυτική). So, I saw επορεύθην as simply the past version of πορεύομαι. Help.
cwconrad wrote:
I'm not sure what your point is, Paul. I was talking about the verb γινώσκειν. What I said was that its future, γνώσεσθαι, is the only morphoparadigm in which this verb is marked for subject-affectedness; its active forms are not marked for subject-affectedness.
Carl, Thanks. So, according to your view, are the -θῆναι -ῆναι forms marking subject-affectedness?
Yes. And since (if we see verbs such as πορεύεσθαι/πορευθῆναι not as "oddball" (deponent) verbs but as regular middle verbs of locomotion, then we'll view both the -εσθαι and the -(θ)ῆναι as middle-passive, subject-affected forms. I've indicated my preference for designating these two paradigms as MP1 and MP2.
Paul-Nitz wrote:[By "θῆναι, ῆναι forms" I mean the whole lot: Aorist Infιnitive, Aor, Indicative, Aor. Participle, Aor. Imperative, E.g.
- πορευθηναι, στῆναι, γρωναι
επορεύθην, ἔστην, ἔγνων
πορευθείς, στάς, γνούς
πορεύθητι, στῆθι, γνώθι
(not sure about
στάς... doesn't look subject-affected)
I believe you're thinking about the alpha in στάς is not derivative from the same paradigm or stem as στὴναι, but in fact it is: the root/stem of the aorist of this verb has a long-vowel and a short-vowel form that shows up historically as η/α, the eta being the Attic-Ionic long alpha phonetically flattened to eta.
There's a bit of a shocker involved in this: the "aorist passive" in (θ)η are identical with the athematic "aorist active" forms in -ῦναι, ῶναι, and ῆναι. I remember my surprise when I first saw the paradigm of ἔστην/ἔστης/ἔστη/κτλ. referred to as "quasi-passive". All these athematic second-aorist forms are intransitive; I think that they are in fact all naturally subject-affected verbs with present-tense forms in the middle voice -- EXCEPT for γινώσκειν. γινώσκειν is a verb of perception which one might expect to be inflected in the middle but its forms follow the pattern of transitive verbs, as if "know" were a transitive process of a subject acting upon a direct object and transforming it. These athematic aorist forms are "active" -- which is to say, they are "unmarked for subject-affectedness" -- but in fact, so far as I can see, all these verbs with athematic aorists in ῦναι, ῶναι, and ἠναι are naturally subject-affected verbs; their aorist forms all indicate entering into a state as a consequence of the process: "got to a stand", "came to birth", "became visible", etc.