Welcome to the MacDiv NT Greek 4 Smarties Blog

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Why and when to change the alpha or epsilon to eta?

Futher to the question last Thursday (11 Nov) re: why we change the a or e to h,
Please refer to page 45 of FNTG textbook, grey box at the bottom, provides the insight.
Specifically, contract verbs (that have Aorist stems which end in a, e or o) have their connecting vowel lengthens from a or e to h, and from o to w, before the tense formative s of the ending.
Also, refer to page 88, section 8.6. The rules for contraction in the Present and Imperfect tense-forms (which use Present stems) are a little different.