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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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well as that these tenses have a signification proper to themselves , so as to be , on certain occasions , those which it would be proper to use in . preference to any others . In fact , is not this the
view of them which is actually entertained by the great mass of Greek students ? Yet it is demonstrable that nothing can be farther from the truth . We will state certain facts , which those may deny who can . 1 st * There is not one Greek verb in fifty that has , in the same Voice , two aorists or two futures , nor that has at once both the tenses called the perfect active and the perfect middle , and there is not one verb in five hundred that
has all these tenses complete . How grossly erroneous , then , is the common practice of putting them all down in the paradeigma of the regular verb ! But , 2 dly , in the few instances in which these duplicates do occur , they are mere anomalies or redundancies , easily accounted for . To illustrate this assertion , let us take the case of what is called the second
aorist active . The form rnnf / a , called the first aorist , is that which is used in forty-nine verbs out of fifty , and is of course the regular tense : another form ,
having the same signification , is that which is called the second aorist , as eXocfiov . Now , it is true , that this is a second , or rather an irregular form of the aorist , but a second tense it is not . There is nothing in this part of Greek grammar to which we have not a perfect
parallel in that of our own language . If we take the verb to row , we find the past tense to be , / rowed ; and this is the regular form : this form is analogous to what in Greek is called the first aorist : but if we take the verb to know , we meet
with the past tense / knew . Here we find traces of a certain ancient mode of forming our past tense , which now obtains only in certain verbs through the force of long usage , but is otherwise abandoned . Now this is strictly analogous to the case of the second aorist .
What such forms as / knew , I saw , I slew , are in English grammar , such forms as tXafBoy , eTbov , y / AapTov , are in Greek : neither is there any greater reason or practical advantage in assigning two aorists to the Greek verb , than there would be in assigning two preterites to
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the English . Who does not see that the English grammar would be disfigured , encumbered , and every way injured , were such a practice to be adopted ? But perhaps some of my readers , being startled at this novel view , . will be picking out certain Greek verbs in which they nod two aorists at once in use . Now , though they may be at some pains to find them , yet there is no doubt that such are to be found . But before
they bring forward these as cases in point , let them consider whether such duplicates do not occur in writers either of different dialects , of different periods , or , at least , of widely different styles , as one being a poet * the other a prose writer . And when this point is settled , let them
next refer again to our own English , and reflect how many of the like duplicate formations we have among ourselves . Have we not / hanged and / hung , I catched and / caught , I chid and I chode , I cleft , I clave , and / clove ^ vnth numberless others , some still tense , but all to be found in our older standard
authors ? * Let the duplicate tenses of the Greek verb be once viewed in this light * ^ their whole history and situation will be immediately understood . They will be perceived to be mere anomalies and redundancies , and altogether foreign to the equal structure of the language . These incumbrances being thus cleared away , the student will be in a situation to
understand the Greek verb aright , and apprehend the distinct uses of all its parts . Then he will see that it is , among things of this kind , the perfection of beauty , iu which nothing is wanting , nothing superfluous . It will be recognized as the chef-d'oeuvre of language , which , to
disfigure by bungling appendages , has been the work of ages of learned dulness , whose praise , indeed , was laborious industry , borne cheerfully by themselves , and with as little scruple imposed on others , but whose technical formality the simplicity of truth and the mother-wit of nature for ever eluded . T . F . B .
? Farther illustrations of this subject may be seen iu Barham ' s Greek Grammar .
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• 600 Miscellaneous Correspondence .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1831, page 560, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2600/page/56/
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