XI. Of the Passive Voice of Verbs in w, and first of the Auxiliary Verb ειμι XII. Of the Middle Voice of Verbs in w, and of the Deponent Verb - Of the Construction of Adverbs and Interjections - Of the Construction of Conjunctions and Prepositions P A PLAIN AND EASY GREEK GRAMMAR, &c. SECTION I. Of the LETTERS and READING. 1.THE Letters in Greek are twenty-four, of which the following 2. Writing over the letters several times is the best way of making them familiar to th Learner, who should also, as he is going through the Grammar, continually exercis himself in reading. 3. Γ before γ, κ, ξ, and x, is sounded like n, as in asyedos angelos, αγκαλή ancalee λυγέ lunx, εγχος enchos. 4. ' before is pronounced like the Eng. wh, thus vos pronounce whios. Comp Rule 11. below. 5. Of the Greek letters these seven, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω, are vowels, the remaining seven. teen are consonants. 6. The vowels, in respect to quantity or time in pronouncing, are divided into long, η, ω; short, ε, ο; doubtful, α, ι, υ. 7. Diphthongs (Διφθοίγοι, i. e. double sounds) are formed of two vowels joined together, and in Greek may be reckoned twelve; six proper, αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι, ου; and six improper, ᾳ, η, ω, ηυ, υι, ων; the little stroke under a, η, w, standing for Iota, and being called lota subscribed, or subscript. 8. The Consonants are divided into nine mutes, π, β, φ; κ, γ, χ; τ, δ, θ; four liquids, λ, μ, ν, ρ; σ, and three double letters, & made of δs, or σδ; & made of ys, us, or X5; and ψ, of πς, 65, or 45. 9. The nine Mutes are divided into tenues, or smooth, π, κ, τ; media, or intermediate, 6, y, d; and aspirate, or rough, 4, X, 0; of which the labials, or lip-letters, 7, 6, 9; the palatines, or palate-letters, x, y, x; and the dentals, or teeth-letters, r, d, 0, are related respectively, and frequently exchanged for each other, i. e. one labial for another labial, as for 6 or ; one palatine for another palatine, as x for y or x; or one dental for another dental, as for dor 0. 10. If in a word one Mute follows another, a tenuis is put before a tenuis, a media before a media, and an aspirate before an aspirate, as τετυπίαι, for τετυφται, he was smitten; έβδομος, for ἐπλομος, the seventh ; ετυφθην, for ετυπθην, I was smitten. 11. Every word having a vowel or diphthong for the first letter is, in most printed books, marked at the beginning either with an aspirate, i. e. a rough breathing (*), as, όρος pronounce horos, or with a smooth one ('), as όρος pronounce oros. 12. The former only of these breathings is of necessary use, and may be considered as a real letter, which was * anciently written H, + then, and for expedition ('); whence the other side of the letter,, in quick writing ('), was taken to denote the smooth breathing. 13. Almost all words beginning with vor i pare aspirated, or marked with a rough breathing; and if there be two ps in the middle of a word, the former is marked with a smooth, the latter with a rough, breathing, as εῤῥωσω pronounce errhoso, ποῤῥω porrho. 14. As the little marks over words called Accents are by no means necessary, either for the pronouncing (so far, I mean, as we moderns can pronounce it) or understanding of the Greek language, I shall only observe concerning them, that the Acute (') marks the elevation of the voice in a syllable, the Grave (`) the depression of it, and the Circumfler (") first the elevation of the voice, then the depression of it, in the same syllable, and is therefore placed only on long syllables. 15. A Diæresis (") divides diphthongs, and shews that the vowels are to be sounded separate; as αϋπνος, pronounce a-upnos. 16. A Diastole (,) distinguishes one word from another; thus το,τε and the is distinguished from τοτε them. * See the Lexicon under this letter н. + See Montfaucon's Palæographia Græca, p. 33, 275, 278. Thus many words used by our Saxon ancestors begin with her, as hnacode ragged, hreap raw, breod a read, &c. 17. An Apostrophe (') is the mark of the vowels α, ε, 1, 0, or more rarely of the diphthongs αι, οι, being rejected at the end of a word, when the word following begins with a vowel, as αλλ' εγω for αλλα εγω; and observe, that if the first vowel of the second word have an aspirate breathing, a preceding tenuis or smooth consonant must be changed into it's correspondent aspirate or rough one (comp. above 11.), as αφ' ήμων for από ήμων, νυχθ ̓ ὁλην for νυκία ὁλην. Comp. above 10. 18. N is frequently added to words ending in & ort, if the next word begins with a vowel, to prevent the concurrence of two vowels, as εικοσιν ανδρες for εικοσι ανδρες twenty men, τυπίεσιν αυτον for τυπίεσι αυτον they beat him, εδωκεν αυτῳ for εδωκε αυτῳ he gave to him. 19. A letter or syllable is called pure which has a vowel, and impure which has a consopant, before it; thus w in ποιεω is pure, in τυπιω, impure. 20. The manner in which most Greek books were formerly printed makes it necessary to add A Table of the most usual ABBREVIATIONS or LIGATURES, which see fronting page 1 21 As to the Greek Punctuation, that language, in it's present form, has four marks or stops, the full stop and comma as in English, a dot placed towards the upper part of the word, and serving both for a colon and semicolon, as λόγος and the mark of interrogation resembling our semicolon, as λογος; 12. The Greeks express their Numbers either by their small letters with a dash over them, thus, ź, or by their capitals. To express Numbers by their small letters they divide their alphabet, which, with the addition of the three Επισημα, 5 βαυ, 4 κοππα, and σανπι, consists of twenty-seven letters, into three classes: The letters of the first class, from a to 9, denote Units; of the second, from 1 to 4, Tens; of the third, from pto, Hundreds. ihousands are expressed in the same order by adding a dot under the letters; thus a is 1000. They join them thus, ιά, 11; ιβ ́, 12; ιγ ́, 13; &c. κδ ́, 22; λγ', 33; μδ ́, 44; &c. ρά, ίοι; σιά, 21; τκς, 322; &c. αριά, 1111; αχές, 1000; αψξή, 1768; &c. In denoting heir Numbers by capitals the Greeks use six letters, I, ια or μια, 1; Π. Πενλε, 5; Δ, Δεκα, 10; Η, Ηεκατον, 100; Χ, Χιλια, 1000; Μ, Μυρια, 10000. Two of these letters placed together signify the Sum of the Numbers; thus II is 2, TiIII 80: And when the letter II (5) incloses any one of these, it denotes that it is to be multiplied by 5, or raises it to 5 times it's own value; thus || is 50, H 500, 5000, M50,000; and 1768 may be thus expressed, ΧΗΗΗ ΔΔΠΙΙΙ. SECT. II. SECTION II. Of WORDS, and first of the ARTICLE. WORDS are in Greek usually distinguished into eight kind called Parts of Speech; Article, Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Pa ticle, Adverb, Conjunction, Preposition. 2. Of which the first five are declined, the last three undeclined. 3. A word is said to be declined when it changes it's ending, and to be undeclined whe it does not. 4. The Article, Noun, Pronoun, and Participle, are declined by Nun ber, Case, and Gender. 5. Numbers are two, the Singular, which speaks of one, as λογος ι i. e. one, word; and the Plural, which speaks of more than one, a λογοι words. 6. To these the Greeks have added a third Number, called the Dual, which speaks two only, as λογω two words: But this Number is not much used in the profar writers; and neither in the New Testament, nor in the Septuagint version of the Old do we ever meet with a Dual, either Noun or Verb; and therefore Observe, once for all, that though in the following examples, both of Nouns and Verbs, ti Dual Number is printed, yet it may greatly contribute to the ease and progress of th Learner entirely to omit it in declining. 7. A Case is a variation of the termination or ending, denoting cer tain particles, of, to, &c. 8. The Cases are five in each number, Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, and Vo cative. 9. * " Things are frequently considered with relation to the distinction of Ser or Gen der, as being Male or Female, or neither the one nor the other. Hence" 10. " Substantives are of the Masculine, or Feminine, or Neuter that is Neither, Gender." 11. "The English language, with singular propriety, following nature alone, applie the distinction of Masculine and Feminine only to the names of animals, all the res (except in the figurative style) are Neuter." But 12. In Greek, very many Nouns, which have no reference to Sex, are Masculine or Fe minine. 13. The mark of the Masculine Gender is ὁ, of the Feminine ἡ, and of the Neuter το. Τ this the Grammarians have given the name of Aρθρον, or Article, which properly de notes a joint in the body, because of the particular connection it has with the Nouns And before we come to the declining of Nouns, it will be necessary to be quit perfect in * Bishop Locuth's Introduction to English Grammar, p. 27, 28. 2d edit. |