Re: Hellenish oddities

Oskar  ániyë:

* the infamous initials mentioned above were miraculously retained,
 according to this Teach Yourself course (which I mistrusted heavily).
 * orthographic initials <mp> <nt> <gk> pronounced [b d g]...I haven't seen
 any initial [mp]'s or such in my book of Ancient Greek, so I'm presuming
 the nasals are just a spelling trick; the sample words given were all loan-
 words, so I thought voiced stops could be an import to accommodate the new
 words. Or just old voiced stops preserved by some environmental factor; I
 don't know why, but in any case Modern Greek does seem to have two rows of
 stops after all. Experts here will tell me the answer.
 * chaotic stress pattern remains; perhaps I just fail to see the pattern in
 it.

 Also, I couldn't see any sense in the few changes to the morphology; I
 noticed some "indefinite" form (supposedly similar to infinitive), but its
 endings were not like those of the Ancient Greek infinitive endings. I'm
 probably not yet learned enough in the language to know where they're
 coming from.

     I'm sorry that you find so much at fault with Modern Greek, one of my
most favorite languages. But, well, to each his own so they say. But
sometimes the books don't lie. My french professor was born in Athens and has
been teaching me some Greek on the side. In initial consonant combinations
frequently are preserved, though not all. (I can't think of any words that
begin with "psi" for example). Two examples of the "ft" at the beginning are
"ftero" "feather" and "ftano" "I arrive"    Furthemore, the "few changes" in
morphology, though small, are really quite startling. First of all, there is
no infinitive in Modern Greek, and all the forms of the ancient infinitive
were discarded. This one change is fairly extensive actually. The
"indefinite" form is probably what most grammars call the subjunctive. Its
used after certain particles such as "na" and "tha". "Na" + subjunctive
replaces the simple subjunctives of ancient greek. This actually isn't all
that uncommon in the Balkan sprachbund. Romanian does basically the same
thing, using sï + 3rdperson subjunctive for every person.  "Tha" +
subjunctive (actually, I'm not quite sure on this point it might be +
indicative) indicates a future event.
    Finally in nominal morphology, nouns of the third declension (i.e those
with consonent stems) have been reorganized. The accusative has taken over
nominative functions. Also the dual was lost.

That's it for now. Maybe someone else can help you in your quest for
understanding.

    Elliott.