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Some Uses of the Imperfect in Greek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. B. Sedgwick
W. B. Sedgwick
Affiliation:
Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester.
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Extract

1. The use of the imperfect ἔτικτε ‘was the mother of’, with ἡ τíκτουσα; ἐνίκων, οἱ νικντες; ὁ διδούς is well known, and no doubt correctly explained. Reference is frequently made to Virgil's quem dat Sidonia Dido, but ἐδίδου seems not to be used, no doubt because it is so extensively used in the sense of ‘offered’.

In T. 7. 56. 3 περιεγíγνοντο seems to be a substitute for ἐνíκων, ‘were victorious’; cf. ἔφερε in Find. O. 10 (11), 74 ‘was prizewinner’ (‘panoramic’ use, Gildersleeve—using Shilleto's term)—the other winners all have an aorist. So too Pyth. 3. 44.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 3-4 , October 1940 , pp. 118 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1940

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References

1 Cf. Jebb, on O.T. 437.Google Scholar

2 So Gk. has the choice of three tenses for ‘what do you say?’; τí λέγεις, τí επας, τí λέξεις (e.g. Eur. Hec. 1124).Google Scholar

3 Cf. Eur. Ph. 1423 fGoogle Scholar. ἀλλήλων πέλας πíπτουσιν ἄμφω ‘they lie’.

1 He has a suggestive note on P. 4. 247: ‘From this point [where P. takes the ‘short cut’] to the end of the story proper, P. has nothing but aorists [in French we should have the past definite], whereas the statistics of the myth show the proportion of imp. to aor. to be 1: 1. 78, which is unusually high: see A.J.P. iv, p. 162.’Google Scholar

1 Throughout the Most, we normally find peregre advenis, etc., rather than the perf. (advenientem, 1. 1124)Google Scholar. Decedens (de provincia) can always, I think, be explained as a true present.

2 Cf. Lindsay, , Lat. Lang., p. 465.Google Scholar

3 See Trayes, in Greece and Rome, 1936, p. 98.Google Scholar