Description of the Greek Individual Verbal Systems

Reviews / Votes

"[A] handy new book ... This is an extremely useful book for anyone who is interested in the history of the Greek verb, and it should become a standard reference work in all classical libraries." - in: Classical World 98.1 (2004)

"Every linguist knows the part that the Greek language has played in the history of Indo-European linguistics. This is the reason why a book on the Greek language has a wider audience and makes many researchers pay attention to it. ... the author attempts to assemble the first description of the possible inflexions found for each verb that Greek inherited from Proto-Indo-European up to the fifth century and in some cases later. His initiative is to be praised as he succeeds to provide an accurate presentation of the Greek verbal system. The fascinating world of the Greek verb is carefully organized and presented in its exact details. The novelty of the book also lies in the popularization of a new concept, that of 'individual verbal system', which points to the intricate structure of the Greek verb. ... The most important and original part of the study is represented by a 250 page-chapter dealing with the Greek 'individual verbal systems' (a term introduced by Jamison (1983)), i.e. the various forms in which each verb occurs within the corpus. The core of each individual verbal system is arranged according to the categories of present and aorist, and in the end according to their combinations ... Beside W.D. Whitney's description of the Sanskrit verbal roots, verbal forms and primary derivatives, Indo-European linguists have at their disposal, 115 years later, a description of the Greek verb which attempts to add new information (or possible sources of information) about the Proto-Indo-European verbal system." - in: The Linguist List 12.726 (Thu. March 15, 2001)