Sunday, November 30, 2008

Incorporating Greek verbs

I'd like to bring in Greek verb roots in mass, so that users of Vulgare would be at least familiar with the original Greek vocabulary. The Greek roots will have to be incorporated into the Latin-based grammar that I've described already. For instance, I'd have to chose principle parts for each Greek word, but since Greek has both an aorist tense and a perfect tense, I'm not sure exactly which form to use. I'll muse a little here.

For the verb παύω (I stop), the Vulgare form could be pavo, with the infinitive pavere. The conjugations could be as follows:

Imperfect: pavo, pavis, pavit, pavimus, pavitis, pavent.
Perfect (derived from Greek perfect): pepauci, pepaucis, pepaucit, pepaucimus, pepaucitis, pepaucent.
Perfect (derived from Greek aorist): epausi, epausis, epausit, epausimus, epausitis, epausent.

In the end, the decision of how to derive the Vulgare perfect would depend on which form would be best for the user if she or he decides to explore Greek further. I'll look into whether the aorist is used more commonly than the perfect, and if so, that may be one factor in my decision. Or maybe, users can be given both forms. I don't know yet.

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