Mark 1:1-13
Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ.῾Ως γέγραπται ἐν τοῖς προφήταις,
ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου,
ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου·
φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ,
ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίου,
εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ,
ἐγένετο ᾿Ιωάννης βαπτίζων ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ καὶ κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. καὶ ἐξεπορεύετο πρὸς αὐτὸν πᾶσα ἡ ᾿Ιουδαία χώρα καὶ οἱ ῾Ιεροσολυμῖται, καὶ ἐβαπτίζοντο πάντες ἐν τῷ ᾿Ιορδάνῃ ποταμῷ ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐξομολογούμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν. ἦν δὲ ὁ ᾿Ιωάννης ἐνδεδυμένος τρίχας καμήλου καὶ ζώνην δερματίνην περὶ τὴν ὀσφὺν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐσθίων ἀκρίδας καὶ μέλι ἄγριον. καὶ ἐκήρυσσε λέγων· ἔρχεται ὁ ἰσχυρότερός μου ὀπίσω μου, οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς κύψας λῦσαι τὸν ἱμάντα τῶν ὑποδημάτων αὐτοῦ. ἐγὼ μὲν ἐβάπτισα ὑμᾶς ἐν ὕδατι, αὐτὸς δὲ βαπτίσει ὑμᾶς ἐν Πνεύματι ῾Αγίῳ.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις ἦλθεν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἐβαπτίσθη ὑπὸ ᾿Ιωάννου εἰς τὸν ᾿Ιορδάνην. καὶ εὐθέως ἀναβαίνων ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος εἶδε σχιζομένους τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα ὡς περιστερὰν καταβαῖνον ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν· καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν· σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν σοὶ ηὐδόκησα.
Καὶ εὐθέως τὸ Πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει εἰς τὴν ἔρημον· καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ σατανᾶ, καὶ ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι διηκόνουν αὐτῷ.
The red words in the text are the verbs.
Click on a verb to display its morphology.
The verb forms that we find in the Greek are constructed from meaning units called "morphemes". Over time, phonological changes have taken place within the words at the juncture between morphemes, and at the end of the word too. The basic formation of a Greek verb is to set up the aspect, modify for the mood and then add the person (actor). Following that, a preposition may be prefixed or added to the sentence to add meaning, or to add another object into the verb's syntactic structure. Press the buttons in order from left to right to see how the morphs combined to form the words as we see them in the text.
The starting point for building any verb form is the Lexical Morpheme. The Lexical morpheme carries 3 pieces of information: (1) the inherent aspect of the word – this determines morphological patterns a word will follow to determine its aspect, (2) the possiblelexical meaning of the word, and (3) the lexical specificity of the word in that meaning – this determines how a word will be placed into the meaning arrangement of a sentence. This Lexical Morpheme is inherently durative, so it will take a Punctiliar Aspect morph to form the punctilliar aspect morph.
The starting point for building any verb form is the Lexical Morpheme. The Lexical morpheme carries 3 pieces of information: (1) the inherent aspect of the word – this determines morphological patterns a word will follow to determine its aspect, (2) the possiblelexical meaning of the word, and (3) the lexical specificity of the word in that meaning – this determines how a word will be placed into the meaning arrangement of a sentence. This Lexical Morpheme is inherently punctiliar.
The starting point for building any verb form is the Lexical Morpheme. The Lexical morpheme carries 3 pieces of information: (1) the inherent aspect of the word – this determines morphological patterns a word will follow to determine its aspect, (2) the possiblelexical meaning of the word, and (3) the lexical specificity of the word in that meaning – this determines how a word will be placed into the meaning arrangement of a sentence. This Lexical Morpheme has no inherent aspect.
The starting point for building any verb form is the Lexical Morpheme. The Lexical morpheme carries 3 pieces of information: (1) the inherent aspect of the word – this determines morphological patterns a word will follow to determine its aspect, (2) the possiblelexical meaning of the word, and (3) the lexical specificity of the word in that meaning – this determines how a word will be placed into the meaning arrangement of a sentence. This Lexical Morpheme has undefined inherent aspect.
Adding a Durative Elements to an Inherently punctiliar lexical morph changes the aspect of the Lexical Morpheme to Durative. These patterns of adding the durative property to verbs date from the pre-Greek period of the language. They don’t change the lexical meaning of the word, nor its lexical specificity in a particular meaning.
Changing the ablaut of a vowel in the Lexical Morph changes the aspect of the Lexical Morph to Perfective. This way of making the perfect is a legacy of an older part of the verbal system.
Adding a Neutral Aspect Morph to the lexical morph does not change the inherent aspect of the lexical morpheme. Here the verb remains durative
Adding a Neutral Aspect Morph to the lexical morph does not change the inherent aspect of the lexical morpheme. Here the verb remains punctiliar
Adding a Punctiliar Aspect Morph to an inherently durative lexical morph changes the aspect of the verb to Punctiliar.
Adding a Perfective Aspect Morph to any Lexical Morph changes the aspect of the verb to Perfective.
In the perfective medio-passive form there is no Perfective Aspect Morph. The Perfective aspect is indicated by the Perfective Reduplication at the beginning of the word.
Adding a perfective reduplication to the beginning of a verb indicates Perfective Aspect. It is a repetition of the first consonant – a deliberate stutter, OR a lengthening of the first vowel of a word. In English, we might use that as a way of not seeming too assertive, but in Greek it has grammatical significance.
Adding a perfective reduplication to the beginning of a verb indicates Perfective Aspect. In this case, the reduplication is syllabic, with a whole syllable being repeated.
At a morphological level, the aspect of the verb is changed to perfective by the process of reduplication. Reduplication is like a stutter at the beginning of a word. For some speakers of English, a stutter may be a politeness strategy, or a sign of fear. In Greek, that linguistic feature has taken on the conventional meaning of perfective aspect. punctiliar aspect morph -σα- is added to this (inherently) durative lexical morpheme σκευαζ- to change the aspect of this verb form to punctiliar.
Second, morphologiclly, The reduplication of the initial sound takes place over an ε (epsilon, the 'e' sounding vowel).
Third, morphologically, the third person singular secondary ending -ε(ν) is added to the end of the verb. The ν is parenethesised because it is only sometimes spoken/written for this verb ending - before a consonant it is silent and before a vowel the ν ("nu") is still spoken/written.
Fourth, phonetically, the punctiliar aspect morph -σα- is an elision morph - the final vowel α ("alpha") elides (ie it is lost) rather than combining with the following vowel.
Fifth, morphologically, the the past time marker is added to the front of the verb to explicate that the verb is past tense. In this case, it stands alone as an extra syllable prefixed to the verb - called the "syllabic augment".
Sixth, phonetically, the preposition παρά is one of the (proper) prepositions that loses its final alpha before a vowel - in this case the augment of the verb.
Seventh, morphologically, in some circumstances, the preposition that adds meaning to a simplex verb form is prefixed directly onto the verb form.