21st Century Classical Greek -- oblique modality

So we’re studying afairisetai, and I eliminated the Word Tool suggestion that it was a “future perfect”, which is passive, because the structure isn’t intransitive. I also argued against a “future indicative” in base voice because that would make no sense in a context that calls for executive voice. The only choice left was “aorist subjunctive” and I changed the label “subjunctive” to the 21^st century term oblique, which expresses an action that is probable but not certain.

τῆς γὰρ ἐμπορίας οὐκ οὔσης, οὐδ᾽ ἐπιμειγνύντες ἀδεῶς ἀλλήλοις οὔτε κατὰ γῆν οὔτε διὰ θαλάσσης, νεμόμενοί τε τὰ αὑτῶν ἕκαστοι ὅσον ἀποζῆν καὶ περιουσίαν χρημάτων οὐκ ἔχοντες οὐδὲ γῆν φυτεύοντες, ἄδηλον ὂν ὁπότε τις ἐπελθὼν καὶ ἀτειχίστων ἅμα ὄντων ἄλλος ἀφαιρήσεται, τῆς τε καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἀναγκαίου τροφῆς πανταχοῦ ἂν ἡγούμενοι ἐπικρατεῖν, οὐ χαλεπῶς ἀπανίσταντο, καὶ δι᾽ αὐτὸ οὔτε μεγέθει πόλεων ἴσχυον οὔτε τῇ ἄλλῃ παρασκευῇ.

Now let’s deal with why a verb would be labeled aorist when it has no augment.

There is one really good reason for that. Verbs that start with alpha don’t take augment. This includes both roots and prefixes that start with alpha.

The second problem is calling it eventive instead of conceptual. Why? Look at White page 239, sections 766 and 767. Remember the base voice conjugation endings that we had a table of a long time ago? Which flavor of imperfective base voice has -tai as a conjugated ending in 3^rd person singular?

It’s the conceptual flavor.

But in oblique modality, that ending is listed under the eventive flavor.

For comparison, look at page 238, section 765, for progressive aspect middle voice. The oblique is labeled as conceptual flavor.

The old grammars clearly considered oblique modality as something that hasn’t happened yet, that’s why it got labeled “future more vivid”. If it hasn’t happened yet, it belongs in the conceptual column – even in imperfective. (There’s an exception which I will discuss later.)

So I want that whole chunk of oblique conjugation moved from section 767 to section 766. Making the conjugations more regular. When was the last time that happened in a grammar?

Now look at page 240, section 769 for perfective aspect. The base voice oblique is periphrastic; it requires that extra word. It uses the base voice personal gerundive, which forces it into the conceptual  flavor; there is no eventive personal gerundive. The executive voice oblique has no augment, which means it is also conceptual.

In general, how progressive and perfective verbs act is no rule for imperfective verbs. We already saw that the impersonal gerundive in imperfective is eventive, while the other two are conceptual. We already saw that the imperfective has a real passive in non-mai verbs but the progressive and perfective don’t.

You pays your money and you takes your choice. Either the imperfective oblique is conceptual and conjugates the same way in base voice as in other aspects, or it follows the flavor rule for impersonal gerundives and passives and lies in the eventive. I’m going to put it in the conceptual flavor column; if you find a context that says otherwise, please share the citation and we’ll all look at it.

So here’s our text again; what is Thucydides saying?

…νεμόμενοί τε τὰ αὑτῶν ἕκαστοι ὅσον ἀποζῆν καὶ περιουσίαν χρημάτων οὐκ ἔχοντες οὐδὲ γῆν φυτεύοντες, ἄδηλον ὂν ὁπότε τις ἐπελθὼν καὶ ἀτειχίστων ἅμα ὄντων ἄλλος ἀφαιρήσεται,…

He’s saying that settlements with no walls had the experience that attackers came to carry off their food, and whenever they saw armies amassing on their borders, they expected that afairisetai.

Thucydides is definite about the carrying off; he conjugates the verb. But he knows it is probable that some unwalled settlements didn’t experience this.

So we have three layers of definiteness in Thucydides’ use of verbs (conjugated, personal gerundive, impersonal gerundive) and we have more than one layer of certainty (indicative, oblique).  There is a third one which I’ll talk about when we get one.