reading morphologically

A resource for using morphophonology in Ancient Greek and Latin language instruction.

Hansen & Quinn, Greek: An Intensive Course

Introduction / Unit 1 / Unit 2 / Unit 3 / Unit 4 / Unit 5 / Unit 6 /
Unit 7 / Unit 8 / Unit 9 / Unit 10 / Unit 11 / Unit 12 / Unit 13 / Unit 14 /
Unit 15 / Unit 16 / Unit 17 / Unit 18 / Unit 19 / Unit 20

<lists of verbs organized in different ways>

Reading Morphologically is a resource for those who’d like to explore Ancient Greek from a morphophonological approach. Standard textbooks like Hansen & Quinn teach morphology by presenting the final forms of words—the words as we use them in speech and writing—organized neatly in charts and lists. In contrast, the morphophonological approach shows you how to construct final forms yourself, reducing the quantity of charts and lists you must memorize by rote. In turn, it helps you analyze and interpret words, whether you’ve learned those words before or not. In the end, it gives you a sense of the language that approximates—albeit very imperfectly—how a native speaker thinks about the language.

The pages in this section of Reading Morphologically serve as a supplement to your textbook. They do not replace the material your teacher assigns, but they may make it easier and more intuitive to learn.

The material in these pages is presented both for students and for teachers. Your teacher may not have thought about Ancient Greek explicitly in this way, but this has nothing to do with their competency in the language. After all, you can be a fluent speaker of English without being versed in the linguistics underlying the language. The morphophonological approach simply makes learning the language a bit less difficult, and perhaps teachers new to the approach will enjoy seeing the language from a new perspective along with their students.