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επισκεφθείτε
by Heidi Aareskoski - Wednesday, 18 January 2012, 03:19 PM
  I am translating the sentence: "Οι Έλληνες σας προσκαλούμε να επισκεφθείτε την Ελλάδα." While I understand that it means "The Greeks welcome you to visit Greece." I can't, for the life of me, understand how επισκεπτομαι turns into επισκεφθείτε. My Greek book is not very good on explaining passive verbs. Could anyone explain to me, step by step, how the verb transforms?
Picture of gitsa dr
Απάντηση: επισκεφθείτε
by gitsa dr - Wednesday, 18 January 2012, 04:17 PM
  the verb goes like this : i will visit
you will visit
he/she/it
we will visit
YOU will visit
they .....

translate: εγώ θα επισκεφτώ
εσύ θα επισκεφτείς
αυτός θα επισκεφτεί
αυτή θα επισκεφτεί
αυτό θα επισκεφτεί
εμείς θα επισκεφτούμε
εσείς θα επισκεφτείτε
αυτοί θα επισκεφτούν



ok?
Picture of Heidi Aareskoski
Re: Απάντηση: επισκεφθείτε
by Heidi Aareskoski - Thursday, 19 January 2012, 01:49 AM
  So it is not a passive verb at all (although that was the only option my dictionary gave). And the τ turning into a θ just normal variation in the Greek language (like the number seven can be written both εφτα and επτα)?
Thank you!
Picture of Greg Brush
Re: Απάντηση: επισκεφθείτε
by Greg Brush - Thursday, 19 January 2012, 12:10 PM
  επισκέπτομαι is an ancient middle-voice verb that is now categorized as "passive" (in form), even though it retains its ancient middle-voice meaning, "I visit".

The now-standard demotic επισκεφτείτε (simple past επισκεφτήκατε), uses the demoticized consonant pair φτ, while the older, more formal (katharevousa) version retains the ancient written double aspirates φθ (although now pronounced as /fθ/), επισκεφθείτε (simple past επισκεφθήκατε).

Thus your sentence can be written either as the now-standard demotic:
Οι Έλληνες σας προσκαλούμε να επισκεφτείτε την Ελλάδα. = We the Greeks invite you to visit Greece.
or as the more formal:
Οι Έλληνες σας προσκαλούμε να επισκεφθείτε την Ελλάδα.

And yes, this is the same phonetic process at work in pairs like εφτά/επτά or φτωχός/πτωχός. For a little more about this phonetic process, see my replies to "Έντεκα ή ένδεκα;" in Discussion Forum 12 and to "table in lesson 016" in Discussion Forum 16.

Regards,
Greg Brush