ABSTRACT
FROM the Greek “is” https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203101667/71037d88-9caa-4ef5-aca9-626f0a80e79b/content/figp01_01_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> we get directly the participle https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203101667/71037d88-9caa-4ef5-aca9-626f0a80e79b/content/figp01_02_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>, the noun, https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203101667/71037d88-9caa-4ef5-aca9-626f0a80e79b/content/figp01_03_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>, and the adverb, https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203101667/71037d88-9caa-4ef5-aca9-626f0a80e79b/content/figp01_04_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>. From the English “is” all we can get directly is the participle, being, but no noun or adverb. We can't say “beingness” or “beingly”, and have to shift to “reality” and “really”. But when we do this we lose a verb from the same stem: we can't say, “Socrates reals a man” or “Socrates reals wise”, unless we want to start one of those over-strenuous linguistic games, like Hegelese or Heideggerese. If we want to talk English, we will have to break up the consanguineous Greek quartet into two etymologically unrelated groups, picking our verbs from the first, our noun and adverb (and also the exceptionally useful adjective, “real”) from the second. This is no great hardship. But it makes less than obvious what leaps to the eye in the Greek: that “real” and “reality” are simply the adjectival and nominal forms of “to be”, and that “is” in turn represents the verbal form of “real” and “reality”.
