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The Origin and Use of O, H, TO Δeina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. C. Moorhouse
Affiliation:
University College, Swansea

Extract

The question of the source of the pronominal forms (in which Seiva itself is indeclinable), and of the later fully declined forms, presents an unusual situation. It seems clear from earlier work that we should not look for the answer outside Greek, nor probably even outside colloquial Attic Greek of the fifth century. These are strong advantages, but despite them one cannot have much confidence in the solutions so far provided, and there is room for a fresh approach. In addition to this, the usage of the forms does not seem to have been explained satisfactorily, and I shall attempt to clarify it.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1963

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References

page 19 note 1 ‘The Etymology of Greek , Language xxiii (1947), 207 ff.Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 It is possible, however, as Professor Dover has pointed out to me, that it was formed earlier, but that no trace of the earlier use survives.

page 21 note 1 Also possibly in Aristophanes, Thes. 1197, if we accept the reading (so van Leeuwen). See my article in Classical Greek' in C.Q. N.S. xii (1962), 235 ff.Google Scholar In it I rejected Wharton's proposal to derive from which is exactly the reverse of my own. My objection based on the dialectal difference ( in Lesbian and Ionic: in Attic and Doric) is not really affected by Thes. 1197, since there the speaker is a barbarian; but in any case the argument from silence by itself has little force when we are dealing with a word which occurs rarely anywhere. The remaining objections which I raised will not apply to my opposite derivation.

page 21 note 2 Cf. Postgate, J. P., Camb. Phil. Soc. Trans. 1886–93, pp. 5558.Google Scholar

page 21 note 3 Also probably in Hesychius, who cites , though glossing it with : the true gloss, appears attached to the neighbouring

page 21 note 4 Professor Dover suggests an alternative explanation of Seiva, that it arose in the nominative with lengthened into d Sciva on rhythmical grounds. This would of course require prior extension of from accusative to nominative.

page 22 note 1 A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, s.v.

page 22 note 2 Wildhagen, and Héraucourt, , German- English Dictionary, s.v.Google Scholar

page 22 note 3 Cf. Schol. ad Lucian, Vit. Auct. 19 (quoted by Starkie, ad Ar. Vesp. 524): But desire for concealment is not the only motive for its use.

page 22 note 4 With the masculine and feminine article so far as I have seen, always refers to a person. This is possibly a relic of its origin, for would have referred to a man just as did

page 22 note 5 Schwyzer, , Griech. Gramm. i. 612, wrongly quotes as a late form.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 It will be seen that I would in any case much restrict the interjectional use. Some have gone so far as to regard all uses of as ‘outside the construction’ (so Starkie, ad Vesp. 524: cf. Rogers, ad Pax 268), but such a view cannot be maintained.

page 24 note 2 Not ‘do you eat such a fish?’, as L.S.J.

page 24 note 3 Thus in the division of speakers by Lloyd-Jones (O.C.T.).

page 25 note 11 Not so indefinite as ‘somebody’. L.S.J. are in error in translating Arist. Pol. 1262a3 as ‘mine or some other's’: rather it is ‘he is my son, or this or diat man's‘, and the passage continues There is a contrast with in Dem. 4. 19 Demosthenes does not use in the interjectional sense of marking a new thought, but the usage recurs in later prose, in Lucian (cf. L.S.J.).

page 25 note 12 Kühner-Blass (i. 615) refer to use of the word by Plato, but I have been unable to trace this.