1. A Peculiarity of Homeric Orthography
- Author
-
G. M. Bolling
- Subjects
Literature ,Linguistics and Language ,business.industry ,Philosophy ,Representation (arts) ,Variety (linguistics) ,Language and Linguistics ,Spelling ,First person ,Imperfect ,Classics ,Scansion ,business ,Word (group theory) ,Orthography - Abstract
Karl Meister in his brilliant and valuable work, Die homerische Kunstsprache, Leipzig, 1921, page 85, has made a new start toward the explanation of the great variety of forms (so, E', so, ev, ov) which result from the contact of e and o in the Homeric text. In Ionic inscriptions of the sixth and fifth centuries the contraction of these vowels is not indicated in the writing. Its representation by ev begins only in the fourth century; and it is obvious-after Meister has pointed it out-that -v in the Homeric text cannot be of earlier date. He is dealing only with verbs of the 4t'X& type and has observed that apart from a few exceptions Ev is written within a word (4>L2ei3vras, o6XXeiPvraL, ba&elEvro, etc.), but not (&ckpeov, ?pGL,60v etc.) in the only ending involved. This orthographic innovation originated, he believes, im ionischen Buchhandel, and for this distinction he offers the explanation: "dass -ov als Endsilbe besonders fest im Sprachbewusstsein wurzelte, fester als die o in -ovnes -oJEa usw. im Wortinnern." This explanation seems to me to leave part of its own problem unexplained. We should expect under it forms like op7rEi4yEv of which there are no examples, but ten of -4Q0,ev always with -as its scansion. Again in the imperfect there seems to be a distinction -Evv at the end of the verse, -eov elsewhere-the two exceptions A 308 2 539 showing a division of the testimony of our authorities in a way which is quite unusual. If Meister's theory fails to provide for these facts, it proves still more unhelpful in dealing with other endings: -Eo of the second person middle, and of certain pronominal genitives, -Eos of the s-stems which are written more or less frequently -ev, -Evs, though we should expect them to be as firmly rooted im Sprachbewusstsein as the ending -Qov of the imperfect. Meister's main idea, however, that ev for eo is a reformed spelling introduced in the Homeric text not earlier than the fourth century seems to me correct. A study of it in all the categories mentioned has led me to the belief that its introduction was a more conscious
- Published
- 1923
- Full Text
- View/download PDF