Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/525

 hima-), Gr.  ; I.E. *stigh- (Skt. stigh-), Gr. ; I.E. gṷhen- (Skt. han-), Gr.  (probably), . The palatal and velar series cannot be distinguished in Greek; for the differences between them resort must be had to languages of the satem-group, such as Sanskrit, Zend or Slavonic, where the palatals appear as sibilants (see ). The labio-velar series present a great variety of forms in the different Greek dialects, and in the same dialect before different sounds. Thus in Attic before o vowels, nasals and liquids, the series appears as, , ; before e and i vowels as ,  , ; in combination with u, which led to loss of the ṷ by dissimilation, , , . Thus  corresponds to the Latin sequo-r, apart from the ending;  to Latin bos (borrowed from Sabine), English cow; “slaughter,” , old Irish gonim, “I wound.” Parallel to these forms with p are forms in the Italic languages except Latin and Faliscan, and in the Cymric group of the Celtic languages. The dental forms , ,  stand by themselves. Thus  (from the same root as  , etc.) is parallel to the Latin quis, the Oscan pis, old Irish cía, Welsh pwy, “who?” “what?”; Attic  , Ionic  “four” is parallel to Latin quattuor, Oscan  , old Irish cethir, old Welsh petguar;  is from the same root as  . For the voiced sound,  is much more common than  before e and i sounds; thus  “life,” from the same root as Skt. jīvas, Latin vīvus;  “bowstring,” Skt. jyā, &amp;c. In Arcado-Cyprian and Aeolic,  and often precede e and i sounds. Thus parallel to Attic  Lesbian has  , Homer  , Boeotian  ; Thessalian , Boeotian alongside of Attic  , Lesbian, Doric  and also . In Arcadian and Cyprian the form corresponding to was , in Thessalian , where the labialization was lost (see the article on ).

A great variety of changes in the stopped consonants arose in combination with other sounds, espey &#7725; (a semivowel of the nature of English y), ṷ (w) and s; -&#7725;-, -&#7725;- became first -- and later -- in Attic Greek, -- in Boeotian (the precise pronunciation of -- and -- is uncertain): Attic, earlier  , Boeotian  , from the same stem as the Latin quot, quotiens; Homeric , Attic from * , Latin medius; -&#7725;-, -χ&#7725;- became --, Attic --: “pitch,” Attic  from *, cp. Latin pix, picis,, Attic  comparative to. and became : (Skt. Dyāuṣ)  from , stem  - “hope,” from , stem  - “lash.”

(d) The sound ṷ was represented in the Greek alphabet by ϝ, the “digamma,” but in Attic and Ionic the sound was lost very early. In Aeolic, particularly Boeotian and Lesbian, it was persistent, and so also in many Doric dialects, especially at the beginning of words. When the Ionic alphabet was adopted by districts which had retained ϝ, it was represented by : Aeolic for , i.e.. In Attic it disappeared, leaving no trace; in Ionic it lengthened the preceding syllable; thus in Homer is scanned with  long because the root of the verb contained ϝ: -. Attic has , but Ionic for. Its combination with became --, Attic and Boeotian --, in,  ,  for I.E. gṷetu-.

But the most effective of all elements in changing the appearance of Greek words was the sound s. Before vowels at the beginning, or between vowels in the middle of words, it passed into an h sound, the “rough breathing.” Thus is the same word as the Latin septem, English seven; has the same stem as the Latin sal, English sal-t; for  is the same as the Latin uro (*eusô). Combined with i or ṷ also it passes into h; , Skt. syūman, “band”; , Doric , Latin suā(d)vis, English sweet; cp. for *, Lesbian “temple,” through from * connected with  “dwell.” Before nasals and liquids s was assimilated: , Latin mi-ru-s, English smile; , Latin nivem, English snow; , Latin laxus, English slack; <span title="rheô"> from *sreu-ō of the same origin as English stream (where t is a later insertion), imperfect for *esreṷom; cp. also <span title="philommeidês"> , , <span title="allêktos">.

After nasals s is assimilated except finally; when assimilated, in all dialects except Aeolic the previous syllable is lengthened if not already long: Attic,  for the first aorist *enemsa, * emensa; but,  , &amp;c., of the accusative pl. either remained or became in Aeolic,  , in Ionic and Attic  ,  , in Doric <span title="tôs">, ; cp. for *,  for *<span title="bants, heis"> “one” for * sem-s, then by analogy of the neuter *sens. Assimilation of to preceding  and  is a matter of dialect: Ionic , but Attic <span title="tharrô">, and so also the Doric of Thera: , but  for * . With nasals &#7725; affected the previous syllable: <span title="tektainô"> (* ), where &#7755; is the nasal of the stem <span title="tektôn">, itself forming a syllable (see the article  for these so-called sonant nasals). Before &#7725; original m becomes n; hence <span title="bainô"> with n, though from the same root as English come. Original &#7725; does not survive in Greek, but is represented by the aspirate at the beginning of words, = Skt. yajnas; medially after consonants it disappears, affecting the preceding consonant or syllable where a consonant precedes; between vowels it disappears. A sound of the same kind is indicated in Cyprian and some other dialects as a glide or transition sound between two vowels.

(e) The most remarkable feature in the treatment of the nasals is that when n or m forms a syllable by itself its consonant character disappears altogether and it is represented by the vowel only: , Latin tentus, - negative particle, Latin in, English un; has the same prefix as the Latin sim-plex (s&#7747;). The liquids in similar cases show or  and  or <span title="ar: te-tla-men, pe-paltai; edrakon, thrasys, tharsos">.

The ends of words were modified in appearance by the loss of all stop-consonants and the change of final m to n,, Latin dixit; , Latin iugum.

Accent.—The vowel system of Greek has been so well preserved because it shows till late times very little in the way of stress accent. As in early Sanskrit the accent was predominantly a pitch accent (see ).

Noun System.—The I.E. noun had three numbers, but the dual was limited to pairs, the two hands, the two horses in the chariot, and was so little in use that the original form of the oblique cases cannot be restored with certainty. Ionic has no dual. The I.E. noun had the following cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Ablative, Instrumental, Locative and Dative. The vocative was not properly a case, because it usually stands outside the syntactical construction of the sentence; when a distinctive form appears, it is the bare stem, and there is no form (separate from the nominative) for the plural. Greek has confused genitive and ablative (the distinction between them seems to have been derived from the pronouns), except for the solitary <span title="woikô"> = in an inscription of Delphi. The instrumental, locative and dative are mixed in one case, partly for phonetic, partly for syntactical reasons. In Arcadian, Elean, Boeotian, and later widely in N. Greece, the locative - is used for the dative. The masculine ā-stems make the nom. in most dialects in -. The genitive is in - (with  borrowed from the o-stems), which remains in Homer and Boeotian, appears in Arcado-Cyprian as - , and with metathesis of quantity -<span title="eô"> in Ionic. The Attic form in - is borrowed directly from the o-stems. In the plural the ᾱ and -o stems follow the article in making their nominatives in - and -  instead of the original -ās and -ōs. The neuter plural was in origin a collective singular, and for this reason takes a singular verb; the plural of “yoke” was originally * iugā, and declined like any other -ā stem. But through the influence of the masculine and feminine forms the neuter took the same oblique cases, and like its own singular made the accusative the same as the nominative. In the plural of -ā and -ō stems, the locative in -<span title="aisi, -oisi"> was long kept apart from the instrumental-dative form in -<span title="ais, -ois">.

The Verb System.—The verb system of Greek is more complete than that of any of the other I.E. languages. Its only rival, the early Vedic verb system, is already in decay when history begins, and when the classical period of Sanskrit arrives the moods have broken down, and the aorist, perfect, and imperfect tenses are syntactically confused. Throughout the Greek classical period the moods are maintained, but in the period of the <span title="koinê"> the optative occurs less and less and finally disappears. The original I.E. had two voices, an active and a middle, and to these Greek has added a third, the passive, distinguished from the middle in many verbs by separate forms for the future and aorist, made with a syllable -<span title="thê-, timêthêsomai, etimêthên">, though in this instance, <span title="timêsomai"> , the future middle, is often used with a passive sense. Other forms which Greek has added to the original system are the pluperfect—in form a past of the perfect stem with aorist endings. It merely expressed the perfect action in past time, and, except as derived from the context, did not possess the notion of relative time (past at a time already past), which attaches to the Latin forms with the same name. The future optative was also a new formation, betraying its origin in the fact that it is almost entirely limited to Oratio Obliqua. The aorist imperatives were also new; the history of some of them, as the second sing. act. , is not very clear. The whole verb system is affected by the distinction between -ō and -mi verbs; the former or thematic verbs have a so-called “thematic vowel” between the root and the personal suffix, while the -mi verbs attach the suffixes directly to the root. The distinction is really one between monosyllabic and disyllabic roots. The history of the personal endings is not altogether clear; the -ō verbs have in the present forms for the 2nd and 3rd person in - and - , which are not yet elucidated. In the middle, Greek does not entirely agree with Sanskrit in its personal endings, and the original forms cannot all be restored with certainty. The endings of the primary tenses differed from those of the secondary, but there has been a certain amount of confusion between them.

The syntax of the verb is founded on the original I.E. distinction of the verb forms, not by time (tense), but by forms of action, progressive action (present and imperfect), consummated action (aorist), state arising from action, emphatic or repeated action (perfect). For the details of this see.

—(i.) A grammar of Greek, which will deal fully with the whole material of the language, is at present a desideratum, and is hardly possible so long as new dialect material is being constantly added and while comparatively so little has been done on the syntax of the dialects. The greatest collection of material is to be found in the new edition of Kühner’s Griechische Grammatik, Laut- und Formenlehre, by Blass (2 vols., 1890–1892); Syntax, by Gerth (2 vols., 1896, 1900). Blass’s part is useful only for material, the explanations being entirely antiquated. The only full historical account of the language (sounds, forms and syntax) at present in existence is K. Brugmann’s Griechische Grammatik (3rd ed., 1900).