Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/224

 210 GREECE (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) nunciation of the vowel above it; ft is pro- nounced like our v ; y before e, *, &c., like y ; 6 like the soft th or the soft Spanish d ; like z ; * as a strong aspirate, like a or j in Spanish ; T after v sounds like d ; and TT after ^ like /?. The Erasmians maintain that among the ancients each vowel and diphthong had its own proper sound : a like the Italian a, i like the Italian i, v like the French u or German u, e and 77 like the Italian long and short e respectively, and diphthongs the sounds which result from the combined sounds of their component letters. They maintain also that ft has the sound of our J, y of our hard g, 6 of <?, ? of dz, and # of German ch ; that T and TT should always re- tain the sound of t and p ; and that the initial aspirate should be sounded as h. The contro- versy has been carried on with renewed energy in recent times, but so far to no definite settle- ment, the etacists and the iotacists being equal- ly supported by high authorities. Greek gram- mar has received a scientific method through the results of comparative philology, especially subsequent to the labors of Bopp and Pott, and through the recent researches of Curtius. The noun in ancient Greek has three numbers, singular, dual, and plural. The dual is a later formation, and did not occur in ^Eolic. The distinction of the three genders, though un- known to Indo-European in its radical stage, was introduced very early, probably before the first separation occurred. There were origi- nally only the three cases, vocative, accusative, and nominative ; the genitive and dative were introduced subsequently. The three modes of declension vary in the ancient dialects. Ad- jectives have either three or two endings, and in the latter case the masculine and feminine agree. Personal pronouns are declined in a peculiar manner; otherwise the declensions of nouns apply also to adjectives, and with varia- tions to pronouns and numerals. Adjectives admit of comparison. Verbs are of three gen- era, possessing, besides the active and passive, a middle voice ; most tenses of the passive and middle voices coincide ; the middle has a kind of reflexive, reciprocal, or deponent character. The tenses are the present, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, aorist, future, and future perfect; the moods are the indicative, subjunctive, op- tative, imperative, and infinitive. The prete- rite tenses are formed by augments and redu- plication. There are active, reflexive, and pas- sive participles, and verbal adjectives. The endings are inflected according to the charac- ter of the verbs, which terminate either in pi or in (j in the first person singular of the present indicative. The language of the common peo- ple of modern Greece has a number of stri- king peculiarities. A<5a and words like it make in the genitive TW Mfof, in the plural T/ 661-ais, accusative raZf rffa<f. A large number of nouns belonging to different declensions are made to follow one. The v for the accusative is dropped in pronunciation where the pho- netic laws of the language admit of it. The plural of many words, especially those of foreign origin, is formed by adding <tef to the stem, as Traadfcf, from Traaaf, pashas. Many feminines whose root vowel is u or ov take f in the genitive singular, as rfc luupws, from rj fj.alp.ov, monkey. Metaplastic nouns or secon- dary formations are common, as 6 narepas, 6 fta- aiMaq. Of the pronouns, ifie often appears as kfiiva, and oe as ioe and kaiva ; ^fielg becomes often eueZf, and in the accusative both ipaq and (ia$ ; and ipeif becomes aelg and iaelg . The ar- ticle as enclitic and proclitic is used for the personal pronoun in oblique cases. In the verbs, Myovai becomes heyovv or /Uyowe; le- yov, foya; e/lefaf, eAefef ; and for eAlfare, ite- gere. In the passive, teyy or Myet becomes te- yeaat; heydfieda, fayd/ueare, and many other forms down to faydfteo-da. The verb elpi is con- jugated almost like a verb in the middle voice, thus: eZ/MM, elcai, elve, elfieda, ela0e, elve; imper^ feet, f][j.ow, TJGO, JJTO, tjneda, fjaQe, ijrov ; infinitive, eladar, and imperative, too. The termination fit is not found in the language of the common people. Modern Greek has also lost the old simplicity of expression, as may be seen by comparing a sentence from Plutarch's "Life of Caesar" with Rangabe's translation: Ori- ginal 'A/Ua Kovpiuv re Myerac Ty TTjjttwu Trepi- jSaAwv VTret-ayayeiv, avrdg re 6 K*/cpwv, a>f ol ve- avianot 7rpo<7/3Aei/;ai>, avavevaai, tyofirjQelg rbv &jyzov, $ rbv <}>6vov 5A<jf aSutov /cat Trapdvofiov jjyov/j.evoe. Translation 'AA/la "Xiyerat on 6 Kovpiuv ireptKa- /l(^af TOTE avrbv 6ia rfc TTjfiiwov rou, rbv i^yaye' KOI 6 Kinepuv, OTCLV ol vioi trpoai^e^av etc avrbv, bn ivevaev a7ro0<mwf, (popqdslf; rbv dijfiov, i] rbv <p6vov fi/lwf a6iK.ov /cat irapdvofiov deupuv. The words are still the same that Plutarch or even Thucydides might have employed. The gram- matical and lexicographical study of Greek was begun by the sophists, especially Prota- goras, by Plato, and by Aristotle in regard to rhetoric. After the decline of Grecian liberty and language many words and phrases became obsolete, and were explained by the grammarians under the titles of Mfris and yhuccai. There were yhuacai iarpiKai, vouinai, prfropiKai, i7iocoiK.ai, dEoTioyiitai, and y^aaaai flap- {3apinai, SuvdiKai, JlEpainai, &c. Homeric lexi- cons appeared at an early age; one of them was Apollonius's Aff 'O/^pf/ou', in which the youth of republican Athens searched for eluci- dations of the poet. Didymus compiled a "Tragic Lexicon," Theo a "Comic Lexicon," and Phrynichus a kind of dictionary, contain- ing the more recondite and exquisite phrases of the Attic writers, and entitled HpoTrapaanevf] I,oiaTiK^. Pausanias of Caesarea seems to have written the best rhetorical lexicon, containing illustrations of the Greek orators, as it is often quoted by Eustathius. The first who reduced into one vocabulary the Homeric, dramatic, and rhetorical lexicons was Diogenianus, a cele- brated grammarian, who lived in the time of Hadrian. The most prominent writers on grammar were Aristophanes Byzantinus (about 260 B. C.), Aristarchus of Samothrace (about