Page:The Suffix -μα in Aristophanes.djvu/8

Rh of the number of nouns in in Euripides to the number of verbs in  and  that he employs is very much greater than this ratio is in other Greek authors. The most that can be said, however, about the word and the rest is that they are extended forms made after the Euripidean fashion, for Aristophanes himself acknowledged the influence of Euripides when he confessed that he borrowed the tragic poet's terseness or condensation of speech; but whether in the present instance this imitation was intentional or not is open to question.

,, and , are plainly comic coinages. Aristophanes made up the form in Eq. 315 (cf. fr. 591) in place of (Ach. 1040, 1119, Nub. 455, fr. 461), partly no doubt for the purpose of getting a word that would more nearly correspond in form with  ('shoe-sole'—'rissole'). In like manner he formed in Eq. 279 as a substitute for —a word that is prominent in the thought and conversation of the Sausage-seller, cf. 357, 1174, 1178—in order that it might more closely resemble, i. e., , for which it was used. Another word denoting a kind of food that was extended through the addition of the same ending is (= ) in Araros 8, cf. Sophron fr. 24 (Kaibel), Pherecr. 230, adesp. 960, and. Again, the suffix is used in the comic formation Nub. 166 (cf. ) 'gutology', 'penetrative insight into the of the gnat'.

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