tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post6551776244121772181..comments2024-03-21T09:39:36.523+11:00Comments on Ἡλληνιστεύκοντος: ἐκαληθεύω: an ill-fitting prefix in Choeroboscusopoudjishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106433476518749382noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-54941378301619736732013-06-27T02:21:17.182+10:002013-06-27T02:21:17.182+10:00(This popped up in my feed again, who knows why.)
...(This popped up in my feed again, who knows why.)<br /><br />Of course you're not as impressed by hapaxes as I am, Nick; you've seen far more of them than I'll ever lay eyes on, since I don't work for a dictionary company, nor do I aspire to follow in the footsteps of Ammon Shea. Though in grade school there was a rumor that I had read the whole 14th EB; not so, of course — only the interesting parts.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-28129099647951942562011-04-14T10:54:24.224+10:002011-04-14T10:54:24.224+10:00On ex- as an intensifier: the same thing happens i...On ex- as an intensifier: the same thing happens in medieval Latin. In the Litany of the saints, where one team of chanters answers another until everybody is in a trance, the response to Christe audi nos is Christe exaudi nos. <br /><br />The usual translation is "Christ graciously hear us", but the ex- is really just an intensifier.nycguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799769428539687855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-12986854607679305412011-03-07T17:48:33.314+11:002011-03-07T17:48:33.314+11:00I asked my expert on French, and she replied that ...I asked my expert on French, and she replied that in fact <i>hellébore</i> is the more usual spelling, at least it was when she learned it. So my theory bites the ground. (That's the virtue of being a human being, as Popper had it: our hypotheses die in our place.)John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-54236481188682537342011-02-10T02:30:46.879+11:002011-02-10T02:30:46.879+11:00... yes, it would. Thanks.... yes, it would. Thanks.opoudjishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106433476518749382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-26928827754775956352011-02-09T22:01:37.004+11:002011-02-09T22:01:37.004+11:00Won't a better phonemic notation of [epáŋɡelma...Won't a better phonemic notation of [epáŋɡelma] be rather /epánɡelma/?minus273http://www.minus273.eunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-42301795582262349202011-02-02T22:36:03.780+11:002011-02-02T22:36:03.780+11:00You are quite wrong, unless you want to argue that...You are quite wrong, unless you want to argue that virtually all Greek borrowings into French passed through Latin first. Most Greek borrowings that should have a <em>h-</em> have a <em>h-</em>, from <em>hagiographe</em> to <em>hystérotomie</em>. There are only a few exceptions, among them <em>odomètre</em>, <em>eurêka</em>, <em>ellébore</em>, <em>endécagone</em>, but even those can be found with <em>h-</em> from time to time.lukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10967852565627690025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-7680538313281437742011-02-02T19:32:08.664+11:002011-02-02T19:32:08.664+11:00I have this theory that French doesn't do h- i...I have this theory that French doesn't do <i>h-</i> in Greek borrowings, only in Latin ones. I may be quite wrong.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-82501277809308145932011-02-02T10:50:55.052+11:002011-02-02T10:50:55.052+11:00There will be three posts once I get to them (and ...There will be three posts once I get to them (and stop trying to create animations of Ancient Greek philosophy):<br /><br />* The accentuation of <i>kse-mangas</i>. I know why I got the accent wrong, and I think Nikos does too; and the two conflicting principles on how to accent such compounds are worth discussion.<br /><br />* The timing of the inflection change in the Imperfect, that Dimitar raised. I don't have any special expertise in the time period, but I'll look at what Mayser and Gignac say for the papyri, and take it from there.<br /><br />* The post I originally intended—linguistic commentary on the "Raid on the Hashish Den" sketch I posted at The Other Place.<br /><br />I've got Gentlemen from Porlock in town, so I may be a few days with these. Thanks for comments, will come back to them later.opoudjishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106433476518749382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-57256793434546683072011-02-01T02:12:56.064+11:002011-02-01T02:12:56.064+11:00Another thing: the correct stress of the word ξεμα...Another thing: the correct stress of the word ξεμαγκας is ξέμαγκας, not ξεμάγκας, as you read in various Internet forums because when it was coined the rule was observed even with vernacular coinages, e.g. ξέπαπας.Νίκος Σαραντάκοςhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03184327171754044982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-42968810851424507752011-01-31T23:44:19.745+11:002011-01-31T23:44:19.745+11:00This post touches upon a lot of different topics, ...This post touches upon a lot of different topics, so it is difficult to comment all interesting points, but I would like to say that<br />a) disregarding of aspiration in new compound words is not a recent phenomenon but has started more than 100 years ago, with examples like μαργαριταλιεία or the somewhat later αυτοκινητάμαξα.<br />b) hypercorrection re aspiration has produced some words that managed to get accepted like μέθαύριο or εφέτος.<br />c) you correctly point out the lack of elision in new coinages, albeit savant. This is something new in that even horrible hiatuses are tolerated like your μετα-αποικιακός or even τηλε-εργασία or the brand new νεο-οθωμανικός, where the unelided type is equally frequent as the elided, despite the hiatus that stands out like a sore thumb. (I assume that hiatus means χασμωδία -if not, that is what I wanted it to mean).Νίκος Σαραντάκοςhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03184327171754044982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-48242057987776993002011-01-31T20:54:09.092+11:002011-01-31T20:54:09.092+11:00Thank you for your post, inspiring as usual. I'...Thank you for your post, inspiring as usual. I've been following your blog for some time now and I really take pleasure in your linguistic leaps from Byzantine epistolography to rembetiko and back. That's the kind of intellectual indulgence the student of Greek can and should afford (although I myself am more of a classical than of a Modern Greek scholar by training, which makes your insights concerning later stages of Greek all the more instructive for me).<br />And now the particular question that provoked my de-lurking. It has to do with your last remark on the Modern Greek type of Imperfect. The shift from -ον-type to sigmatic type of endings is well-attested for the Aorist. Since in pre-hellenistic times it is found in elegy, early epigram, and Herodotus, one can infer that it was first introduced in (Asian?) Ionian and from there it was borrowed in Koine, like many other linguistic features, facilitatred by the analogical influence of asigmatic Aorist types such as ἤγγειλα. But when were the asigmatic endings introduced to the Imperfect? Was this a parallel process of dispensing with the thematic -ον-endings both in Impf. and Aor., or it was the Aor. first and then the Impf. by analogy with the other past tense?dimitar.illievhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01617311829539272531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-20426024522936938232011-01-31T10:56:40.100+11:002011-01-31T10:56:40.100+11:00I'm behind in responding to comments:
@John: ...I'm behind in responding to comments:<br /><br />@John: It is the doom of older languages to have obscure hapaxes. I don't think I'm as in love with <i>hodymoke</i> as you are, though.<br /><br />French doesn't pronounce the <h>, but that's no reason to have dropped it in the spelling. This sounds like one of those fluke latterday omissions of <h>, <a href="http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003756.php" rel="nofollow">like with <i>eureka</i></a>. There's a good argument in the linked Language Hat thread from Bill Walderman, that <i>eureka</i> lost its <h> because it was taken from Latin manuscripts with ΕΥΡΗΚΑ in capitals. That wouldn't apply to <i>(h)odomètre</i> (which is also mentioned in the thread); there, we might have to settle for Renaissance confusion about breathings. <br /><br />The mechanisms of hypercorrection are ultimately the mechanisms of analogy, so calling it one or the other is arguably a value judgement. Even <i>habañero</i> is an analogy after all.<br /><br />@Stephen Carlson:<br /><br />I paused over /epáɡɡelma/: of course it was pronounced [epáŋɡelma], but I decided that if I am using phonemic rather than phonetic transliteration (slashes not square brackets), then I couldn't introduce /ŋ/ as a phoneme. (Not that my phonemic transliterations are that meticulous.)<br /><br />You've got me with ἐκτένιζα; I of course meant to use the imperfect, ἐκτένιζον, and committed my own thinko: the Modern imperfect has the Ancient First Aorist ending (χτένιζα "I was combing", χτένισα "I combed"). So I conjugated ἐκτένιζον wrong.opoudjishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106433476518749382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-85577888532579965342011-01-31T10:04:27.081+11:002011-01-31T10:04:27.081+11:00Pretty good and fascinating. I learned a lot. I ...Pretty good and fascinating. I learned a lot. I do have a couple minor questions and a typo, however:<br /><br />1. 'exhcange' in the 4th paragraph should be 'exchange'<br /><br />2. Is ἐπ-άγγελμα really pronounced /epáɡɡelma/? I would have thought the double gamma indicated a nasal.<br /><br />3. Does the classical aorist ἐκτένιζα /ekténiza/ "I combed" really have a zeta? I would have thought it had a sigma like this: ἐκτένισα.Stephen C. Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18239379955876245197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-51139845527860543372011-01-31T06:28:30.047+11:002011-01-31T06:28:30.047+11:00Of course, sometimes English will not save you. O...Of course, sometimes English will not save you. <i>Odometer</i> is from οδος, but English got that word through French; the far more obscure words <i>hodograph, hodometrical, hodoscope</i>, which have to do with measuring how far a ship goes rather than an automobile, show you the correct breathing — but only if you have looked in the OED for them.<br /><br />(This leads me by alphabetical association to the wonderful word <i>hodymoke</i>, a hapax legomenon (yet another haspiration) in English, derivation unknown, meaning obscure. Quoth the OED: "<i>c</i>1450 J. Myrc <i>Instr. to Par. Priests</i> 2031 Huyde hyt not in hodymoke, Lete other mo[re] rede þys boke" and glosses it '? concealment', than which no one could do better.)<br /><br />Lastly, I do not believe, and nor do Huddleston & Pullum, that <i>between you and I</i> is hypercorrection; rather, it is grammatical restructuring, originally by analogy, but now subsisting independently. True hypercorrection in English is represented by such things as <i>habañero</i> for <i>habanero</i> '[capsicum] from Havana', which shows up in English because the <i>eñe</i> is a more Hispanic sort of letter. And even there analogy with <i>jalapeño</i> '[capsicum] from Xalapa [in Mexico]' provides support for it. Better yet, there is the American pronounciation of <i>lingerie</i> as /ˈlɑnʒɚeɪ/, with a more Frenchy /ɑ/ and an ending reminiscent of French borrowings in <i>et, ez</i>, etc.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1291147930399569160.post-19195001993961751722011-01-31T04:09:17.442+11:002011-01-31T04:09:17.442+11:00... I'm looking at Leo's text again, and I...... I'm looking at Leo's text again, and I have the horrifying suspicion he *is* using ἐξαληθεύω like Photius is, after all:<br /><br />εἰ δοκῶν ψεύδεσθαι ἀληθεύεις<br />if, when seeming to lie, you tell the truth (ἀληθεύω)<br />ἐκαληθεύοντός σου, [οὐ ψεύσῃ]<br />when you thoroughly tell the truth, [you arenʼt lying].<br />Οὕτω δοκῶν ψεύδεσθαι ἀληθεύεις<br />Thus seeming to lie, you tell the truth,<br />καὶ ἀληθεύων οὐκ εἰς ψεῦδος ἀποκλίνεις<br />and telling the truth, you do not deviate into lies.<br /><br />ἐκαληθεύοντός is used to parallel ἀληθεύων, so it is of the same polarity: it is used to mean "actually (literally) telling the truth", which is pretty much how Photius used ἐξαληθίζομαι<br /><br />So my last paragraph was wrong. Still, I can see how Leo got himself confused, if he got me confused. Still making a thinko possible.opoudjishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02106433476518749382noreply@blogger.com