Intervocalic Sigma in third declension nouns

jerker karlsson jerker_k at hotmail.com
Sat Nov 17 22:25:07 EST 2001


>From: "Brent Hudson" <brent at riveroflifembchurch.com>
>Reply-To: "Brent Hudson" <brent at riveroflifembchurch.com>
>To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
>Subject: [b-greek] Intervocalic Sigma in third declension nouns
>Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 18:52:46 -0400
>
>With respect to third declension nouns whose stems end in a dental; is 
>there
>an established rule/reason why the intervocalic sigma does not drop out in
>the dative plural (e.g., ELPISI ).  This is not mentioned specifically in
>Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek (n-3c(1-3)) or in Smyth (120).  Smyth
>says that S will remain because of phonetic change or analogy but I'm not
>sure if this applies here.  I was wondering if it is related to the loss of
>the D or if the I in the ending is consonantal.  Obviously this is not a 
>big
>deal, I'm just curious. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
>Brent Hudson
>
>Moncton, NB
>Canada

The reason is that the one "S" betwixt the vowels represents two, i.e. SS. 
It does so because the dental D in the stem ELPID then placed before the S 
in the dative –SI(V) (as also is the case nominative) transforms itself into 
a S  so a double  SS form occurs, and so the form ELPISSI(V) arrived. This 
double SS later changed into an single S, but that came about,  I assume,  
first then the trend of dropping a single S betwixt vowels had ceased.

The development of the present dative form for ELPIS is consequently like 
this: ELPIDSI>ELDISSI>ELPISI

regards
/jerker [karlsson -- New subscribers please note that BG protocol
requires a full-name signature to be appended to each message
sent to the list, regardless of what's indicated in the "From" header.
--cwc]

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