loss of intervocalic sigma

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 29 20:42:56 EDT 2002


At 6:48 PM +0000 8/29/02, James Tauber wrote:
>I'm trying to work out why the loss of an intervocalic sigma sometimes
>does not occur.
>
>Looking at how nominative singular forms of nouns derive from their
>underlying stems, one encounters one case where sigma is dropped
>between epsilon and omicron (QEOS) and six cases where is it *not*
>dropped between epsilon and omicron (ESOPTRON, EFESOS and the MESOS-
>compounds).

I'm a bit (a great bit) confused by your question, particularly as concerns
QEOS: there's no sigma in the stem there; it's a regular second-declension
-O- stem and the -S is in fact the nominative sg. case ending.

As for ESOPTRON, as this is a compound of ES- and OPTRON, the -S- could not
fall out without loss of the sense of the prefix; in EFESOS, I would think
that -S- is an essential part of the proper noun-stem of the city name; the
-S- in MESOS (itself deriving, I believe, from an earlier Dhy (delta +
iota-consonant), the -S- could hardly fall out without loss of the distinct
identifying element of the prefix.

But maybe I'm not understanding your question rightly.

>Does sigma not drop in those cases because:
>
>1. they are more than two syllables?
>2. with the exception of EFESOS, they are compounds?
>3. there is some other process preventing the loss of sigma?
>4. they are merely exceptions to the rule that have to individually be
>noted?
>
>James
>--
>  James Tauber
>  jtauber at jtauber.com
>
>---
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-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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