Origins of CEW

Richard Ghilardi qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Mon Jun 10 14:18:42 EDT 2002


Dear b-greekers,

Ward Powers in one of his posts dialoguing with Carl Conrad speculated
that the aorist of this word, ECEA, or rather the compounded form of the
NT, EXECEA, originally contained a digamma, f, between E and A. I thought
this might be right; so I looked up CEW in Middle Liddell and was
surprised to find that they made the root out to be *CU. After examining
all the forms they listed, I decided that this couldn't be right. I make
out the root to be *CEfU. In the future and aorist tenses of Homer the
fullest form of this root may be found:

CEUW and ECEUA

Here only f has dropped away.

In the present and aorist systems fU has dropped out.

CEW and ECEA

While in the perfect and passive systems Ef has disappeared:

KECUKA and CUQHSOMAI and ECUQHN and KECUMAI

Thus an assumed root of *CEfU seems to account for the data presented in
ML better than an assumed root of *CU. If this is correct, it follows
that the EU of Homer's CEUW and ECEUA is a SPURIOUS diphthong, being
formed merely by the loss of f.

Of course I realize that my thesis is merely an inference from the data
presented for the lemma CEW in ML. It has no basis in philological
investigation. However, it can easily be proven true or false by
examining the meters of Homer's poetry where CEUW or ECEUA occur. Since I
am not familiar with the verse of Homer, I cannot do this myself. Perhaps
Carl or someone else on the list can settle the question.

Yours in His grace,

Richard Ghilardi -- qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
New Haven, CT USA
Nibai kaurno hwaiteis gadriusando in airtha gaswiltith,
silbo ainata aflifnith: ith jabai gaswiltith, manag akran bairith.




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