[B-Greek] 3rd Declension NSN Case Endings (correction)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Oct 15 10:00:59 EDT 2003
Having discovered the error of my ways (in this instance, especially), I
wish to correct it and only hope that I don't confuse the issues still more.
The facts regarding FWS, gen. FWTOS are more complicated than I represented
them in my message below and somewhat more complicated than what Ken Penner
indicated also (although his statement that there are two different stems
in the declension of this noun, FWS- and FWT- is in fact correct. Those
interested might want to look at Smyth §253, (Variation of Stem Formation)
esp. §253c, §257 "Stems in a dental (T,D,Q), §258.
The original form of this noun appears in Homer: nom. FAOS, gen. FAE(S)OS,
with alternation from O-grade to E-grade in the root and loss of
intervocalic -S- so that the Homeric forms are gen. FAEOS, dat. FAEI, n.
pl. FAEA. In Attic dialect FAOS has contracted the AO to W so that the
nom/acc. sg. is FWS, but at some point the analogy of the T-stems (i.e.
QHS/QHTOS,etc., Smyth §257) was applied to FWS although FWS is a neuter
rather than m. or f. as those nouns are. Finally the Attic declensional
forms were standard in Koine.
While I would not alter what I stated in my own earlier message cited below
with respect to comments (1) and (2), my statement (3) was inaccurate: it
is not true that final -T following a long vowel changed to -S (although
intervocalic -T- does change to -S- before an E or an I). What happens in
the case of the nouns in a dental stem (Smyth §257) is that the -T of the
noun stem assimilates to the nominative singular -S ending (nom. QHT-S
-->QHS).
It does remain true that phonology is the chief factor involved in apparent
anomalies in the ancient Greek morphoparadigms; but another key factor is
analogy--the assimilation of a somewhat irregular form to a pattern already
followed by other regular words of the type.
At 8:43 AM -0400 10/15/03, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 8:19 AM -0400 10/15/03, Barry W. Hickey wrote:
>>In BBG Bill Mounce states that neuter, singular nouns of the third
>>declension take no case ending. Now, the genitive singular of FWS is FWTOS.
>>Following Mounces advice of removing the genitive singular ending -OS I
>>would have guessed that the nominative singular form would be FW, not FWS.
>>Where is the sigma coming from? What am missing here?
>
>I no longer have a copy of BBG in my reference library to check the wording
>of Mounce's statement, but I would offer a couple comments:
>
>(1) It is not easy to frame a rule about any grammatical category so
>concisely and accurately that it clearly covers every instance within that
>category; if Mounce's text makes the statement as you report it, I would
>say that it's not so much wrong as it is misleading;
>
>(2) Phonological principles play a considerable role in shaping the actual
>historical forms of declension of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns and of
>conjugations of verbs, often such that striking anomalies are evident in
>the morphoparadigms (as when we see that a nominative QRIX has a genitive
>singular form TRICOS). In my own teaching of beginning Greek over the years
>I have felt that the role played by phonology is significant enough that a
>student ought to become familiar with the chief phonological principles
>governing ancient Greek. I have made available the "compendium of Greek
>phonology" that I regularly distributed to my beginning Greek classes at my
>web-site for download as a PDF file at
>http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/Docs/CompPhon.pdf .
>
>(3) The phonological principle here is the fact that the final T of the
>noun root FWT becomes S at word-end following a long vowel. The only
>consonants that are allowed by ancient Greek at a word-end are N,R,S and
>compounds of S such as X (KS), Y (PS). Following a short vowel a consonant
>at word-end other than those just listed is dropped; thus the root ONOMAT
>in the nominative singular loses the final -T and becomes simply ONOMA-.
>Thus it is actually true that neuter nouns of the third-declension are
>ending-less -- but the actual historical form may involve a phonetic
>transformation even of the simple noun root.
>--
>
>Carl W. Conrad
>Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
>1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
>cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
>WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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