[B-Greek] Philo vocabulary question
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Jul 1 21:05:46 EDT 2004
At 8:00 PM -0400 7/1/04, A. Philip Brown II wrote:
>Sorry to ask this here, but I couldn't figure out this word in Philo:
>TOUPIKRANON
>
>The sentence reads in part (from Loeb): O DE hIEREUS LABWN PROTEINETW TH
>GUNAIKI KAI TOUPIKRANON AFELWN, hIN' EPIKRINHTAI GEGUMNWMENH TH KEFALH ...
>F. H. Colson's translation: The priest taking the offering hands it to the
>woman and removes her kerchief, in order than she may be judged with her
>head bared ...
>
>Obviously, he is translating TOUPIKRANON as 'kerchief,' but I can't find the
>word in LSJ. There is a smooth breathing mark over the U, suggesting to me
>the possibility of a contraction, but that's all the farther I could get.
>
>Any help on the lexical form of this word would be appreciated.
This is an instance of crasis: TOUPIKRANON = TO EPIKRANON, which LSJ
defines as "that which is put on the head, head-dress, cap"--and one can
readily recognize the elements of the compouns as EPI- and KERA/KRA from
KERAS 'head.' In crasis the final vowel of the first word fuses/mixes with
the initial vowel of the second word, usually resulting in a vowel or
diphthong comparable to that of ordinary contractions, so that O + E --> OU.
--
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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