[B-Greek] Morphology of EXW > hECW

Marco Fabbri fabbri at pusc.it
Wed Jan 26 12:34:18 EST 2005


I am not sure this is still needed. In case it helps, I go on.

I think the present should be transileterated ECW 
and the future hEXW. This is necessary to 
understand the following lines. C is the guttural 
aspirate, X the guttural + sigma.

The stem is originally SEC-.

As has been already pointed out, in many Greek 
words initial sigma  changes into rough 
breathing. You can compare, for instance, Greek 
hALS and Latin "sal", from which the English 
"salt" is derived.

So we have hEC-

Then the law of Grassmann applies (see 
http://bartleby.school.aol.com/65/gr/Grassman.html): 
successive syllables may not begin with 
aspirates, so that we may not have hECW.

The initial rough breathing is dropped, and we finally have ECW.

In future tense the law of Grassmann doesn't 
apply, as the second syllable no longer begins 
with an aspirate: we have X and not C.

I hope this helps,

Marco Fabbri


>On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:52:20 -0500 "Perry L. Stepp" <plstepp at kcu.edu>
>writes:
>>  I'm probably not transliterating correctly--I always get confused on
>>  X and
>>  C.  Anyway:
>>
>>  How in the world does EXW (I have) pick up the rough breathing in
>>  the future
>>  tense?  Is hECW a different (but very similar) stem?
>>
>>  Perry L. Stepp, Ph.D.
>>
>>  Associate Professor of Biblical Studies
>>  Kentucky Christian University
>____________________________
>
>There appears to be an ellision of an initial sigma -- at least that's
>the way I understand it.
>
>george
>gfsomsel
>___________
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-- 
_______________________________________
Prof. Marco V. Fabbri
Dipartimento di Sacra Scrittura
Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
Piazza S. Apollinare 49
I-00186 Roma
Italy

e-mail: fabbri at pusc.it
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