[B-Greek] nouns and their final stem vowels

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Sep 9 04:42:15 EDT 2006


On Sep 8, 2006, at 11:37 PM, Richard Barcellos wrote:

>> The notion of a morpheme is so problematic that most morphologists
>> (such as myself) eschew it.
>
> OK.
>
>> But even if one accepts an analysis that includes morphemes, the stem
>> vowel would not be considered a morpheme. To say that it indicates
>> the second declension is to get things around the wrong way. The
>> concept of "second declension" is just a means of grouping o-stem
>> nouns.
>
> So the "o" communicates nothing?

Not really. It's a formative element; noun and adjective stems fall  
into categories of declensional patterns: A stems in the "first"  
declension, O-stems in the "second", consonant-stems as well aas some  
long-vowel stems in the "third."

>
> Rich B.
> Owensboro, KY

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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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