[B-Greek] hEAUTOU vs SEAUTOU
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Feb 13 05:24:13 EST 2008
On Feb 13, 2008, at 1:24 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
> Why can hEAUTOU be pluralized and SEAUTOU can not be
> pluralized (at least in the NT)?
Because SEAUTOU derives from the second person singular pronoun SU,
the plural of which is hUMEIS, while hEAUTOS is a reflexive pronoun
(acc. sg.) from an older reflexive accusative form SWE (σϝε) that
was used as a plural already in Homer and in Attic. I don't know how
far this common practice carries among languages, but in several IE
languages that I'm aware of, the third-person pronominal forms tend to
be used in formal speech for the second person, singular and plural
(Sie in German, Lei in Italian, for instance). At any rate, hEAUTOU/HS/
OU does come in Hellenistic Greek to be used where earlier SEAUTOU and
hUMWN AUTWN.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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