[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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