Re: Neither here nor there.

At 3:42 pm -0700 5/6/01, jesse stephen bangs wrote:
>Raymond Brown sikayal:
>
>> ...and in fact in ancient Greek _entautha_ or its near synonym _enthade_ do
>> contrast with _ekei_, i.e. there is at least a two-way split.  The latter
>> decidedly shows distance and means only _there_ or _yonder_.
>
>This is true--Greek *does* distinguish between near and far, but it
>divides them differently than English does.
I agree; and it does well IMO for language constructor to look at some of
the different ways other langs distinguish between near, not-so-near,
not-so-far, far etc.  For the artlanger it gives scope for experimentation,
and for the serious auxlanger it is a salutary reminder that not all
languages behave like English (and I'm sure it has value for loglangers
also  :)

[snip]
>> continues well into the Classical period, as Jesse says.  But the meaning
>> was made clear by other means, e.g. use compound verbs and the use of cases
>> whereby:
>> prep. + accusative - motion towards
>> prep. + genitive - motion from
>> (prep. + dative - no motion)
>
>Or by prefixing prepositions, giving the forms:
>aperkhomai - to go away (apo "away from" + erkhomai)
>ekserkhomai - to go out (eks "out of" + erkhomai)
That's what I was thinking of by compound verbs.

>Oddly enough, I can't think of any word that means "to go towards" or "to
>come," unless its *eiserkhomai, but I doubt that such a word actualy
>occurs.
It did! it occurs as early as Homer and at least as late as Xenophon.  But
in litigious-loving Athens it came to be used particularly in a legal
context: I come into court; I am brought into court.

>Which probably explains the following:
>
>> But as the Classical period advances, the more specific meaning "come"
>> seems to start predominating.  I believe that in Hellenistic Greek,
>> _erkhomai_ is used solely with the meaning "I come"; certainly that is the
>> only meaning of _erkhomai_ /'erxome/ in modern Greek (where preps.,
>> whatever their meaning, take the acc. only).
I suspect the Hellenistic development is part of the internationalizing of
Greek as it became the Koine; it was being spoken either as L2 or as L1 by
bilingual people whose other L1 had separate verbs for 'come' and 'go'.

>This makes much sense.  Since prepositioned forms could easily take over
>the meanings of "leave" or "go", the plain form could mean "come."  What
>is the Modern Greek verb for "to leave"?  A reflex of "aperkhomai", or
>perhaps a reflex of "apoknumi"?
Neither.  The modern Greek for "I go" is /pi'jeno/
(pi-eta-gamma-alpha-iota-nu-omega) [aorist: /'piGa/ ]
And I have to come clean and admit I do not remember its etymology :(

"I leave", "I depart" is /'fevGo/ which is, of course, the ancient _pheugo_.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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