Re: EAK - two problems

On May 21, 2007, at 8:27 AM, R A Brown wrote:

> R A Brown wrote:
> The two Homeric epics, the Iliad & the Odyssey, occupied a place
> among the Greeks comparable to that of the King James Version of
> the Bible in the anglophone world. In epic we find the following
> genitives (accents not shown):
> emeio "of me"; seio "of you"; heio "of her/him".
>
> Also we find the genitive singular of the 2nd decl. -oio. This form
> was retain in some of the ancient dialects, e.g. Thessalian, where
> it later gave way to -oi), and was employed in metrical
> inscriptions of later dates.
>
> I am proposing abstracting io (ιο) /jO/ (I had a week or so back
> decided that iota before an initial vowel should be [j]) as a
> possessive particle. It would come after the element in a
> possessive phrase, e.g.
> to eme-io patró = my father
> to to-io eme-io patró mètró = my father's mother
I'm curious why you don't put it after the whole noun phrase, or
maybe after the head, especially since part of the motivation was the
2nd-declension -oio and this would result in nouns ending in -o (or
other endings? so far I only know about -o) plus -io. Is it that
you're trying to avoid <to to>?

It feels strange to me how the possessive marker doesn't always
attach to the head, but I'm not exactly sure what feels wrong about
that; I know there are clitics in other languages that don't always
attach to heads.

Also, it seems like this scheme would mean that <to-io> occurs very
often. Earlier you rejected <tou> for the same role because it seems
to be an inflection, but couldn't you say the same of <to-io>? (Or,
conversely, couldn't you say that neither one is inflected? My view
on <tou> is that, although it may be *derived* from a differently-
inflected form of the same thing <to> is derived from, synchronically
they could be two separate words, rather than inflected forms of one.)

>
> I think one might also add that -io could be omitted after the 1st
> & 2nd pers. if one wished, especially if the connexion was close;
> e.g. to emé patró.
>
> Thus the opening phrase of the Lord's Prayer might then be:
> to emé-laó patró to en to ouranó
>
> This would also deal with the "the wise father" ~ "the father of a
> wise one", thus:
> to sofó patró = the wise father
> to sofó-io patró = the father of a wise one
>
> Comments?

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