Re: Dichotomies, trichotomies, polychotomies

Ray:
> At 3:30 pm -0400 24/5/02, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >On Fri, May 24, 2002 at 07:57:37PM +0100, And Rosta wrote:
> >> dichotomy, tritomy, tetratomy/tesseratomy, pentatomy -- stress is
> >> penTAtomy.
>
> trichotomy <-- trikhotomia "division into 3 parts" <-- trikha [adverb] "in
> three parts, three ways" + tome: [n] "cutting, division"
>
> Prsumably one would logically continue to use the Greek adverbs for "in _n_
> parts", thus:
> tetrakha - into 4 parts
> pentakha - into 5 parts
> heksaka - into 6 parts
> heptakha - into 7 parts
> oktakho:s - into 8 parts
> enneakho:s - into 9 parts
> dekakha - into 10 parts, 10 ways
> pollake:i/ pollakho:s - into many parts, into many ways.
>
> Thus _pentachotomy_ (<-- *pentakhotomia "division into 5 parts") is surely
> what you want.
I agree with you and disagree with my previous answer. I simply didn't
know these adverbs and I didn't check whether they existed because I
had a memory of being informed that they didn't by a colleague, a
former classicist of demonstrably less infallibility than you!

--And.

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