Re: Dichotomies, trichotomies, polychotomies

At 8:58 pm +0100 25/5/02, And Rosta wrote:
>Ray:
[snip]
>> 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!
I'm not infallible, that why I checked  :)

I should, perhaps, have explained to the curious, that the reason the
advarbs above end, variously in -a, -e:i or -o:s is due to the current
adverbial ending in the dialect the writer was using; those in -a belong to
5th & 4th cent. Athens.  I must admit they were not of over-common use in
literature, but they are attested.

Ray.





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Speech is _poiesis_ and human linguistic articulation
is centrally creative.
                                 GEORGE STEINER.
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