Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>In older Greek, my impression is that a deity is addressed sometimes by a
>personal name in the vocative, perhaps more often by an epithet in the
>vocative (e.g. hEKHBOLE for Apollo, NEFELHGERETA for Zeus, ENNOSIGAIE for
>Poseidon), but hO QEOS is an impersonal designation and is less likely to
>be used by polytheists in a vocative; one does see the plural invocation W
>QEOI, but that is more understandable,
It was J. Wackernagel the first one who pointed out the fact that Classical
Greek does not use the sg. vocative of qeo/s: I think it was on the first
vol. of his Vorlesungen ber Syntax, where he deals with vocative largely
(but it could be the Kleine Schriften). The reasons are explained by C.W.
Conrad.
___________________________________________________________________
Daniel Rian~o Rufilanchas
c. Santa Engracia 52, 7 dcha.
28010-Madrid
Espan~a
e-mail: danielrr@mad.servicom.es