From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 26 1996 - 21:44:54 EDT
At 7:41 PM -0500 4/26/96, Dale M. Wheeler wrote:
>Here's an interesting little problem I ran into today:
>
>Not only does BAGD classify EUQUS the adverb as a homograph
>to the adjective, they say "arising fr. the nom. masc. sg.
>of [the adj] EUQUS".
>
>But BDF sec 21 seems to indicate that the final sigma on
>the adverb EUQUS is a movable sigma, and thus the actual
>form is EUQU, which would most likely be the neuter
>accusative singular form (like MONON, PRWTON, etc.) of the
>adjective (1Kings 20:22,24; Ezk 46:9 LXX) being used as an
>adverb.
>
>Any ideas ?
Ideas? Oh yes. No facts, of course, but ideas/theories? Certainly.
I'm wondering about the history of adverbial endings, and I have no
reference works at hand. Everyone knows that you form adverbs from
adjectives by adding -WS to adjective stem; hence: KALWS, TAXEWS from
KAL- and TAXEf-. And indeed, the older form of the adverb of EUQUS, at
least in Attic, is EUQEWS, although it seems to me (back of my memory) that
EUQUS and perhaps EUQU may be used adverbially in Homer and Hesiod, i.e.,
in Epic dialect, which is to say, probably, in the Ionic dialectal form.
Now we know that there are variantssuch as hOUTWS and hOUTW that mean the
same thing; I think in reality PWS and PW (the enclitic adverb meaning
"somehow" are really identical. This makes me SUSPECT that the form in -W
(hOUTW, PW) or -U (EUQU) is older, the one perhaps being an old
instrumental ending, the other the neuter accusative singular of the
adjective, and that the -S is, in fact, a movable sigma added where
appropriate for euphonic reasons, and then becoming regular for most
adverbs.
There's no knowing whether this is right or not, but it seems plausible.
Makes me wonder whether BDF arrived at it by the same logic?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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