Palmer L.R. The Greek Language

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yodization of the final consonant of the underlying stem, see pp. 224 ff.):

(< *wanak(t)-), (cf.

), etc. The suffix combined with -ter- * to produce and (

, etc.). Another compound suffix was inherited from

IE: *potis 'master'/ 'mistress', Gk. (cf. Skt. pátni). Other combinations which evidently arose from

n-stems are seen in

and became productive and

was used in nouns for female animals , instruments and repulsive diseases

first arose in ethnic feminines. Its use in 'queen' was the starting point of a great future. It spread to

Latin and so to the Romance languages and eventually became productive in English, where -ess is added even to

Germanic words like shepherd-ess.

(c)

was used to form feminine nouns and adjectives from agent nouns in (see below). It was specially

productive in the agricultural vocabulary in words denoting the nature of the soil:

'vine land'.

4. Agent nouns are formed

(a) with the suffix

(< *tas) (for the deverbatives, see below)' . Extended

forms of the suffix are:

, etc.

(a man's name < the neuter s-stem ), etc.

, etc.

(b)

forms occupational names both of agents and instruments: , etc.

This suffix is abundantly attested in the Linear B texts, where it also forms adjectives, e.g. aigeus 'with goat

protomes'. Originally the suffix had the general meaning 'one who has to do with the basic noun'. These nouns

gave rise to the denominative verbs in

, which became so independently productive that in later times the

noun is often a back-formation from the verb.

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5. Similar in function to

are the suffixes which provide characterizations of persons, places and things.

(a)

designates a man (i) in possession or concerned with a thing, e.g. 'milkman',

, etc.; (ii) with a personal characteristic, e.g. 'with a big head'; locality names are

formed in this way, e.g.

. The suffix originally formed hypocoristics, abbreviated forms of proper names

, etc., but it multiplied in the post-classical period and is now one of the most common suffixes

in MnG.

(b)

also formed descriptive terms like 'tattooed', 'thrifty'. Some of these are derived from verbs,

but the denominatives were especially productive: , , 'a fast ship', etc. This formation is of

ancient origin: cf. Lat. praedo (praeda), Cato (catus) 'sharp', 'sly'.

places where plants grow and animals are kept. In MnG it survives in the form /

, , etc.

(d) is also used to form masculine descriptions: , 'smoky', 'wearing a jerkin', etc. It

occurs frequently in proper names: , etc.

(e) We may classify here the tree-names in formed from the name of the fruit, flower, etc.

, etc.

6. Names of establishments and tools.

(a) nouns are in the main derived from s- and eu-stems (*-esjo-, *-ewjo- > -eio-). They denote

establishments, tools, and payments connected with religious and technical activities:

, etc.

(b) is a compound suffix originating in the addition of to agent nouns in . It soon became

independent and was added directly to verbal stems and provided the names of establishments, instruments and

utensils:

'kiln', , etc.

7. Collectivesin

, , etc.

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B. Substantives from Adjectives

1. Abstract nouns

(a)

was productive throughout the history of Greek to form abstracts from nouns, adjectives and verbs. It was

especially prolific in connection with the denominative

verbs and will be discussed below.

(b)

was mainly productive in forming nouns denoting personal qualities. There was a rich development in the

moral and philosophical vocabulary of Ionic prose:

, , etc.

then attached to consonant stems:

, , etc. The suffix

remained vastly more productive than

until Byzantine times, the latter showing few new formations from the

time of the Ptolemaic papyri onwards. In MnG there has been a surprising reversal of this situation, for

frequent whereas

is unproductive; , however, is the most frequent formation in abstract nouns, being

followed by those in

(d)

. The chief use of this suffix was to form abstracts from s-adjectives: , etc. Ionic

presents corresponding forms in

. In the Koine continued its Attic function, but in the Byzantine

chroniclers such formations are rare and in MnG they have been fused with the formations in

. In most of the

oblique cases the forms in

and were accentually indistinguishable and itacism brought about the fusion of

and i. Even in Attic there exist such doublets as and , while from and there exist only

and .

C. Substantives from Verbs

1. Abstract nouns. Such nouns name either the verbal action itself or its result.

(a) . The suffix was inherited and remained productive even in post-classical times:

, , etc. Throughout the history of Greek it suffered competition from the suffixes which are listed

below, and in MnG it has become extinct.

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(b)

. This was the most prolific suffix especially in connection with o-stem substantives and their denominative

verbs in

. These verbs tended to be replaced by formations with the consequence that we find abstracts

from this class, which however tended to favour formations in

(see below). This process was already initiated

in Attic, where we find

/ ( is late).

In Attic the verbal abstracts in were found side by side with derivatives in , the latter denoting the fact or

result of the action: / .

form

, , etc. The suffix is

also used to form nouns denoting the result or object of the action. An ancient example is the word ( <

*da(i)- 'distribute', 'share'); this was originally a land-tenure term which was also applied to the people occupying

such land. Other ancient words with this more concrete meaning are

, , etc.

(d) is the Greek reflection of a zero grade n-stem *-mn *. Such nouns commonly express the result of an

action. The suffix was greatly productive in the language of tragedy and Ionic prose and it remained prolific in the

post-classical period. Less frequently such formations are action nouns and so come into competition with

and

particularly with

: e.g. / / / / . In MnG the suffix has

become synonymous with

and only a few words have the original' result' significance. Combination with the

stem-vowel of the underlying verb produced the extended forms , and ,

, etc.

(e) , which is one of the most prolific Greek suffixes, goes back to an inherited suffix *-ti-, which formed

action nouns, the root being normally in the zero grade, e.g. ( / ). In IE this suffix was mainly used in

compounds, the corresponding suffix in simple words being -tu-. Greek has not preserved this distribution. The

form

shows the East Greek assibilation of -ti- (p. 60) and the proliferation of the suffix is due to the influence

of Attic-Ionic. The original zero grade of

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the root is often replaced analogically by the full grade and this is particularly true of derivatives from

denominative verbs. In the Byzantine chroniclers the suffix is not infrequent, especially in the form

. In MnG

it has been replaced by the extended form

(f) . In Attic it is frequently observed that a compound in corresponds to the simplex in . It is however

likely that is a composite suffix originating in the addition of to t-stems: / was the

normal form for derivatives from verbs, but the suffix developed independently later, especially in connection

with

verbs. Examples are: ,

etc.

(g)

. These are action nouns which link up with adjectives in and with verbs in , a particularly prolific

class in the Koine:

, etc. The verbs were often derivatives of agent

nouns in

, and by a natural short-circuit abstracts came to be derived directly from such nouns:

, etc.

(h) . This suffix, with a widespread attestation in IE, appears in Greek with a lengthened vowel. The formation

is still productive in Homer, forming action nouns like , , etc. In post-

Homeric Greek a few nouns of this type appear in Ionic prose, but in general the suffix was ousted by its numerous

competitors (note that Cretan offers both the ancient

, i.e. 'adoption' and its new rival ).

Its archaism and Homeric flavour made it suitable as an ingredient of poetic diction, notably in Callimachus.

The various types of verbal stem show different preferences among the competing 'action' suffixes:

verbs have

mainly

nouns, with comparatively few formations in ; from verbs there is a great preponderance of

derivatives with a poor second and very few examples of verbs have almost exclusively

; with verbs there is a great preponderance of over , but, as noted above, frequently

characterizes derivatives from verbs; verbs have a pronounced preference for forms with

comparatively few examples of

; while verbs forms in were a productive type in technical and

philosophic prose,

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but there was a tendency to form action nouns from

verbs with the suffix . In MnG, apart from fossils

, the extremely prolific suffix survives only in the extended form .

2. Agent nouns

. In the earliest texts these suffixes show a distribution inherited from IE: whereas the simple verbs

form derivatives in or , compound nouns have the suffix / / . This

picture was already blurred in the Homeric poems, which offer examples of

from simple verbs and a few of

in compound nouns (e.g. ). In Attic-Ionic, however, this distinction was largely effaced, and

agent nouns survived as words with an archaic flavour in the vocabulary of law and religion. The insertion of

for was a self-conscious device of high stylization. On the other hand, there are a large number of words for

tools and instruments which preserve this suffix, the 'instrumental' function being closely allied to the 'agentive':

, etc. It was in this branch of usage that the 'establishment' words in arose.

The oxytones in contrasted with paroxytones in . The latter were rarer and less productive than the

former. As with had an archaic and majestic flavour which made it suitable for the language of religion

and poetry:

, etc. This fossil suffix was brought to productive

life by the introduction of Latin loan-words in the Greco-Roman period with the result that even such loan-words

were transformed: e.g.

(custos), (magister).

The great productivity of the denominative verbs was mentioned above and this led to the replacement of the

underlying

agents by the deverbatives in , .

II. Adjectives

From substantives and verbs

1. The most productive suffix is , most of the examples being denominatives with a few examples of

deverbatives, e.g.

. When this suffix was added to consonant stems, the

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phonetic changes discussed above took place: e.g. *-tios > , as in / / /

, etc.

The suffix originated in the attachment of -io- ro a-stems and it was particularly productive in Ionic: ,

, etc. It was later added to derivatives from adjectives in ,

such as nouns in

and , and the resulting compound suffix became very popular:

, , etc. Another compound form productive in late

Greek was

(on , see below); , etc.

has a dual origin: from the addition of -io- to 1, s-stems, (-*esjo-) and 2, to ew-stems (-ew-io- *), e.g. Ionic

. The use of was then extended analogically: e.g. , , etc.

Distinct from this is the suffix -ejo- of IE origin which formed material adjectives of the type of Latin aureus.

Such derivatives in Greek vary between

and and this is already true in the Linear B texts (e.g. wrine(j)os).

Examples are (Attic ), / / , etc.; from names of animals, /

/ , etc.

2. The suffix was used to form adjectives denoting material, origin, etc.:

, etc. Distinct from this is the suffix forming temporal adjectives,

which, on the Linear B evidence, goes back to -nwo-. This was added to a locative in -i:

< *per-uti-

nwo-.. Examples are: , etc.

3. is in origin a compound suffix resulting from the addition of the inherited -mo- to compositional forms in -

i- (it is quite possible that adjectives like originated as hypocoristic shortenings of names like ).

The extended suffix became very productive, and these adjectives were formed chiefly from o-grade substantives:

, , etc.

The suffix was also added to

abstracts, producing a compound form ,

, etc. A substantivized form of this adjective later took the place of the infinitive: an early example (A.D.

iv/v) is 'eating and drinking'.

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. This category consists almost entirely of compounds having an s-stem as the second member, e.g.

(*-genos/-genes). The system was productive throughout the history of Greek, and such formations are found even

where no s-stem noun existed: . As a result of such systematic

correspondences this suffix was used to form compound adjectives both from verbal and nominal stems

characterized by -h-. The direct connection with a verb was established once the basic s-stem noun had been lost:

< . On the analogy of such models a compound like could be formed even from the

verbal phrase

5. A specially productive suffix belonging to this last category was

, which originated in compounds formed

with the root *od- 'smell':

. The semantic content of the second element had, however, become watered

down even in the Homeric poems, and compounds of the type

'raging' < 'rage' appear. The suffix

was productive in Attic-Ionic and in the earlier Koine, but by Byzantine times it was already sterile.

. This is the most productive of the denominative adjectival suffixes, and it often replaces other adjectival

suffixes as in the MnG

for . The form was probably due to dissimilation when was added

to nouns in

and : * > , but the suffix was attached to other stems, e.g.

, etc.

The compound suffix

originated from the attachment of to agent nouns in and verbal adjectives

. Such adjectives preserved the strong verbal force of these formations, the meaning varying between

passive-intransitive (e.g.

'possessing enthusiasm' and active-causative 'inspiring enthusiasm'. ) Once

a relation with the basic verb was established, such adjectives could be formed even where no intermediaries in

and existed. was also added to a-stems: . In this way an extended form

arose, e.g. .

7. . This suffix was used to form verbal adjectives and it is of widespread occurrence in the IE languages.

Originally the formations were neutral as to voice, but the passive meaning became dominant. The suffix was

originally added to the zero

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grade of the root:

(*kleu-/klu-), (*gwem- */gwm-*), (ten-/tn-*), but later there was much

analogical levelling. The formation was most common in composition,

being opposed to

to , a relationship which is also observable in the Mycenaean texts, where we have khalkoi dedemena

'bound with bronze' contrasting with khalkodeta 'bronze-bound'.

In later Greek

was progressively supplanted by , but in the Byzantine chroniclers it had lost little of its

fertility, and even MnG has numerous examples of

in the function 1, of a perfect participle, 2, of a present

participle and 3, in a purely adjectival function.

Besides these verbal adjectives there are a number of

adjectives derived from nouns: e.g. with the

same relationship to the noun

as the Latin barbatus has to barba. In Greek (and in Latin) such adjectives are

often attested earlier than the corresponding denominative verbs (

), and even in IE it is likely that such

denominative adjectives could be formed. In post-classical times

remained productive and in MnG it is

productive in the substantivized form

8. . This suffix was used to form gerundives, that is verbal adjectives with a meaning of obligation. They occur

almost exclusively in predicative use, the first example of this kind being Pindar's

. The explanations

generally admitted bring this suffix into connection either with the Vedic infinitive (ná... áttave 'not for eating', '

not to be eaten'), or with the gerundive formant -tavya; *-tewo- is regarded as a thematic derivative from the verbal

noun suffix -tu-. The new Mycenaean evidence (see p. 51 on qeteo, qetea2) has ruled out these explanations

because of the absence of the postulated intervocalic -w-. It is more likely that we have a thematic derivative from

the action suffix -ti: thus the earliest Greek example (used attributively not predicatively), Hesiod's

'unspeakable', would be a derivative from .

. This was another suffix inherited from IE. It was added to noun stems, the meaning of the resulting

adjective being 'possessing...', like the corresponding Sanskrit suffix -vant-. The corresponding feminine form was

based on the zero grade of the suffix

, which would have yielded , but this was levelled to .

Originally the suffix was added

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directly to consonant stems, and this is still observable in the Mycenaean texts (p. 52). In the alphabetic texts the

extended form

has spread from the thematic nouns to the consonant stems. The suffix was still vigorous in

Mycenaean times, but later it was productive only as a means of self-conscious poetic stylizing and to this end

could be attached even to adjectives like

, etc.

10. . This inherited suffix appears in many adjectives belonging to the most ancient stock of words:

, , etc. Such adjectives often alternate with compositional forms in -i and have

substantival counterparts with s-stems:

. Various extended forms occur: (

, etc.; ( , , etc.); / ( , ,

etc.);

remained productive throughout the history of Greek, particularly in Ionic, but in the Koine it gave way

to some extent to the suffix

. It was particularly active in providing adjectives from food-stuffs, materials, etc.

In MnG such adjectives denote only qualities of things, whereas in ancient Greek they referred also to personal

qualities.

11.

survives in Greek in certain fossil formations derived from verbs: (*dwei-'fear'), (cf. ,

*twegw *), (cf. ). In the denominative formations the suffix shows a preference for s-stems: (

, cf. ), ( , cf. ), etc. This compound suffix was then extended to other stems:

e.g.

Iii. Compound Stems

Greek inherited from IE the capacity to form nominal stems by combining two (rarely more) stems, the inflexions

being added to the second member of the compound. Functionally, the compounds fall into two main classes: 1,

those in which the second element retains its substantival function (e.g.

) and 2, those in which the

compound is adjectival, e.g.

, which does not mean 'rose-finger' but 'having rosy fingers'. Such a

compound corresponds to a descriptive sentence predicated of the accompanying substantive. Such adjectives find

their point of attachment outside themselves, and they are known as 'exocentric' compounds, as opposed to the

'endocentric' of type 1.

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