A grammar of the Homeric dialect - Wilbourhall.org

356 METRE. [381.
measure of this may be gained by observing how often each of
these terminations is
long before a vowel, and comparing the
number with the total number of times that the same termination
occurs. Thus it appears that out of every 100 instances
of final u, it is long before hiatus about 23 times. Similarly
final -YJ is
long 19 times, -eu 6-7 times, -ou 6 times, -i\ 5-7
times, -o> 4 times, -ei r8 times, -01 i'6 times, and -s ore KrA., Od. 1 1 .
1 88 aypo>, ovde KrA. ;
or after the fourth foot (in the Bucolic
diaeresis).
381.] Shortening of diphthongs before Hiatus. Regarding
the nature of the process by which a diphthong before hiatus was
reduced to the time or metrical value of a short syllable two
probable views have been maintained.
I . Curtius holds that whenever long syllables are shortened by
the effect of hiatus something of the nature of Elision takes
place. Thus rj
and w lose the second half of the vowel sound,
while at, ei,
01 lose the t. In support of this he points to the
facts of Crasis : thus KCU eyco in becoming Kayo> may be supposed
to pass through the stage
KCI eyoo.
2.
According to an older view, which has been revived and
defended with great ingenuity by Hartel,* the i or u in a
diphthong is turned into the corresponding spirant so that
; /cat
eyco becomes Ka-t-eyco,
and CK HvXov eA0o)ZJ becomes K YIvXo-F-
It is certainly
in favour of this latter supposition that it does
not oblige us to suppose the frequent elision of the two vowels
which in general are the least liable to be elided. The explanation
however is not a complete one. It does not account for the
shortening of and
YJ w, which on the principle assumed by H artel
would become T)*, on. On the whole it seems most probable that
the shortening in question was effected, for diphthongs as well as
for simple long vowels, by a process in which ancient grammarians
would have recognised rather ' Synizesis ' viz. the
slurring of vowels together without complete loss of any sound
* Ilomerische Studien, iii. pp. 7 ff