A grammar of the Homeric dialect - Wilbourhall.org

394 APPENDIX.
be equally well accounted for, partly by the changes which must
have taken place within the Attic-Ionic dialect itself, and partly by
the influence of the post-Homeric spoken language. We may now
consider what Homeric peculiarities cannot be explained on Tick's
principles, and may therefore be held to turn the scale in favour of
the alternative view.
(a) The Dual is wanting in the earliest ^Eolic, whereas it is in
living use in Homer, and also in Attic down to the 5th century B.C.
It is true, as Tick urges, that the loss of the Dual may have taken
place in ^Eolic between the pth and the 7th centuries. But the gap
thus made between the earliest known ^Eolic and the supposed
jEolic of Homer is a serious weakening of his case.
The (6) moveable -v is unknown in ^Eolic, as also in New Ionic.
Tick strikes it out whenever it is possible to do so, but is very far
from banishing it from the text. Thus in the first book of the Iliad
he has to leave it in 11.
45, 60, 66, 73, 77, &c.
(c) The psilosis which Fick introduces (airir) for dfoei, &c.)
is common
to ^Eolic and New Ionic. Why then does it not appear in
Homer ?
(d) The forms of the type of 6pdo>, opoavres, &c. ( 55) are not
accounted for by Fick's theory. This is recognised by Fick himself
(Odyss. p. 2).
He adopts the view of Wackernagel, supposing that
the Attic forms 6pS>v, 6/>z/re? were introduced into the recension of
Pisistratus, and that these were afterwards made into opowz/, opo'ooi/res
to fit the metre. This view is doubtless in the main correct.
Setting aside the mythical ' recension of Pisistratus,' and putting in
its place the long insensible influence of Attic recitation upon the
Homeric text, we obtain a probable account of 6p6 or 6pS> (see H. Weir Smyth, Vowel-system e'