THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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W.
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THE HOMERIC DIALECT. 671
672 THE HOMERIC DIALECT.
language rather than borrowings from Ionic. For when Attic
logical doctrines are not only not contrary to Comparative
uses the termination -laro {-oiaro, -aiaro) the thematic vowel
is invariably preceded by a Philology, but even explain some points of great irnportaijce
consonant, whereas the new Ionic
which have much troubled the Indo-German philologists
?
of" Herodotus employs this suffix with stems ending in short
The Indo-Germanic languages
fall into two distinct groflpfc,
hard vowels {e.f/. XvTreoiaro, aviwaro, fJLrj-^avcpaTo).
according as they modify or retain the Indo-Germanic q.
The 8rd plural termination -arai, -aro only survived in
This is represented in Sanskrit by k,
Attic after consonantal stems, and c, in Letto-Slavic by
only then in the Perfect and
k, which was retained in Lithuanian, but passed into other
Pluperfect. In Homer the same terminations seem also to be
sounds in Slavonic : in Greek by /c, r, tt ;
in Latin by qii,
c ;
in
confined to the Perfect and Pluperfect. On the other hand,
Irish by c in
;
Oscan, Umbrian, Gaulish, Welsh, and Cornish
Herodotus uses these terminations with other tenses {e/j.
b}^ p^. Greek sometimes represents Indo-Germanic q by k, h^
Tbdearai, (iTreoeiKvvaTo). Attic limits them to consonantal stems,
it often replaces
it
by
Homer the dental extends them t, and not unfrequently by
sr.
to stems in c and (Occasionally to those in
When Latin exhibits labialised forms
V and long hard vowels (e.g. fBe^Xtiarai), whilst the New like lupus (Greek Xu/co?),
Ionic
they are said to be borrowed from some Italic dialect.
uses them with all kinds of stems.
Here Greek, Latin, Celtic, and Germanic follow one line of
So too with the Optative, Attic limits -oiaro, -aiaro to
development, Sanskrit and Letto-Slavic another.
consonantal stems, Homer observes the same rule (the only
It will be observed that whilst Greek in other respects falls
exception being jBnoaro), whilst Hei'odotus extends it to all
into the eastern rather than into the nortli,-western group of
kinds of stems'.
languages, yet, unlike the languages of the upper Balkan, it
It would thus appear that these suffixes were originally
shows distinct traces of labialism. Thus, there is
irerrape'i,
confined to consonantal stems, and that -aTai, -aro weic
the Boeotian form for reTrape'i, and the form iriavpe^ said
originally confined to the Perfect and Pluperfect.
to be Aeolic and found in Homer and
;
ltttto^ seems to have
Thus the usage by the Attic dramatists of the terminations
replaced an older tV/co? known only from the Etymologicuni
-oiaro, -aiaro (e.g. efcaco^oiaro, he^aiaro)
is a I'clic of the
Magnum. This corresponds to the Latin ecus, equ&s, and the
early stage of the language, and tli