The Reduction of ei to i in Homer 9781463221478

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The Reduction of ei to i in Homer

A n a l e c t a Gorgiana

317 Series Editor George Kiraz

Analecta Gorgiana is a collection of long essays and

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The Reduction of ei to i in Homer

Herbert Smyth

"ék

1 gorgias press 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2009

1

ISBN 978-1-60724-549-0

ISSN 1935-6854

Extract from The American Journal of Philology, vol. 6 (1885).

Printed in the LTnited States of America

AMERICAN JOURNAL V O L . V I , 4.

OF

PHILOLOGY WHOLE

NO. 24.

I . — T H E R E D U C T I O N O F E I T O I IN H O M E R . From the fact that there is no great physiological dissimilarity between the diphthongal elements e and i, their combination in a diphthong kut' ¿ntKpdreuw (ei, ei) has not been able to maintain itself under all conditions, suffering a change, which, in the case of ei, is assumed to have taken place in the proethnic stage of the Indo-European languages. Johannes Schmidt ( K . Z. X X V I I 305) has attempted to prove that before a consonant or as a final sound, -ei was deprived of its weaker element, e standing as the representative of the compound (ras, Lat. res, from rei-\-s; locative -