Do you know where I can go to find out why the breathing mark is retained in a verb like προὔδομεν and προὔδοτε? I understand that it’s contracted but why need the aspirate if the epsilon no longer begins the verb?
I think this is due to contraction taking place due to crasis, where crasis is indicated by the coronis, which is identical to a smooth breathing mark. Check Smyth 66 for an example. The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek also has a good section on Crasis. (1.43-1.45). I’m not sure the two forms you mention are attested, but προέδοσαν is, and it is shown written both ways, i.e. with and without crasis. προέδοσαν/προὔδοσαν.
Thank you! I’ll check out those resources. προὔδοτε, at least, is attested in Aeschines.
The ancient grammarians prescribed the κορωνίς for crasis when two words were “ἐν ἁρμογῇ”, of which Trypho called προέστη = προὔστη an example, as opposed to νόος=νοῦς. We can choose to be surprised or not that προὔστη is “δύο λέξεις.”
It’s only in something like τὸ ἱμάτιον = θοἰμάτιον that you see that this is not really a preserved breathing sign. The rough breathing has gone back to start of the word τ → θ.
The term κορωνίς has a much more common use in the scholia, as described here:
ὅτε δὲ οὐ τίθεται κῶλα τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ’ ἐν οἷς ἤρξαντο στίχοις, ἐν τούτοις τοῦ λέγειν οἱ ὑποκριταὶ παύονται, τὸ τοιοῦτον καλεῖται “κορωνίς”, διὰ τὸ μετὰ τὴν συμπλήρωσιν τούτων τὸ σημεῖον τῆς κορωνίδος τίθεσθαι, ὅπερ γραμμή τίς ἐστι βραχεῖα, καμπήν τινα ὑποκάτω ἔχουσα. ἧς ἑξῆς ἀεὶ τίθεται κορωνὶς ἑτέρα, χοροῦ ἐπισφραγίζουσα οἷον τὰ ῥηθέντα.
προὔστη etc. rather than just προύστη shows that there’s no internal aspiration, i.e. it represents προ-ἕ- not προ-ἕ-. It’s regrettable that modern texts do not normally mark internal aspiration. But papyri do, e.g. εξανἕστηκεν.
The coronis I think is an invention of Greek grammarians.
Thanks for this. So what makes pro-edote special in this regard? Is it simply that what we have is krasis of two words, the first of which ends in a vowel, the second of which begins with a vowel? And that the scribe wanted to make clear that edote has a smooth breathing? Would the same occur – that is, the internal breathing mark – with the preverb peri when attached to an augmented verb?
περι is different: it’s not subject to crasis, nor does it elide (unlike e.g. επι). When it’s the first part of an aspirated compound, e.g. περιέσσασθαι (Hesiod), we could well mark the aspiration, even though our modern texts don’t.
—But you can’t expect written conventions to be entirely rational. For instance, why is e.g. ἐφ’ἡμῖν or καθ’ὑμῶν written with two aspirates instead of just one? It’s just convention, and does not reflect phonetic reality.
I think that phonetic internal aspiration for προὔστη, if pronounced, would have naturally been written φρουστη (compare φρουρά = προ-ὁρα, τέθριππος = τετρ-ἱππος).
εξανἕστηκεν is interesting to me, because I had actually thinking of making a thread about aspiration after ν in late Greek. A couple of days ago, I came across a section of Life of Aesop where the alternation ἡ χύτρα/τῆς χύτρας/τὴν κύθραν is repeated several times. χύτρα/κύθρα may not be surprising, but I thought it was interesting that κύθρα was consistently limited to the accusative after -ν.
For instance, why is e.g. ἐφ’ἡμῖν or καθ’ὑμῶν written with two aspirates instead of just one? It’s just convention, and does not reflect phonetic reality.
It might not be too far to call it an actively misleading and anachronistic convention, even. But probably not the worst of anyone’s worries.