Thaptw: aorist passive etafhn (epsilon, tau, alpha, phi, eta, nu)
What’s the explanation for this? The aspiration seems to have changed place.
Just guessing, I would say that the tau has dissimilated because of the phi. But why the phi? Perhaps it was expecting (or making the analogy with?) another theta aorist passive (luw etc), hence the aspiration?
Sorry if that sounds confused. I hope you get the general idea.
Thucydides
The explanation is that originally both t and p were aspirated. With the formation of the present stem, the p lost its aspiration, so that there was no reason for the t to dissimilate. In the aorist stem, the aspiration of p was retained; the t then lost its aspiration.
I don’t have references to any grammars (Smyth, Kühner, Sihler, Rix &c.) at the moment, but if you need them, I could look it up.
Ptolemaios
This process Ptolemaios is describing is known as Grassman’s Law, and applies to Greek and Sanskrit. When two aspirates follow one another, the first is unaspirated. However, when the -t- was added to the present stem, the final phi lost aspiration, so the theta remained at the beginning.
The same process accounts for the paradigm of “hair”: θρίξ, τριχός, ἡ.
and the rough breathing on the future of ἔχω.
~dave
Hi,
To beat a dead horse:
original root θαφ + τ > θαπτ. The initial aspirate is allowed to stand because the subsequent aspirate disappeared into the πτ.
But Grassman’s law operates in the 2d aorist passive giving ἐτάφην < ἐθάφην.
There are cases where Grassman doesn’t operate, e.g., 1st aorist passive, m-p perfect imperative and infinitive, respectively:
ἐθάφθην
τεθάφθω
τεθάφθαι
Cordially,
Paul
I think we must add “without being adjacent to each other”.
Otherwise, there would not be forms like [size=134]ἤχθην[/size] from [size=134]ἄγω[/size] or [size=134]ἀνήφθω [/size] from [size=134]ἀνάπτω [/size]
Gosh, I didn’t know you were all so interested in the dissimilation of aspirates! Thanks for your help.
The word “taphos” is further evidence of all this.
Another interesting case in trefw, actually from the stem “thref” as we see in the future…
-Thucydides
Would anyone be interested in me writing up the relevant section from Sihler (Comparative Grammar of Latin and Greek) on Grassman’s Law?
Sihler paragr. 138, pp. 142-144.
Ptolemaios