I was reading the table in Pharr’s book, paragraph 760, which lists the pronouns commonly used in Homeric Greek. The main difference I see in singular between Homeric and Attic/Koine is that the genitive singular uses εῖο in Homeric, while the Attic/Koine uses οῦ.
However, there is one additional difference, which is the enclitic form of σοί. In Attic, the enclitic form is listed as σοι, but in both Pharr and Wiktionary, the Epic enclitic is instead τοι. When I look up τοι in Wiktionary, it says it is an alternative to σοι. But the tables list it as the only enclitic form, and don’t even list σοι as an alternative. I am fully aware that Epic isn’t one dialect, but that various forms are used to fit the meter. That being said, there are preferences. So is τοι just preferred? Or is it exclusive? Is σοι ever used? Do these represent two difference regional dialects?
I tried searching for these pronouns in the Chicago Homer, but for some reason I couldn’t get the search function to work. If anybody has any advice for how to use this, please let me know.
It’s complicated. In Homer both σ- and τ- forms are transmitted, but not randomly distributed. E.g. τοι is enclitic, σοί not. Etc. etc. In Attic σοι is sometimes enclitic, sometimes emphatic (likewise σε and σου), while τοι has become an enclitic particle, no longer 2nd person.
Cunliffe identifies the following three instances as enclitic:
σοι (encl.) Α170 (with elision): γ359, λ381.
The LSJ article gives the same list for Homer:
in Hom., Lesbian Lyr., and Ion. Lyr. and Prose τοι is always enclit., σοί never enclit. (τοί and σοι are not found exc. σοι Od.3.359, 11.381, σ(οι) Il.1.170, and in codd. of Pi.P.4.270, 9.55
To be even fuller than you asked for, van Leeuwan, to the extent I can parse his Latin (not well, of course) suggests that there might have been a third person ϝοι that disappeared in a number of places when elided. He gives lists on pg. 69 of his Enchiridium dictionis epicae of places where σοί or τοι were elided in manuscript (including σοι A170 above) and where he thinks elision could be restored, and then a list on pg. 70 for where ϝοι might be restored.
Then later on pg. 253 he seems (again my Latin is poor), to doubt how absolute the rule of σοί/τοι (vs. σοι/τοί) really is.
Very interesting. Once I’m more familiar with Homeric Greek I really want to get more familiar with the digamma and all the signs of its prior existence, such an interesting phenomenon. Then perhaps I’ll get back to my Latin that I haven’t touched in half a lifetime.
