La glosa de Hesiquio ζείναμεν· σβέννυμεν: una aporía fonética y morfológica

Abstract

It is suggested in this paper that both *sg^u̯es- and *g^u̯es- are the Greek reflexes of IE *(s)g^u̯es-. The labial stop of σβέννυμι is the only regular treatment of *sg^u̯es- we can expect in Greek, the palatalization of g-^u̯ being ruled out after s; on the contrary, the regular palatalization g^u̯e > d^ze took place in *g^ṷes-, as seen in the gloss ζείναμεν, which is, in the author's view, an iotacistic spelling for an Arcadian form * ζήναμεν [d^zḗnamen]. Coexistence of -nū- and -nā- presents is very scarcely attested in Greek, since the -nā- suffix was not productive any longer in the earliest stages of this language. Such nasal presents as *sg^u̯ésnūmi (and *g^u̯ésnāmi), *dzṓsnūmi, * u̯ésnūmi arose, at least in East Greek, before the first compensatory lengthening, i. e., before the splitting of Attic-Ionic (*sg^u̯ẹ̄́nūmi) and Achaean (arc. *g^u̯ḗnāmi). At a later stage, Attic and Ionic recreated *sg^u̯es- (whence *σβέσ-νυμι > σβέννυμι) on the analogy of perf. ἕσβεσ-ται, ἐσβεσ-μένος et sim. The contrast between ion. εἲνυμι and att. ἕννυμι (*ἕσ-νυμι) suggests that the analogical resetting of -s- took place at a time when both dialects were already independent of each other. Metrical reasons make it impossible to determine whether κατασβῶσαι (Herondas) belongs to *σβοάζω or to *σβοάω; at any case, both ion. σβῶσαι and such Arcadian glosses as ζόασον et sim. point to the same type of deverbatives in -άζω.