 | Any nouns that end in ω? |
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Can you think of any nouns that end in ω? I can only think of costume μαγιώ. |
| Re: Any nouns that end in ω? |
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1) The correct spelling is μαγιό (one-piece swimsuit for women), an indeclinable foreign import from French "maillot". In contemporary transliteration, an /o/ sound in foreign imports is spelled with ο (omicron). 2) As to nouns ending in -ω, other than a number of ancient mythological or literary female names, where the genitive ending has been demoticized to -ς, for example: η/την Ηρώ (Hero), της Ηρώς*, similarly, Ερατώ (Erato), Ερατώς*; Καλυψώ (Calypso), Καλυψώς*; Σαπφώ (Sappho), Σαπφώς*; Πειθώ (Peitho), Πειθώς*; Ιώ (Io), Ιώς* and some contemporary female nicknames ending in -ω, for example: η/την Βάσω (< Βασιλική), της Βάσως, similarly, Φρόσω (< Ευφροσύνη), Φρόσως; Θεανώ, θεανώς; Μυρτώ, Μυρτώς*; Αργυρώ, Αργυρώς, there are only one or two survivors from the ancient language. These nouns had a stem ending in οι: η/την ηχώ (echo), της ηχώς*. * Most of these nouns ending in -ω also have a formal (katharevousa) contracted genitive ending in -ους: της Ηρούς, Ερατούς, Καλυψούς, Σαπφούς, Πειθούς, Ιούς, Μυρτούς, ηχούς, etc. Other than ηχώ and a handful of female names, I can't think of any others, certainly not any of native Greek origin. Regards, Greg Brush [originally posted Wednesday, 28 September 2016, 06:15 AM] |
| Re: Any nouns that end in ω? |
| Thank you as always Greg. |
| Re: Any nouns that end in ω? |
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North & Hilliard Greek Composition textbook in an appendix on accents, says that there is a class of Greek nouns ending in ω & that they are oxytone. One example is feminine πειθώ NGNAV πειθώ, πειθοῦς, πειθοί, πειθώ, πειθᾶ. No plurals. Stem is πειθο-. This is a 3rd declension o stem. There are no plural forms per Smyth. It means persuasion. It evidences vowel contractions of o+ω, o+o, o+ι,& ο+α. I don't know an explanation for the Vocative in long alpha. The vocative is probably an address to the goddess of this name. I don't know any other examples, but per N & H there must be some. So you can still nurse a heroic hypothesis if you think the word got that way by being a goddess, though goddesses are not heroes. One might consult a reverse list of Greek words (spelled backwards). In taking more look at this site, I guess it is devoted to modern Greek (IMHO a different language from classical Greek, as Italian is from Latin). So I suppose my comments are off topic. But on classical Greek: while postulating an o stem looked reasonable to me, I see that greater scholars than I (not hard to find) have deemed these quite a number (all feminine) nouns to be oι stems. And I came across an internet Brill research which really gets into the numerous oxytone nouns, used even for male & female sexual parts! Apparently they have no plural but if plural borrow from a different (not 3rd) declension, like 2nd declension for plural. This article has a nice categorization of their semantics, from hypocoristic to pejorative. Don't call a woman δαλλώ. I suppose that modern Greeks can look at this article & see how much of the ancient Greek omega oxytone feminine nouns have some counterpart in modern Greek. https://brill.com/view/journals/jgl/19/2/article-p168_3.xml?Xlanguage=en |
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Right, η πειθώ (persuasion), with modern genitive πειθώς / learned genitive πειθούς, is an example of such a noun τhat survives into the contemporary language. And yes, this site is dedicated to Modern Greek, a language as sufficiently different from its ancient ancestor as Modern Italian is from Classical Latin. Regards, Greg Brush |
