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Instrumentals, datives, locatives and ablatives: the -ϕι case form in Mycenaean and Homer1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Rupert Thompson
Rupert Thompson
Affiliation:
Queens' College, Cambridge
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Extract

§1. The Homeric case form in -ϕι corresponds to the Indo-European instrumental plural morph *-bhi(s)2 which roughly corresponds to the senses of the English preposition with, expressing both the instrument of verbal action (‘He killed Dr Black with the lead piping’) and the notion of comitativity (‘He was with Col. Mustard’): yet Homeric -ϕι seemingly stands as a generic oblique case marker in all numbers. Except for literary dialects in which it may be regarded as an epic feature, it was unparalleled in Greek until the decipherment of Linear B demonstrated that Mycenaean knew a case form spelled -pi, which may be taken as standing for /-phi/ (the Linear B script making no distinction between the voiced, voiceless and aspirated stops), functioning probably only as a plural, and in declensions other than the thematic. While -ϕι and -pi have a certain degree of overlap in their function and formations, the Homeric and Mycenaean forms also show significant differences; this paper examines and attempts to explain those differences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 44 , 1999 , pp. 219 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

2 On the form see, for example, Beekes, R. S. P., Comparative Indo-European linguistics: an introduction (John Benjamins, 1995) 115f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 There are in addition a couple of examples of epigraphic -ϕι which have been discussed by Morpurgo Davies (Glotta 47, 1970 46–54Google Scholar) which appear to be fossil relics.

4 Monro, , Grammar §157Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Monro, , Grammar § 156Google Scholar. A complete line has been quoted for each example, even where not required for the sense, to give the metrical context.

6 Formula recurs at Od. 3.405 and 4.307.

7 Formula recurs at Il. 8.309.

8 Formula recurs at Il. 13.585 and 15.313.

9 See also Prof. Reeve's suggestion that this is an instr. function, ‘the bronze was turned away by the bronze’. with ἀπό either adverbial or in tmesi, elsewhere in this volume.

10 Formula recurs at Il. 14.214.

11 Formula recurs at Od. 19.389224

12 Formula recurs at Od. 15.552.

13 Atti Roma 772, following Milani, , Aevum 32 (1958) 108Google Scholar.

14 Cf. Killen, , Coll. Myc. 171Google Scholar, ‘for chitons’, restoring a TELA ideogram after ki-to-pi [.

15 Monro, , Grammar §158Google Scholar.

16 Thus Docs. 2 425, 548.

17 ‘PY An I’, Minos 18 (1983) 71–9Google Scholar.

18 It could be argued that the toponyms listed are ablatival, and that the documents record consignments of women sent to the palatial centre, that is there is an implicit locatival pu-ro to be understood in each record; but this is nonsensical for the cases in which pu-ro, supposedly ablatival in this model, has been written.

19 ‘Cn Flocks’, Cambridge Colloquium 250–259Google ScholarPubMed.

20 Sheep and goats 213.

21 Interpretation 165f.

22 ‘The wool industry of Crete in the late Bronze Age’, ABSA 59 (1964) 1–15Google Scholar.

23 ‘The grouping of the place-names in the Cn tablets’, BICS 17 (1970) 159–161Google Scholar.

24 Sheep and goats 215.

25 Docs. 409.

26 Kasussystems 170.

27 It has been suggested to me that a genitive sense would work well here: ‘the ko-re-te of S.' etc., and also in Eb 338 ka-ra-wi-po[-ro pa-ki]-ja-pi; it is a bold suggestion, which would require a syncretism of genitive and instrumental for which there is no evidence in Mycenaean.

Another possibility might be that e-re-i is truly datival in function, ‘the ko-re-te for E.’ in which case pa-ki-ja-pi and e-ra-te-re-wa-pi might also be datival. As mentioned above, §5, there is some evidence to suggest the use of -phi as a final dative at Knossos.

28 Kasussystems 168.

29 Docs. 2 257.

30 Kasussystems 57.

31 Ruijgh, , Minos 19 (1985) 128Google Scholar.

32 So Davies, Morpurgo, Cambridge Colloquium 199Google Scholar.

33 Docs. 304. In Fp 16.1 and Ga 953.1 it is followed by me-no, with theonyms (in Ga 953 also toponyms) in subsequent lines.

34 Docs. 311.

35 Glotta 34 (1954) 24Google Scholar.

36 Interpretation 442.

37 Res Myc. 341ff. This is merely etymological, and there are morphological problems. While it is true that ἵππος continues a form with *kṷ rather than *kṷ, the spelling -ku-wV- in Linear B regularly represents a cluster -k#ṷ- spanning a morpheme-boundary - cf. Davies, Morpurgo, Acta Mycenaea II 102ff.Google Scholar

38 Hsch. τέϱμις. πούς. D.Mic., s.v. te-mi.

39 Also suggested by Docs. 403.

40 Chantraine, , RPh 34 (1960) 181Google Scholar.

41 Lejeune, , Mém. II 213Google Scholar.

42 Lejeune, , Mém. I 169Google Scholar.

43 Res Myc. 359.

44 s.v. i-ku-wo-i-pi.

45 Docs. 221.

46 BICS 39 (1994) 72Google Scholar.

47 POM 172f.

48 Kasussystems 183f.

49 Atti Roma 636ff.

50 Kasussystems 148–150.

51 Studies 99 n. 2.

52 Comparative grammar 281.

53 Doria, , Interpretazioni I 11, 25Google Scholar; Sihler, loc.cit. po-ni-ke = ‘with purple’.

54 Higgins, , BICS 4 (1957) 40Google Scholar; Palmer, , Minos 5 (1957) 64f.Google Scholar; Docs. 2 502, 573.

55 Kasussystems 147 n. 187.

56 Petruševski, ŽA 16 (1966) 199Google Scholar; Atti Roma 684.

57 Interpretation 111.

58 Kasussystems 147.

59 Georgiev, Lexique s.v.; Doria, , Interpretazioni II 34Google Scholar; Lejeune, , Mém. II 51Google Scholar.

60 Docs. 208; Docs. 2 436, 530.

61 Gallavotti, , DeS 29Google Scholar; Docs. 2 530 (?).

62 Cambridge Colloquium 283; Interpretation 487.

63 Kasussystems 140–147.

64 Docs. 369.

65 Kasussystems 59f.

66 ‘Sur la position dialectale du mycénien’, Il Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia, Roma–Napoli 14–20 ottobre 1991, 230–237 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

67 Mitford, , The Nymphaeum of Kafizin. The inscribed pottery. (Berlin/New York, 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar; = Kadmos, suppl. II) ]= NK].

68 Killen, , BICS 39 (1994) 73ffGoogle Scholar.

69 There is admittedly a possible parallel. On KN C(1) 5735 is found the allative ko-no-so-de which would not be expected in a document found at Knossos, but might be explained as a blind copying of a sealing. Cf. te-qa-de on TH Wu 96.

70 See Horrocks, G., ‘Homer's Dialect’ 214–217Google Scholar, in Morris, I., Powell, B. (edd.), A new companion to Homer (Brill, 1997)Google Scholar.