Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics

Abstract Haplology is the loss of a syllable that is similar to a syllable nearby. Haplology is the loss of a syllable that is similar to a syllable nearby, as when Latin nutritrix ‘nurse’ became nutrix through loss of the repeated tri, or when English Anglaland ‘land of the Angles’ became England through loss of the repeated la. The phenomenon was named by Maurice Bloomfield (1896) in connection with Vedic Sanskrit rujā́nāḥ, which he derived from *rujāná-nās ‘with broken nose’ through loss of ná before nās. Haplology is a special case of the Obligatory Contour Principle, the general av…

Abstract   See Linguistic Correctness (‘hellēnismós’), Ancient Theories of Bibliography  

Abstract Hellenistic literary prose (HLP) is Greek prose literature composed during the period of Hellenism (323 – 31 BCE). No work written in HLP has been transmitted in full. Moreover, it is hard to draw an accurate picture of the evolution of HLP, because Hellenism lasted almost twice as long as the classical period of Attic prose, and because the fragments of HLP are not evenly distributed throughout the period. Nevertheless, the surviving remnant of HLP exhibits common traits that mark a dif…

Abstract The term Hellenistic Poetry usually refers to literature composed in verse between the death of Alexander the Great and the battle of Actium (323-31 BCE). The Hellenistic poets (Callimachus, Apollonius, Theocritus, Herodas, Aratus, Nicander, and others whose poems have in part been preserved in the Greek Anthology), some of whom are closely associated with Alexandria, use the same devices of diction as the classical or archaic poets, but use them differently in terms of quantity and quality. The magnificent work of literary critici…

Abstract The term ‘heteroclisis’ refers to a combination of r- and n-stems found in a small group of Indo-European neuter nouns called heteroclitics (e.g. Lat. femur ‘thigh’, gen. femin-is, Gk. húdōr  ‘water’, gen. húdat-os from *húdn̥t-os). It could be that the stem formant -r/n- reconstructible for PIE on the basis of Greek and other archaic IE languages is a relic of a pre-PIE classifier system. A combination of r- and n- stems is found in a small group of Indo-European neuter nouns called heteroclitics. The r-stem appears only in the nom./acc., the n-stem elsewhere, as in Latin femur …