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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
There are in iambic trimeters a number of examples of hiatus where 
is followed by forms of 
, mainly in Comedy but also (very rarely) in Tragedy. These are notable because they fall outside the usual range of hiatus in drama, which covers passages with interrogative 
(probably the most common) and 
, invocatory 
exclamations such as 
, and interjections. The use seems to deserve closer attention.
page 239 note 1 A tenth example might be in fr. 186. i, where 
is conjectured by Meineke for 
at the start of the line. This would make the only example in Aristophanes of the phrase at the start of an iambic line. The passage is from the Daedalus and could be by Plato and not Aristophanes.
page 239 note 2 There is similar use of 
on without 
. A parallel use of 
without a subordinate clause is seen in 
: here the equivalence to an adverb is especially marked in the form 
. Cf. Dale on E. Alc. 48.Google Scholar
page 240 note 1 The point is of some value in considering the pronunciation of 
, to which we shall come below. It may be noted on the other hand that 
appears shortened in hiatus in Pl Com. 153. 3 
(anapaestic) and Archestr. ap. Ath. 6. 300 e 
(hexam.).
page 240 note 2 Fr. 199 (326 Mette), quoted by Jebb ad Soph. O.T. 959, has 
and not 
in the citations of both Dion. Hal. 1. 41. 3 and Strab. 4. 1.7.
page 240 note 3 The expressive redundancy seen at v. 784 in 
recurs in Ar. Pax 1302 
and is surely a reflex of current speech. So too Broadhead, ad loc.
page 242 note 1 The range of forms is very restricted, as is clear from the examples. Exceptionally, there is the single use of a subjunctive form, 
, in Ar. Vesp. 425 (trochaic), and of the participle, 
, in Telecl. 41. 4 (also trochaic), due to analogical extension. It is not difficult to accept that the three meanings ‘I am sure’, and ‘You may be sure’ (imperative, singular and plural) would be much the most common uses.
page 242 note 2 Anzeiger der Akad. der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl. lxxi (1934), 135–8.Google Scholar
page 243 note 1 I use the term ‘combination’ (like Bloomfield's ‘phrasal combination’) of a close association of words which has not the complete fixity of the compound. Similarly I have written elsewhere of the negative combination seen in such groups as 
(Studies in the Greek Negatives, pp. 28 ff.).Google Scholar Denniston (Oxford Classical Dictionary, ‘Hiatus’) also writes of hiatus in drama ‘within a more or less closely unified word-group’, and this is the essential point which Radermacher did not bring out.
page 243 note 2 Lejeune, , Traité de phonétique grecque, § 239.Google Scholar
page 243 note 3 Note that Schwyzer's text (p. 197, 1. 10) has silbisches u, but this is a mistake for unsilbisches which is put right in his Corrections.
page 243 note 4 We may have w as first sound in a syllable where it is followed by a vowel or diphthong, or by a liquid, but not by a consonantal stop. The pre-liquid position can be seen in El. 
, Lesb. * 
as shown by 
; also Cypr. 
where the second of the alternative forms preserves the original 
the sound of the semi-vowel f(w) has been anticipated, changing the initial vowel into a diphthong. This change, seen also in some other forms (e.g. Lesb. 
, Hom. 
: Buck, , Greek Dialects, p. 51),Google Scholar is the opposite of that postulated by Schwyzer (autos > awtos).
page 243 note 5 Lejeune, , op. cit., pp. 141 (with fn. 2), 151.Google Scholar
page 243 note 6 Thumb-Scherer, , Handbuch der griech. Dialekte, ii. 292–3.Google Scholar
page 244 note 1 Sturtevant, , The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin 2, p. 53,Google Scholar would also take 
as showing a contamination of the two spellings av and 
, so that this would be a purely graphic phenomenon and 
would represent a single sound. I find it difficult to agree with his refusal to accept the possibility of a glide sound w between a and v, which he claims, in criticism of Buck, would not be natural in the position preceding the u–sound, but only following it (op. cit., pp. 53–54 fn.). The glide may facilitate transition to the u–sound, as well as from it.
page 244 note 2 The form 
may also occur in Attic on a fragmentary stone from the Acropolis, illustrated in Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Plate II. 7, where afur is found: the inscription is too fragmentary to show whether it is metrical.
page 244 note 3 Cf. Sturtevant, , op. cit., pp. 53–54;Google ScholarSchwyzer, , Griech. Gramm. i. 197.Google Scholar
page 245 note 1 As already mentioned, I see examples of negative combination where 
is used in close association with certain words (e.g. 
). With 
hiatus would not arise, as the alternative forms 
are regularly used before vowels. But note the use of 
with hiatus in the phrases 
(Aristophanes, Alexis, Menander: 
is required here because of the underlying wish).
page 245 note 2 Not that the negative element 
in 
was not appreciated as such: that seems hardly credible. Meillet, (Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque 5, p. 263),Google Scholar referring to the back-formation 
(Alcaeus, Democritus) remarked that this showed that on ne sentait pas 
. But this is to read too much in the evidence of this plainly artificial form, which is due to a sophisticated rather than an ignorant division into 
. I have dealt further with 
on pp. 235 ff.
To return to the sense of the negative element in 
, a valuable indication is given by the form 
which in Attic and elsewhere displaced 
in popular favour for a period from the start of the fourth century B.C.; for 
owed its 
to the influence of the aspirate on the final of 
, and so shows consciousness of a division 
.
With regard to the aspirate in 
its it may also be remarked that there seems no reason to suppose that this feature made the hiatus easier (as suggested by Jebb ad Bacchyl. 15. 5 
). Cf. Lejeune, , Traité de phonétique grecque, p. 287.Google Scholar
page 245 note 3 So too Lobel, , C.Q. xv (1921), 163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 246 note 1 Even here Lobel (
84) read 
, but, as noted, in Poet. Lesb. Frag, return is made to the form 
.
page 246 note 2 I amplify this point in considering separately the use of δέν (pp. 235 ff.).
page 246 note 3 Meineke would remove both of these, assigning die first to the comic poet of the same name, and proposing emendations to displace in the second. But such a very rare appearance of the use in Tragedy is not to be ruled out in principle.
page 247 note 1 I am glad to acknowledge assistance given me by Mr. P. J. Parsons.
