holmes: composition of verbs with prepositions. I2g 



range oi (3dX\w in Thucydides. In Homer on the other hand, where 

 the department is the same, its range is limited to 14 including the 

 poetic dt^/u-t", while fSaivw alone has a range of 15, which increases to 

 17, counting d/x</)t', in connection with (.p-^ofxat {iXddv) and eTjut, 

 avTL still being the missing link. This influence of department 

 manifests itself again in a negative way in Demosthenes, where 

 jSdWo) stands 15 ( eicr/SdAXw, the most military of all military terms, 

 naturally being missing), while the eLfXL-epxofj-aL- and ^aiVoj-combination 

 stands i5. 



II. Another objection of very much the same sort might be 

 raised from the fact that ypdt^w in the verbs of speech, has a range of 

 9 prepositions, which is larger than that of any of the verbs cited 

 as expressing relatively pure speech, dyopeu'w, etTrov or Xeyw. True, 

 dyop€vw has a range of but 4, cittov 7, and Acyw 5. But here again, 

 as in the case of verbs of relatively pure physical motion, no one 

 of the verbs makes a complete system of Attic tenses. Taken 

 collectively they have a range of 10 prepositions. Tpd(f)o> had the 

 advantage in that it started life as a verb of actual motion. Its . 

 later legal sphere was again in its favor. That ypdffnu should get 

 the better of the verbs most nearly colorless in the orators, is what 

 would be expected from the legal teclmique employed in that 

 department. Accordingly, in Demosthenes, the proportion is 13 

 for ypdcjxx), as against 8 for the group dyopevw, eT-n-ov and Ae'yw. 



III. A third objection ma}' be found in the narrow range of 

 prepositions of the verbs tKveo/i,at and ariWo), in which the notion of 

 motion clearh^ predominates. Here again the community of feeling 

 between verb and preposition comes into pla\'. especially in the 

 case of iKviop.u.L. In iKvio/xat, "arrive", the point of view of the 

 motion is "whence ". The notion is not so much "come to ", as 



"come from to ". Hence airb is the preposition for which 



iKvioixat has the strongest affinity. But the addition of d7r6 did not 

 create any modification in the idea of the verb. The notion was 

 still "arrive", the point of view of the motion being simply 

 reinforced. Now began a race between LKviofxai and dfftLKveojxai in which 

 dtftLKviofxat was the winner, debarring its rival entirely from the track 

 of prose. The problem which the language then had to solve had 

 changed from defining the direction of t/<i'eo/xat to defining the direc- 

 tion of d<^tKT/eo/xat, that is, from defining the direction of a simple, to 

 defining the direction of a compound. But the language does not 

 take so kindly to diprothetic composition as to monoprothetic, and 

 although attempt was made even here toward diprothetic compo- 

 sition, of which occasional evidence remains (tlaaf^iKvioixai Od. 12, 

 40; 8 times in Homer; Trpo- and Trpo(Ta<f>iKveoixaL, see Table II.), yet 



