I30 ANALOGY of GREEK LETrERS; 



" never does *." But, in anfwer to this, it may be faid, that 

 the argument againll ^ being a double eonfonant, becauft 

 it never terminates a word, cannot be admitted, as it is no where 

 afferted, that to be a final letter is ^bfolutely necefTary to the ex- 

 iftence of a double eonfonant. But, granting this to be the 

 cafe, ^ may in fadl be faid, as well as | and •vj/, to be a final let- 

 ter, if the following circumftances be properly attended to. It 

 is obferved by Hulewicz himfelf, as well as other grammar!- • 

 ans, that the dental mutes r, 5, fi, are thrown away before «•• 

 This happens evidently in the formation of the firfl futures of 

 verbs: thiis, rvTro), verbero, not rvvrerca in the future, but rWga, 

 which is written rC-i^ta' oi^a, cano, not u.'hixo), or ciZp}, but atra' 

 iz^n^a, impleo, not ■^X^^o-iy nor vXri^u, but it'kTiffa. One reafon for 

 this feems to be, that if t?, or Iz, or S^c, had been permitted to 

 remain in the firft futures of verbs, they muft have produced 

 ^, and this would have confounded the termination of thofe 

 futures with that of the prefent tenfes of a great many verbs in 

 ^0), and thus have given rife to a great ambiguity in the cafe of 

 prefent and future tenfes ; an inconvenience which the Greeks 

 carefully avoided, and in the prefent inftance the more willingly 

 got rid of, becaufe the throwing away of r, I, ^, before cr, grati- 

 fied an antipathy, which the Grecian ear, during the progrefs 

 and refinement of their language, feems to have conceived againft 

 the combination of thofe confonants f ; for it is evident, from the 

 analogy of certain genitives which end in rtx;, ^o? and ^og, that,, 

 in the early times of the Greek language, a great many nouns 

 terminated in re, ^g and 0g, which is the fame with terminating 

 in ^' thus, "kijiriTg, or Xs/S;?^, by rejeding the r before ?, be- 

 comes 



• Injlitut. Gram. p. 15. 



\ Another reafon is, that, in many verbs, it would produce too great a concourfe of 

 confonants. See this illuftrated above, p. 127. note J. 



