24 • Charles E. Bennett, 



that pronunciation of f for all Greek dialects, as Meyer {Gr. 

 Gr.^ § 230) seems to conclude, cannot be admitted. There 

 may have been a labio-dental as well as a bilabial f in Greek, 

 just as in Germany in case of iv. 



The V which was doubtless heard in the spoken language 

 between every e and a succeeding f is not expressed in in- 

 scriptions except in the instances above cited. Elsewhere 

 we find ipprjTdaaTV Coll. 60, 14; eppe^a 71; ^KT€pa{v)8p(o 

 46 ; 47 ; KarepopKcov 60, i ; vepo(TTdTa<{ 59, 2 ; ^iKOKXepr]<} 

 40, I. 



The same development of o to ov before f probably existed, 

 but existing inscriptions show no evidence of any attempt to 

 indicate this refinement of pronunciation. Cf. Sopevac Coll, 

 60, 5, 15 ; ^ApiaroKopcov (questioned by Hall, yonr. Am. Or. 

 Soc., xi., p. 216) 45, I. 



2. 01 has also been assumed by Spitzer {Laiit. Ark. Dial., 

 p. 24, Note) as the termination of those forms from -o- stems 

 which Deecke transcribes as -wi {i.e. -w, dative). Spitzer 

 takes these as locatives, holding that -ui could not remain 

 unchanged in either Arcadian or Cyprian, but must always 

 become -w. That -wi did frequently lose its i in Cyprian is 

 beyond question. This is shown clearly by the frequent 

 dative forms in -« (for the instances, see below, 3, c). But it 

 is not true that -wi always lost its i any more than did -di (see 

 above, § 11, 4) ; -di and -wi seem both of them to be passing 

 through a sort of transition period in the dialect of our 

 Cyprian inscriptions. 



Moreover if, with Spitzer, we transcribe Cyprian -0 • i • 

 by -ot {i.e. locative), we shall be forced to admit a serious in- 

 consistency in such phrases as rot dew Coll. 74, i and rol 

 deol TM "TXdrai 27, I, where we should have a dative article 

 limiting a locative noun. There is therefore not only no 

 phonetic necessity for admitting -01 instead of -«i, but to do 

 so would lead to an absurdity. The view of Ahrens, who 

 claims a locative in -01 and also a dative in -wi and -w, involves 

 no phonetic considerations and will be considered below 

 under Inflections, § 26, 3. 



154 



