Particularly of the LEfTE R 2ITM A. 129 



There are, however, feveral other grounds on. which the 

 claim of this letter to the appellation of Jolitary or independent, 

 may be fupported. 



I. 2irMA alone of all the confonants employs its power in 

 affifting the mutes to make up the double letters. Thus, any 

 one of the labial mutes t, or /3, or <p, affifted by <r, makes ^* 

 any one of the palatine mutes, a, or y, or ^, affifted in the 

 fame manner, makes f * and any one of the dental mutes, r, or 

 5, or S-, with the fame help, makes £. In the cafe of \J/ an< i !> 

 this is evident from the mode of refolving thofe double letters 

 in the inflections, efpecially in the oblique cafes of nouns of the 

 imparifyllabic declenhon. Thus, in the cafe of -v//, we perceive 

 that Xa/Xa^, procella, is the fame with Xa/XcMr?, becaufe its ge- 

 nitive is Xat^ccxog' that "A^a-vJ/, Arabs, is the fame with"A^a/3$, 

 becaufe its genitive is "Agufios' that Kctrr[k^ y fcala, is the fame 

 with Kotrfattp?, becaufe its genitive is %arri\i(po$' and in the cafe 

 of I, we perceive that »og>af, corvus, is the fame with »<>£a»s, be- 

 caufe its genitive is ko^ukos' that (pXo'f, jlamma, is the fame with 

 ?>Xoys, becaufe its genitive is <px6yog' that ovy|, ungula, is the fame 

 with ovvfts, becaufe its genitive is owypc,. But the fame analogy 

 in the cafe of £ is not fo eafily traced ', and indeed the critics 

 and grammarians, who have written in Greek, do not even af- 

 fert that £ is equivalent to £?, but to<r£ *. Their reafon feems 

 to have been, that they never obferved £ refolved into two Am- 

 ple confonants, except in the Doric manner, as f/uXicrtia, inftead 

 of y,sxi£a> modular ; o<rd&>, inftead of o£«, oka. The learned 

 Hulewicz even denies that £ is a double letter; " becaufe, 

 " (fays he) it never is equivalent to two confonants, like g and 

 " \^ # for if £were a double confonant, it would occur in the 

 " termination of Greek words, as well as {• and nj/, which it 

 Vol. II. R " never 



* Vide Dionys. Hal. wsg* <rw$. htp., $, Dionys. Thracem apud Fabrictum in Biblioth. 

 Gr. Vol. VII. p. 28. Theod. Gazak Grammat. fol, 24. Thefe are followed by 

 Clenardus, <&c. 



