PHASES OF THE LIVING GREEK LANGUAGE. 49 



5. The sparing of trouble in the memorising of various forms leads to the abolition 

 of irregular forms, and massing them all under a common type ; so in verbs, SlSv for SlSwfxi, 

 OeTco for Tidttfu. The irregular present ta-rtifit was discarded and a new regular verb, 

 common in the New Testament, was formed from the perfect eW^/ca, viz., vt£kw or cttvkco^ 

 In the same way -warepas takes the place of -n-ar^p, from the ace. irarepa, following the 

 analogy of final a? in masculines of the first declension, and similarly fiaaiXedg for fia- 

 o-iXevs, perhaps not innovations but remnants of the old Doric, in which a was the 

 favourite vowel. 



6. Pronouns and particles, as not being very self-assertive in their nature, and 

 liable to be flung in as adjuncts or enclitics to more prominent words, in Greek, as in all 

 languages, are particularly liable to curtailment or careless treatment of some kind : so 



M«? for qfxd$ } °" e '~? for v/xas, tou and tov for avrov and avrov, va for 'Ivd, 7rov and ttw for 07rov } 



and for "who," ttw?, for " that," conjunction, Sev for ovSev; a? with subjunctive for a^>e?, 

 like English "let," a(peg 'IScofxev, "let us see" (Matthew xxvii. 49). In this instance, as in 

 the use of Iva with the subjunctive, we see the modern Greek is simply a natural develops 

 ment of the Greek of the New Testament. See for %a, Matthew v. 29 ; vii. 4, 12. 



7. In nouns and verbs, and compound words, dcpalpeo-is, or the cutting off the initial 

 syllable, is very common: thus, -n-wpiKa for o-Kwpaca, for 6-wwpa, "fruits in their season;" 

 tt/o-w for d7no-w, ypa/ufxevo? for yey pd/u/uevos, as in English " given," for the Teutonic gegeben ; 



in a great number of compounds of e£ — £evpw for e^evpw, £<xkov<tto$ for egaKovaros , £eo-/re7ra£«, 

 for efceo-KeiraCw — vo/xdrog — ovo/xdros — 6vofxaaro<;, " a person." 



Nor is apocope less common not only of syllables but of single letters, as waicSl for 

 7raiSlov, SXlyo for SXlyov, ypa(povfie for ypdcpofxev, as the 1st person plural of verbs. 



8. Not unfrequently both aphseresis and apocope take place, until the word is scarce 

 recognisable. This is specially observable in diminutives, of which Greek, like Italian, 

 is very fond, thus — 



oixfxa 



OfXfxariou 



ofx/xari 



IxaTL 



o(pi? 



6(plSiov 



6 (pi Si 



(plSi 





6£y$iov 



oPvoi 



g$i 



(pvKog 



CpVKlSlOV 



(pvaaKiSiov 



(pvKaalSi 



9. Notwithstanding the gracilitas, or graceful tenuity of Greek, as Quintilian calls 

 it, the modern Greeks show a peculiar favour for the broad soft sound of ov = do in boom. 

 Thus they have not only ypa<pow (Lat. scribunt) for ypcupovo-t, a remnant of the Doric, but 



eirarovara for eirdrricra as past tense of irarkw. A marked Dorism also we have in eXafiav 



for eXafiov, el-^a for el^ov, and other such aorists regularly. So also indXw and -mdvco, 

 unquestionably Doric, Acts iii. 7 and elsewhere for mety. Contrasted with this Dorism the 

 py\v for pav as the accusative of adjectives in pds, frequent in modern Greek, is distinctly 

 Ionic, and a venerable relic of the phraseology of the Iliad (xxiii. 48). 



10. Of course syncope also comes into play, alone or along with aphseresis, as Kopcprj 

 for Kopvty', from inrdyere (John iv. 16), Tray ere, -ware. Sometimes the lost consonant is 



