Some New Theories of the Greek Ka-Perfect. 
14? 
was given a wider application, being appended first to other long vowel 
stems as r/~> dry- afterward to short vowel stems, and eventually 
to some mute and all liquid stems. 
This theory, it will be observed, explains the reason why we find the 
ending -xa applied first to long vowel stems; it is because it originated with 
such a stem, Sao-. It explains further the origin of the aorists e^pxa, 
rjxa, and two others not usually given in the grammars, e6ryxa and 
'iepprjxa. These aorists were formed after the analogy of eSaoxa just as 
'idrrjxa after the analogy of Sedooxa, 
It might seem strange, in view of this fact, that we do not find a similar 
wide extension of the -xa- aorist, just as of the -xa- perfect. The reason of 
course is plain. The same time suffix could not clo duty for both tenses. 
The analogy might have taken its development in the line of the aorist, 
just as well as of the perfect, and if that had occurred, we should have 
looked upon it as perfectly natural; but it could not do double duty, serv¬ 
ing both as a perfect and an aorist suffix. 
As it is, the -xa- suffix developed in the perfect, and beyond a few -xa- 
aorists formed before the suffix had come to be felt as peculiar to the per¬ 
fect, it took no further development in the line of the aorist. 
Such is Brugmann’s theory of the -xa- perfect. It is really less 
fanciful than one might be at first inclined to consider it. His theory 
is worked out with rigid method, nothing Ijeing assumed, which is incon¬ 
sistent with known phonetic laws or unsupported by the analogy of the 
Greek itself and other languages. A demonstration, however, it can not 
be held to be. It is simply an extremely clever hypothesis supported by 
striking analogies. 
It has met with recognition from German scholars such as von der 
Pfordten in his Geschichte des griechischen Perfects, as well as from Gus¬ 
tav Meyer in his Griechische Grammatik. While therefore we may not 
call it a proof vve must admit that it suggests a plausible method by which 
the -xa- perfect may have developed. 
We consider next 
osthoff’s theory. 
For several years after Brugmann propounded his theory it enjoyed gen¬ 
eral repute as the only plausible explanation yet given of the problem, un¬ 
til the appearance in 1884, of Osthoff’s Geschichte des Perfects im Indo- 
germanischen. Herman Osthoff, the author of this work is professor of 
Sanskrit and comparative philology at Heidelberg, and a man of astound¬ 
ing ingenuity in solving the riddles of Indo-European grammar. His 
mind is constantly evolving a new solution of some knotty point of 
morphology, worked out with an elaborateness which anticipates every ob¬ 
jection that can be raised against it. Although an intimate friend of 
Brugmann and with him the head of the school of “ Junggrammatiker ”, 
yet he never could feel quite satisfied with Brugmann’s theory of the origin 
of the -xa- perfect, which we have just considered above. 
