Greta Galeotti (Harvard University)
Looking at discussions of characterized present stems in Greek (e.g., Schwyzer Debrunner 1939, Rix 1976, Chantraine 1991), it is customary to find an appendix to the familiar Greek presents in -σκω (like πάσχω or εὑρίσκω) that contains the so-called “Ionic iterative-preterits:” φέρεσκε, στάσκον etc. This set of forms presents a series of oddities that catch the eye, partially encompassed by their name. The first peculiarity is that these forms are exclusively preterits – yet they almost always lack augment. The second is that they are not, in fact, exclusively built on present stems, as their position in the discussions mentioned above would suggest, but also to aorists. Finally, their distribution is also particularly interesting: they are overwhelmingly found in Homer, to a lesser extent in the rest of epic, while in prose almost exclusively in Herodotus, where their iterative value appears most clear (Rijksbaron 1994:15 points out their use with iterative modifiers). They are thus also found in the margin of epic language compendia (e.g., Chantraine 1986, Risch 1974, Shipp 1972).
While this paper begins with a classification of these forms, in line with most literature, its aim is to take a deeper look at their formation through the lens of the particular word-building rules that govern the oral epic language, and to spell out the development of their “synchronically transparent” appearance (Kimball 2002:163). This paper will thus strive to go beyond the more morphological or semantic perspectives that characterize the main studies on these forms (Brugmann 1903, Whatelet 1973 and for the latter Kimball 2002 and Zerdin 2002). Building on the intuition of Chantraine 1986:323, further advanced by Kimball 1980, which connected the divergent formation of the iterative-preterits of contract verbs to meter, this paper examines the iterative-preterits chiefly according to their distribution within the Homeric language, in relation to its formulas and its artificial forms.
The first issue regards in fact the contract verbs, which appear regularly as φιλέεσκε but also as πωλέσκετο (“descriptively a truncation,” Nussbaum 1998:65). This paper claims that this different treatment is indeed due to meter, but specifically warranted by the existence in the Homeric Kunstsprache of parallel forms built to athematic verbs (e.g. στάσκον). Rather than seeing this as a historically based morphological process (related to the Aeolic inflection of contract verbs, Whatelet 1973:387), this paper suggests that this option falls within the boundaries of the artificial creativity that the oral poets exploited to increase the flexibility of their language. Further exploring the poets’ ingenuity in creating new forms, the focus shifts to "irregular" iterative-preterit forms, or rather “constitués de façon particulièrement libre” (Chantraine 1986:323), like ῥίπτασκε, particularly highlighted by Kimball 2002, who however ascribed their unusual formation to a contextual aoristic semantic. Finally, this paper deals with the issue of the appearance of the iterative-preterits in the prose of Herodotus, and their linguistic reality. The overall conclusion of this study ascribes much of the development of these forms to the inner workings of the Homeric language, rather than to spoken Ionic.