Конференции

50-я Международная научная филологическая конференция имени Людмилы Алексеевны Вербицкой

2022

15

–

23

March

Macedonian glosses with /a/ for Greek /o/

Данило Савич

Докладчик

младший научный сотрудник
Институт балканологии - Сербская академия наук и искусств

176 ZOOM
2022-03-16

18:50 - 19:15

Ключевые слова, аннотация

Key-words: Macedonian, Greek, Palaeo-Balkan, etymology, glosses.

Тезисы

Recent studies of Ancient Macedonian solidify its status as a variant of Greek related to Doric and the Northwestern dialects. Surprisingly, in a number of Hesychian glosses explicitly labelled as Macedonian one finds /a/ where a Greek etymology would require /o/. A most peculiar example is that of ἀβροῦτες (emendable to ἀβροῦϝες) ‘eyebrows’, cf. Gk. ὀφρῦς ‘id.’ < *h3bhruH-, displaying aC- < *h3C-. Other instances of /a/ instead of /o/ include ἄδδαι ‘chariot poles’ (Gk. ὄζος ‘branch’ < *Hosd-o-), ἄξος ‘wood’ (Gk. ὀξύα ‘beech’ << *Hh3-es-ko-), δαρύλλος ‘oak’ (Gk. δόρυ ‘wood, spear’ < *doru). Tentative additions to the list are the personal name Κάρανος, in view of Gk. κοίρανος ‘ruler’ < *kor-i̯o-, and the gloss ἄλιζα ‘white leprosy of the trees’ if comparable to Gk. ὀλίγος ‘small’ < *h3lig-o- and λοιγός ‘ruin’ < *h3loig-o-. A dialectal innovation, whereby Gk. /o/ > Mac. /a/, would be otherwise unattested in Greek dialects. Besides, it would not account for the cases of Mac. /o/ corresponding to Gk. /o/, such as Mac. γόλα ‘intestines’ to Gk. χολάδες ‘id.’, or Mac. γοτάν ‘swine’ to Gk. βοτόν ‘cattle’ < *gu̯h3-to-. One may therefore suggest that the mentioned examples of Mac. /a/ stem from an Indo-European language different from Greek, and apparently spoken alongside it at some point in Macedon. The glosses in question may be wrongly attributed to Macedonian, or seen as borrowings from another language. The identification of this language, however, is far from certain: *h3C- > aC- in ἀβροῦτες, and perhaps in ἄλιζα, suffices to eliminate Thracian, Illyrian, and Phrygian as potential candidates; the latter is also ruled out by *o > a. On the other hand, the vocalization of the laryngeal in *h3C- suggests a relatively close link with Greek and Phrygian. The scarce material prevents us from reaching a definite conclusion.