Greek μάρτυς ‘witness’, σειρά ‘rope’ and PIE *ter(H)- ‘to bind’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22311431 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Claire Le Feuvre (0000-0001-9722-7372, Sorbonne Université, ParisUMR Orient & Méditerranée France, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 134 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 225-238 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-12 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Historical Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0935-3518 • E-ISSN: 2196-8071 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.13109/hisp.2021.134.1.225 |
| OpenAlex | W4362687543 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
The paper shows that the thematic form μάρτυρος in Homer is metrically conditioned. The only old form is the athematic μάρτυς < μάρτυρς. This leads to a reexamination of Frisk’s explanation for μάρτυς, which is only partially correct. The word probably goes back to *(s)mer- ‘to have in mind, to remember’, as assumed by Frisk, but it is a compound, not a derivative. The paper argues that the second member of the compound is a root noun of *ter(H)- ‘to bind’, a root found in Greek σειρά ‘rope’ and σορός ‘funerary urn’, and otherwise attested only in Baltic and Slavic. The witness is the ‘memory-binding’ one, which agrees with the older meaning of μάρτυς in Homer and that of its denominative μαρτύρομαι
Art · Epistemology · Etymology · Linguistics · Literature · Witness · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
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