βαλεῖν : Χ, where X is resolved as βαλέειν As the paper proceeds to argue, the total absence of aoristic -έειν from Hesiod is unlikely to be coincidental: this artificial form must have been a product of specifically East Ionic Kunstsprache (aor. It is argued that this artificial “distraction” should be viewed as an actual analogical innovation, resulting from a proportional analogy to the “liquid futures” in *-ehe/o-: inf.

*βαλέμεν): instead we find unexplained forms in -έειν (e.g. This paper provides a novel argument in favor of the second solution (the “diffusionist” approach), starting from the fact that there are no aorist infinitives in -έμεν in Homer which would scan as υ υ - before a consonant or caesura (e.g.

Forms in -έμεν have been viewed either as (1) remnants from the “Αeolic stage” of epic diction, not “ionicized” by Ionian bards, because contracted Ionic -ẹ̄n (< *-ehen) would otherwise fill the biceps, resulting in an undesirable spondaic foot, or as (2) products of secondary “aeolicization”, whereby Aeolic -έμεν from the neighboring tradition was substituted for the metrically inept Ionic -ẹ̄n. Ιn Homer we find both Ionic -εῖν and Aeolic -έμεν, the latter mostly occupying the biceps of the fourth or the fifth foot, conforming to the well-known preference for a dactylic word-end before the bucolic dieresis and before the sixth foot. This paper examines the distribution of thematic infinitive endings in early Greek epic in the context of the long-standing debate about the transmission and development of Homeric epic diction.

Hiss corrupted thomson