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Terminology

Posted: February 17th, 2014, 10:21 am
by Barry Hofstetter
Is there a technical term for an ending that can refer to more than one thing? "Single termination" is what I remember a Greek professor of yore using, but is there something more sophistykated sounding? :) For example, -ῳ as a dative singular can be either masculine or neuter. How do we say that? Bi-gender (not transgender, please!)?

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 17th, 2014, 11:02 am
by Stephen Carlson
The usual term I've heard is syncretic.

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 17th, 2014, 12:27 pm
by cwconrad
Stephen Carlson wrote:The usual term I've heard is syncretic.
Apple system dictionary wrote:syncretism |ˈsiNGkrəˌtizəm|
noun
1 the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.
2 Linguistics the merging of different inflectional varieties of a word during the development of a language.
If I understand that definition rightly (no guarantee on that!), it appears rather to refer to a process in distinct words, something like Greek 3rd declension accusative plurals assimilating to the nominative (e.g. πόλεας ---⟩ πόλεις. Or is that what you mean, Barry?

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 17th, 2014, 11:14 pm
by MAubrey
Here you go:

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/extend.html

Cumulative Exponence is a fairly standard term.

Portmanteau is sometimes used as well.

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 18th, 2014, 6:16 am
by cwconrad
MAubrey wrote:Here you go:

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/extend.html

Cumulative Exponence is a fairly standard term.

Portmanteau is sometimes used as well.
As in comparmented "carryall" luggage?? That's at least a suggestive metaphor. "Cumulative Exponence" is okay too if one commands Latin roots. God forbid we should all use the same term at all times and places for the same thing!

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 18th, 2014, 9:50 am
by MAubrey
cwconrad wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Here you go:

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/extend.html

Cumulative Exponence is a fairly standard term.

Portmanteau is sometimes used as well.
As in comparmented "carryall" luggage?? That's at least a suggestive metaphor. "Cumulative Exponence" is okay too if one commands Latin roots. God forbid we should all use the same term at all times and places for the same thing!
Portmanteau was stolen from Lewis Carroll's writings.
Wikipedia wrote:The word "portmanteau" was first used in this context by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871),[9] in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in Jabberwocky,[10] where "slithy" means "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable". Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice,

'You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

In his introduction to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:

Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious". Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first ... if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious".

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 18th, 2014, 10:03 am
by cwconrad
MAubrey wrote:
cwconrad wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Here you go:

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/extend.html

Cumulative Exponence is a fairly standard term.

Portmanteau is sometimes used as well.
As in comparmented "carryall" luggage?? That's at least a suggestive metaphor. "Cumulative Exponence" is okay too if one commands Latin roots. God forbid we should all use the same term at all times and places for the same thing!
Portmanteau was stolen from Lewis Carroll's writings.
Wikipedia wrote:The word "portmanteau" was first used in this context by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871),[9] in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in Jabberwocky,[10] where "slithy" means "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable". Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice,

'You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

In his introduction to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:

Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious". Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first ... if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious".
Jawohl! Spoken like a true Snark -- or should we say, "a frumious bandersnatch." All those tales-told-out-of-school about Liddell's daughter Alice and Dodgson a.k.a. Carroll. Once again I think back to that lazy Saturday afternoon more than a decade ago when Jonathan proposed a joint effort to put "Jabberwocky" into some sort of patchwork Greek.

Re: Terminology - confusing referencing

Posted: February 18th, 2014, 8:23 pm
by Stephen Hughes
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Is there a technical term for an ending that can refer to more than one thing? "Single termination" is what I remember a Greek professor of yore using, but is there something more sophistykated sounding? For example, -ῳ as a dative singular can be either masculine or neuter. How do we say that?
Looking at your question from the point of view of use, rather than form could I offer you another technical term.

I'm presuming that this question arose from the Antecedant of LATREUO of Rev. 22:3 thread. The word we use in English teaching for a pronoun used for a noun is "referencing".

A mixed-up, "He said that she was going to give him her apple, which they had told him that she could have." type sentence (or the part of Revelations 22:3 that we were looking at) would be "confusing referencing".

Re: Terminology

Posted: February 20th, 2014, 4:28 pm
by Stephen Carlson
It's still not clear what's being asked. If it is that the masculine and the neuter share the same form, then syncretic may be appropriate. If it is that -ῷ expresses the categories of case, number, and gender in a single form, then cumulative exponence or even polyexponence would be appropriate.