Re: MOGIS and MOLIS

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 15 1998 - 13:56:55 EDT


At 1:16 PM -0500 9/14/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>At 10:39 AM 9/14/98 -0700, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>
>>Louw and Nida (#78.49 foot note #9) state that MOGIS and MOLIS are different
>>forms of the same lexical item. However, BAGD lists them as two separate
>>words. BDF (#33) states that the relationship between these two words is
>>"undecided".
>
>What tests do people use to see if two forms belong to the same lexical
>item? Are the same tests used by everyone? I'm realizing that I don't
>really know what a "word" is, i.e. I have no precise definition for one.

In this instance I think that BAGD are right and BDF are mistaken: this is
evidently not a matter of the "interchange of simple consonants" as if
MOGIS and MOLIS were variants upon the same root form. Rather, they appear
to derive from two distinct words that both mean "effort," MOGIS from MOGOS
(cf. MOCQOS), MOLIS from MWLOS (a word that is scarcely found after Homer
but is very common there, esp. in the phrase MWLOS ARHOS, "the strain of
Ares (warfare)." So both these adverbs meaning "with effort," "scarcely"
derive from different roots. MOLIS is the standard word in classical Greek,
but MOGIS appears regularly, for some reason that hasn't been revealed,
Plato and later Greek prose.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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