[b-greek] Re: ARSENKOITOS

From: George Athas (gathas@ausisp.com)
Date: Tue Aug 14 2001 - 09:40:25 EDT


| I find Boswell's argument rather strained. He argues that ARSEN is not the
| object of KOITAI because even though there are many examples of compound
| Greek words using ARREN (the older form of ARSEN) which take ARREN to be the
| object of the verbal part of the word (such as ARRENOPOIOS, ARRENOGAMEW,
| etc.), there are some examples were the ARREN portion of the compound word
| is adjectival (such as ARSENOMORPHOS, ARSENOGENHS, etc.) But this argument
| leads one equally to either conclusion, so it is left to the reader to
| decide which to choose, which is rather subjective. He tries to strengthen
| his argument by claiming that, in general, when ARREN is used, it is
| objectival and when ARSEN is used it is adjectival, but this is not
| consistently the case, so the argument is weak, IMO.

With regards to the above info:
Interestingly, the adjectival uses of the compound portion seem to go with intransitive,
stative or predicative notions. The objective use of the compound seems to be coupled with
transitive/dynamic notions. If we take this observation to the word ARSENOKOITHS, then
Boswell would appear to be wrong in opting for the adjectival usage. It would seem,
rather, that the objective usage is called for. Since the noun ARSENOKOITHS is masculine,
it should be understood as a term referring to men who "bed" other men.

Best regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
(Sydney, Australia)
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