Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  As far as I am aware, the stem στάω is not found in Greek. The verb is found, that is ἔστην ἕστηκα στήσας στάς [to stand], etc., but it is defective. The verb sto is complete.

  [2774] Vice versa there will be very few anomalous or defective Latin verbs whose proper pure and true stem, obsolete in Latin, or whose parts which in Latin are either lost or irregular, will be preserved and regular in universal Greek usage in every good period and every type of writing. Such for example would be the verb μνάω [to remember], stem of memini (and this memini is formed by duplication of the m, as in Greek μέμνημαι [to remind]) and like many Latin preterites, cecini, cecidi, dedi, steti, fefelli, poposci, pepuli, tetuli ancient, from tulo or tollo, tetigi, pepigi, peperci, cecidi, spopondi, dedidi, tetendi, peperi, totondi, pependi, didici (see Gellius, 7, 9), etc. Of this verb μνάω some parts are preserved in Greek, but more among the poets than elsewhere: and I doubt whether that stem μνάω can be found anywhere. You can see p. 3691.

  And here I note that Latin normally preserves its simplest, purest stems, that is ones composed of a smaller number of letters, more than Greek does. Which can be seen both in the examples cited above, and through others which will be adduced, and through a large number which could be adduced. For example from δῶ or δόω, the Greeks by the usual method of duplication,1 apart from the inflection in μι, formed δίδωμι; as from πɛράω πιπράσκω, [2775] from φάω or φάσκω πιφάσκω or πιφαύσκω, from τρόω τιτρώσκω, from τράω τιτράω or τιτραίνω or τίτρημι, from θέω τίθημι, from πλήθω πίμπλημι or πιμπλάω or πιμπλάνω or πίπλημι, from τɛίνω and from τίω or from τίνω τιταίνω, from βάω, βῆμι, βαίνω βιβάω or βίβημι, or βιβάσθω, from χράω κιχράω or κίχρημι, from ὄνημι ὀνίνημι, from καλέω κικλήσκω, from πρήθω, etc., πίμπρημι, etc., from μνάω μιμνήσκω, from δράω διδράσκω, and a thousand others. Latin preserves the pure do. So from λήθω λανθάνω. Latin lateo. So from λήβω λαμβάνω, from λήχω λαγχάνω, from τɛύχω τυγχάνω, from μήθω μανθάνω, from δάρθω δαρθάνω, from βάω βαίνω, from πɛτάω πɛταννύω or πɛτάννυμι, from χάζω χανδάνω, from φάω φαίνω or φαɛίνω and the like, from ἵζω ἱζάνω, from ἐρύκω ἐρυκάνω, etc., from δύω δύνω, from διώκω ἀμύνω, διωκάθω ἀμυνάθω, from κιχέω κιχάνω, from ɛἴκω ɛἰκάθω, from ἴσχω ἰσχάνω and ἰσχανάω, from βλάστω βλαστάνω, ἁμαρτάνω, ἐρυγγάνω, οἰδάνω. The Greeks had a hundred forms and figures (either coming from the variety and property of the dialects, or from elsewhere) both to alter, and to increase the elements of their stems. Not so the Latins. Therefore their stems are either monosyllables, or easier to reduce to the monosyllabic root. See p. 2811.

  (2) Many roots (either primitive or secondary) of Greek words which are not found in Greek, or are not in use, although they once were, are preserved in Latin, and are in common use. The word do, root of the verb δίδωμι, can serve as an example, and it is neither anomalous nor defective as I have said above. But δίδωμι is truly do itself (not a derivative of it) altered, that is duplicated and inflected in the Greek manner. ῾Αρπάζω [to snatch away] is a genuine derivative of ἅρπω, which however is not found in Greek writers, or is very rare and only poetic. Its substantivized feminine participle ἅρπυιαι [snatchers, storm spirits] is indeed found, which in the second Triopian inscription, is [2776] adopted as an adjective form.1 Latin has rapio [to carry off], which through metathesis is precisely the stem ἅρπω. In Scapula I find ἁρπῶ and ἁρπῶμαι with no examples. This is most likely a contraction of ἁρπάω (see Schrevel under ἁρπάω), of which ἁρπάζω would not be a derivative but almost like an inflection, as from πɛιράω [to try], πɛιράζω. But from ἁρπάω cannot come ἅρπυιαι, but rather ἁρπηκυῖαι or ἡρπηκυῖαι. See p. 2786.

  (3) As is said above, pp. 2774–75, Latin normally preserves words which are much simpler in relation to their elements, more than Greek does. And this is to be taken to apply not only to the stems of verbs or to the roots of any word, but to any other part of speech whatever. For ὀδοὺς ὀδόντος [tooth] Latin has dens tis. ᾿Ολολύζω [to utter a loud cry] must be an alteration of ὀλολύω, like τροχάζω is of τροχάω, πɛιράζω of πɛιράω, δοκάζω of δοκάω, σκɛπάζω of σκɛπάω, διστάζω of διστάω from δίς and στάω, see pp. 2825, 3169, ἀνύττω or ἀνύτω of ἀνύω, etc. In fact ὀλολύω is much more imitative and suitable than ὀλολύζω where the ζ, as far as imitation goes, is out of place. Now in origin this verb is evidently formed and born from the imitation of its subject, like ululo [to ululate]. And it is no surprise, because it is a word which signifies a sound. See p. 2811 and Scapula under ἀλαλάζω. Latin has ululo, which is certainly originally one and the same as ὀλολύζω, and is much simpler in its elements. Γιγνώσκω [to know], a defective or anomalous verb, is formed by duplication from γνώσκω, which [2777] is not in fact its stem, but γνόω is, from which comes γνώσκω like from τρόω τιτρώσκω, from βρόω βρώσκω, from βόω βώσκω, from the unattested βάω βάσκω poetic, from πɛράω πɛραάσκω poetic, from βιόομαι βιώσκομαι, from the unattested γηράω γηράσκω, from ὄνημι ὀνίσκω, from φάω φάσκω, from πɛράω (contraction πράω) πιπράσκω. Latin has nosco without duplication and without the g. And here too should be noted the preservation in Latin of the ancient form. The Greeks themselves commonly also say γινώσκω. But the pure stem of this verb, which is νοΐσκω and by syneresis νώσκω formed from νόω (like the above-mentioned βρόω, etc.), from which the Aeolians had γνόω (see Lexicon),1 is not found anywhere in the Greek-speaking world, and is found in Latin. In which the verb nosco is as regular as other verbs having the same form, cresco, suesco, nascor, scisco, and similar, and partly adolesco, exolesco, inolesco, etc., pasco, etc. See pp. 3688ff. And in Latin the Aeolic g appears in the compounds of nosco [to know], agnosco, cognosco, ignosco, dignosco (dinosco is also found), prognosticum (though this is a word actually taken from Greek, in the time of Cicero or thereabouts).2 In the other compounds praenosco, internosco, the g does not appear. See p. 3695.

  [2778] (4) Many active forms of verbs which in Greek have only preserved the middle ἅλλομαι‒salio [to leap] (in an active sense, or passive, or both), or the passive (in a passive or active sense, etc.), or one or the other, or partly one, partly the other (as is very common), which are absolutely certain signs of a lost Greek active verb (as deponents are in Latin), which in Greek are either little known, or only poetic, or ancient and obsolete, are common and universally used in Latin, or are at least preserved. One could bring forward many examples of this. Suffice it for me to adduce the verb gigno [to produce], active of γίγνομαι which means gignor [to be born] and which in Greek lacks not only the active voice but also any active meaning. And note that the Latin verb gigno in its perfect and the tenses which are formed from the perfect and in its supine, changes the radical i to e, and loses the second g, which is exactly what happens in the Greek γίγνομαι and its inflections. As a further example let us look at the verb volo [to wish], which I assert is the active voice of βούλομαι, that is βούλω, with the b changed to v, as in so many [2779] other cases (e.g., from βάδω vado [to go]), see p. 4014 and formed of the ου, ω, in the Doric way, that is βώλω, as from βοῦς [ox] the Dorians have βῶς, Latin bos, from ὕπνος [sleep] the Aeolians have ὤπνος (like ὠψηλὸς from ὑψηλὸς [high]), Latin somnus, from νὺξ [night] νὼξ,
nox; see p. 3816 in addition to the usual vulgar mutations of vulgus [the multitude] vulpes [fox], etc., into volgus volpes. (12‒13 June 1823.) Βούλω is certainly found in ancient Greek, as its middle βούλομαι shows. And perhaps βούλω as well as θέλω and ἐθέλω [to wish] were formed through πρόσθɛσιν [prosthesis]1 from the monosyllabic stem λῶ [to wish] volo, whence λωΐων [more desirable, better] λώϊστος, etc. See Lexicon. And so θέλω volo perhaps comes from the same root as its synonym βούλομαι, on which however see Ammonius, De differentia vocabulorum.2 (᾿Αβουλέω nolo [to be unwilling] is found in Plato and Demosthenes in the letters.) We have an example of this πρόσθɛσις precisely in θέλω–ἐθέλω. See p. 3842.

  To the observations made by me about the verb expectare [to look out for] at the beginning of my theory of continuatives, add that in Greek too δοκάζɛιν has the meaning of to observe or wait and see, and at the same time to wait for, whence προσδοκᾶν [to expect] (13 June 1823.)

  That the stem proper to the verbs ἱστάω, ἵστημι ἵσταμαι [to stand] was στάω, as perhaps I said in my theory of continuatives [→Z 2142–45] when speaking of sisto, and that the iota is an addition to the stem through correctness of language, can be recognized both from the many parts of these verbs which lack that paragogic i and from all their derivatives which equally [2780] are without it, as well as from the verb ἵπταμαι [to fly] which with the same paragoge (which it loses in many parts) is formed from the unattested πτάω (see the Padua Grammar, p. 210).1 or πɛτάω, from which πɛτάομαι, πέταμαι, πέτομαι which likewise mean to fly, and which in origin must have been the same thing as the verb πɛτάω [to fly, to open wide] pando explico [to spread, to unfold] which still exists, shifted to the meaning of to fly because of the spreading of wings, etc., and see p. 2826.

  Besides nothing would prevent sto and στάω from having something in common in their origin, or from being born from the same mother language, but independently one from the other, since the one means to stand and also to be (see Forcellini), and the other to establish, whose passive or middle ἕσταμαι, by making passive the meaning of to establish, comes to take on the neutral meaning of to stand (almost to be made stable).

  But if one supposes that sto and στάω are in origin the same verb, nothing indeed prevents the Greek from being derived from the Latin verb, and the Latin sisto, however, very different from sto both in its conjugation and in its meaning and in every way, from being born from the Greek ἱστάω, ἱστῶ.

  [2781] Who can ever know the various vicissitudes of the most ancient relations between the Latin and Greek languages, after one and the other were born from the same mother, when the history of the two nations begins so late for us, and especially true, certain, history; and history not corrupted by the vain fables with which ancient Greek history is completely filled? Who can deny with certainty that in that long stretch of deeply obscure time there were epochs in which Greek enriched itself with the spoils of its sister, and other epochs, either successively or even at the same time, in which Latin enriched itself, as it certainly did, with the spoils of Greek, and even that it accepted in a different form some of those very words that were born in Latin and passed from it into Greek, or some derivatives of them? As it would be in our supposition that sto, born in Latin from the participle of sum, then passing into Greek with the form of στάω, [2782] there converted through paragoge to the form of ἱστάω, and through contraction to that of ἱστῶ and having changed its meaning through affinity, came back into Latin with the form of sisto, which verb would thus come to be originally the same as sto.

  If we observe the matter in modern times, do we not know that French came from Italy? And that from the same source was born a sister language of French, that is Italian? And do we not see how many words born or developed in our country, that is in Latin, then passed into France, there altered either in form or meaning or both, have come back into Italy as foreign and belonging to somewhere else, and accepted in this sister language to French, and this is the case right from the twelfth or thirteenth or fourteenth century, and still in the middle of the last century and in this? And anyone who said that for this reason French is mother and not sister to Italian, or denied that the French language came [2783] from Italy, would he be anywhere near the truth?

  I also believe that not a few words which came from Italian itself (not from ancient Latin), and passed into France, have come back to us from there, and they come back to us very frequently as foreign, either because ours have been forgotten, or because these have been altered in such a way that they cannot be recognized as having been originally one and the same as some of ours which still exist, and indeed were preexistent to the French ones. (As for many Italian words and forms which in ancient times passed into Provençal, and are now considered to be Provençal in origin, either because they are found in their writers, and no more in ours, or because, somewhat changed from their first shape and meaning, they were taken back by our early poets or those of the 14th century, and the interchanges of those times, see Perticari, Apologia, chapter 11, 12, pp. 108‒17, and chapter 19, end, pp. 176–77.) The same is true of many Spanish words brought into our language during the 16th and 17th centuries, in which centuries Spanish literature, born from Italian, modeled itself entirely on Italian, and therefore certainly their language must have abounded in, and did abound in, words and manners of speech which had passed into Spanish from Italian.

  But putting this on one side, we can also say that the system of continuatives was proper to the language from which Latin and Greek were born, that from it came the verb sum (which is certainly found [2784] entire in Sanskrit) and the verb sto which derives from it, that these two languages took them from it, and that then from Greek into Latin, as time went on and relations developed, came the verb sisto. And so on for the verbs apo and apto [to adapt], ἅπτω and ἅπτομαι [to join, to grasp], on which see my theory of continuatives [→ Z 2136–40].

  In this assumption Latin would still remain far superior to Greek, with respect to the preservation of antiquity. (1) It would have preserved the system of continuatives, and Greek not. In addition it would have preserved the manner of it, that is its formation from passive participles, which is impossible in Greek. (2) Its verb sum would be more in line with that of the mother language. And that would be proved, first of all, because, as I have said [→Z 1390], it is much more similar to the one in very ancient Sanskrit, than the Greek ɛἶμι [to be], second, because it would lend itself excellently because of its grammatical form, as I have shown elsewhere [→Z 1120–21, 2142–45, 2659–60], to the formation of the verb sto, which in our assumption would have come from the mother language, and in it, as in Latin, it would have been a continuative formed from sum, and because sum also would lend itself [2785] to this formation according to the ordinary rule of Latin continuatives, which rule in our assumption would have come from the mother language.

  Whereas in Greek the verb στάω, since for grammatical reasons, and by reason of its origin it is considered within the terms of that language, has no connection with ɛἰμί, and is an entirely distinct stem. The stem στάω is not found in Greek, but ἵστημι, ἱστάνω, ἑστήκω, and such alterations are. But in Latin the stem sto is found, and not just simple, also in the compounds adsto [to stand by], etc. etc., clear and pure. And the verb sto can be said to be almost regular, except for the duplication in the perfect steti, used however in even more verbs, as in do monosyllable, in conjugation entirely like sto, etc. (3) Because sto itself both in its form and meaning could be recognized in Latin as a derivative expressly from sum, as we have supposed it to be in the mother language, whereas in Greek neither by form nor by meaning would it have anything to do with ɛἰμί. In short the whole grammatical logic both of continuatives in general, and in particular of the verb sto considered as a continuative and deriv
ative of sum, which logic we have assumed was in the mother language, would hold good fully and perfectly in Latin, whereas in Greek it would be entirely lost. And the same can be said about the grammatical logic, [2786] and about the origin and derivation of apto [to adapt] or ἅπτω [to join, to grasp], which would be found complete in Latin, and not at all in Greek, in addition to the stem apo preserved in Latin and lost in Greek.1 (13–14 June 1823.)