Page:Vocabulary of Menander (1913).djvu/33

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TEST OF KOINE TYPES IN MENANDER
29

-ικός.

Words with this suffix are rare in early writers, and become more frequent as the "new culture" of the sophists gained increasing popularity in Athens. Peppler[1] shows clearly that that is the source of this class of words, from their frequency in Xenophon (especially in the Memorabilia), Plato, and Aristotle, as compared with their extreme rarity in earlier writers and from the use made of them by Aristophanes to ridicule the philosophers. Since the educated classes, trained by the new teachers, used them frequently, it began to be the fashion to employ them to give a tone of culture to one's conversation, and the suffix became a favorite. Hence these words are common in later writers, and also in modern Greek.[2]

Menander's position in the use of this suffix is shown in the following table:

Author No. of different
words in -ικός[3]
No. of
pages
Words in -ικός[3]
in 113 pp.
Menander
a. In Körte's Menandrea 9 60
b. In all fragments 16 113 16
Aristophanes 93 537 20
Thucydides 38 [4] 640 9
Plato 347 [4] 2350 33
Demosthenes 47 965 13
Polybius 152 1552 26
Plutarch 566 5177 54

The following adjectives in -ικός do not appear in the Attic writers with the exceptions noted: ἀσθενικός, εὑρετικός (Plato), θεραπευτικός (Plato), λογιστικός (Plato), προνοητικός, ταρακτικός, τοπαστικός, φθισικός. On τοπαστικός, read at Epitr. 340 by most editors, see the critical note of Körte ad loc., and the critical appendix in the edition of Professor Capps. Jensen (Rhein. Mus. 65 [1910] p. 546) vouches for the word. Lefebvre, Papyrus de Ménandre, Cairo 1911, is disposed to support the reading of Jensen. If the word is ἀστικός, it is not new.

  1. Peppler, C. W., The Use of the Termination -ικός in Aristophanes for Comic Effect, Am. Jour. of Phil. 31 (1910) pp. 428 ff.
  2. Jannaris, l. c., p. 299 §§ 1068, 1070; Thumb, Gr. Spr. p. 178; Mayser, l. c., p. 455.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Derivatives from proper names are excluded from these figures.
  4. 4.0 4.1 These totals are taken from Peppler, l. c., pp. 429 ff.