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32
THE VOCABULARY OF MENANDER
| 1st prep. of cpd. | Total of these cpds. in cl. authors[1] |
Total of these cpd. words |
Ratio |
| ἐκ, ἐξ | 38 | 113 | 1:2.973 |
| ἐπί | 80 | 357 | 1:4.47 |
| ἀντί | 60 | 393 | 1:6.55 |
| παρά | 24 | 198 | 1:8.25 |
| σύν[2] | 140 | 1242 | 1:8.87 |
| πρός | 61 | 670 | 1:11.— |
| πρό | 60 | 697 | 1:11.6+ |
| περί | 2 | 35 | 1:17.5 |
| 465 | 3705 | 1:7.967[3] |
The significance of these figures may be seen by a comparison with the use of all words by the same group of authors, in relation to their use by later writers: The total number of words on 72 pages of the lexicon, chosen at random, is 3730, of which 858 are found in the classical authors; the ratio being 1:4.347. Since about 1 in 8 of the double compounds is found in classical authors, and about 1 in 4⅓ of all words, the use of the double compounds must have increased nearly a hundred fold in later writers.[4]
The relative frequency of these forms in Menander, as tested once more by the selected list of classical and later writers, appears from these figures:
- ↑ The phrase "classical authors" means the authors designated in the introduction to this study as approved.
- ↑ While a priori it might be supposed that a preposition like σύν might be prefixed to any verb in any period of the language, the statistics seem to show clearly that this use was by no means so common in the classical as in the later period. Instead we find the uncompounded verb used with a modifying phrase. Perhaps their preference for μετά + genitive was a contributory cause of the comparatively infrequent use of the συν- compounds by these authors.
- ↑ With regard to the possibility of error in the figures given above, it should be borne in mind that our lexicons, both special and general, are much more complete for the classical period of Greek literature than for later writers; and therefore the proportions as given are conservative from our point of view. In other words, if we had complete data for all periods, the totals in the third column might be appreciably enlarged, but not those in the second column.
- ↑ See Winer-Schmiedel, l. c. I8 § 3.2d; Simcox, W. H., The Language of the New Testament3 p. 43; Bruhn, l. c., pp. 32, 52; and particularly von Hartel, W., Ein griech. Papyrus aus dem Jahre 487 n. Chr., in Wien. St. 5 (1883) p. 24 n. 20.
