A new look at the Greek desiderative

This paper argues that the Greek desiderative formation in - σειε / ο - may be explained as continuing a form in *- s - eu̯ - i̯e / o -, derived from the weak stem in *- eu̯ - of u -stem adjectives built to non-reduplicated s -presents/desideratives of the typeVed. d(h)akṣu ‘burning’ which is marginally preserved in Mycenaean e - wi - su ° and probably Alphabetic Greek φαῦλος and αἴσυλα .

Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018)  It seems likely that this restriction is an Atticist phenomenon, as later authors imitated only those morphological forms (i.e. participles) and only those lexemes or semantically related verbs (as near-synonyms, antonyms etc.) that were attested in their canonized predecessors with some frequency. This does not preclude that a later author might have become creative and used a form not known from earlier literature-unless, of course, this impression is due to our limited data3-, but the overall correspondence between classical and postclassical usage may be interpreted as showing that the desiderative had ceased to be productive by the 3rd c. BC and was perpetuated only as a literary marker in the forms known from the classical authors.4

1.2
Earlier explanations 1.2. 1 Wackernagel The origin of the Greek desiderative formation in -σειε/ο-has remained unclear, despite various attempts at a derivation. Wackernagel (1887) bases his reconstruction on the fact that the desiderative, as seen in 1.1, frequently occurs as a participle. The unexpected genitive objects ἀϋτῆς καὶ πολέμοιο in the single desiderative attested in Homer, ὀψείοντες 'wishing to see' , might neatly be explained if, as Wackernagel proposes, there was an original syntagm *ὄψει ἰόντες 'going to the sight' with a dative of ὄψις triggering an adnominal genitive. Several problems are connected with this hypothesis, however: a) as already pointed out by Ehrlich (1912: 97), there is no evidence for a syntagm *ὄψει εἶμι anywhere else, hence it is assumed ad hoc. b) the desiderative is not restricted to the participle in Classical Greek and its later perseveration in participles only is likely to be an effect of literary language use. Hence, there is no compelling reason to base an etymological explanation on the participle.5 c) While kölligan Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018) 95-116 a genitive object is indeed rare with verbs of seeing,6 the desiderative meaning of ὀψείοντες may be responsible for the genitive, marking partial or nonaffectedness of the object as in the case of ὀρέγομαι 'stretch towards, reach out, take hold' with accusative of body-part vs. genitive of person and other verbs meaning 'aim at, try to reach' such as ἐπιμαίομαι 'strive after' , ἵεμαι 'desire' , ἔλδομαι 'desire' , ἔραμαι 'love, desire' , ἐπείγω 'press for, be eager' etc., as pointed out by Chantraine (2013Chantraine ( : 71 = 1953,7 who lists ὀψείοντες among these forms.
-pe-qe-u /pekweus/ 'cook, chef' : πέττω/πέσσω 'to cook' .28 -e-pe-ke-u /Epeigeus/ 'one who urges on, impels' : ἐπείγω 'to urge on, impel' , Alph.-Gk. Ἐπειγεύς.29 By analogy one might assume that if deverbal nouns in -eu-are possible, built either to aorist stems (as in πνιγεύς) or to present stems (as in πλυνεύς), nouns in -s-eu-might go back to sigmatic aorist stems or desiderative/future stems in -s-, which served as the basis for denominal verbs: In contrast to the denominal presents based on nouns in -eu-, the type in -s-eudoes not seem to have been productive in post-Mycenaean times. This might account for the fact that there was no analogical restitution of -eu-in the forms in -σειε/ο-, because the corresponding nouns in -σευ-no longer existed (or never had), whereas in the case of the presents in *-eu̯ -i̯ e/o-the nouns in -ευ-are usually present (with the exceptions noted above), e.g. βασιλεύς / *βασιλείω → βασιλεύω. Further analogical pressure was exerted by the other tense/aspect forms aor. βασιλευσ(α)-and fut. βασιλευσε/ο-, while there is no evidence for secondary sigmatic forms built to *-s-eu̯ -nouns.
But even if we assume that some of the names in -s-eus are based on sigmatic verbal stems and that it was possible to derive appellatives in -eus from verbal stems in general (such as πνιγεύς), the lack of unambiguous appellatives in -s-eus makes a direct derivation of these simplicia unlikely, i.e. there is no evidence for a nomen agentis of the type *ὀψεύς 'one who wants to see' derived from the stem of ὄψομαι. The exception is personal names in -s-eus, and these 28 Cf. Szemerényi (1957: 164). 29 In Homer a Myrmidon, son of Agacles, slain by Hector,Il. 16.571. 30 Similarly, Leukart (1994: 227 fn. 251) assumes that personal names with ἀλξ-as first member, such as A-ko-so-ta /Alksoitās/ 'der das (schlimme) Geschick abwehrt' , A-ka-sa-no /alksānor/ 'der die (feindlichen) Männer abwehrt' , continue the desiderative *alk-s-. Beside A-we-ke-se-u we find the simple verbal root in Au-ke-wa /Augew(w)ās/ (probably a short form of a compound such as */Augewastus/); note also [.]-ke-se-ra-wo (KN As 1516), behind which a name /Aukselāwos/ may hide. This type was later contaminated with τερψίμβροτος-type compounds, e.g. ἀλεξίκακος instead of expected *alekse-kako-. De-ke-se-u may similarly go back to the desiderative/future stem *deks-of δέκομαι or simply be an analogical formation following the model of *alekse-and *aukse-, where the desiderative/future stem is inherited (cf. Ved. rakṣati, ukṣant-). In both cases, it is likely to be a short form of a compound, e.g.
Comparative data
Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018)  It is unclear whether the hapax legomenon ἀήσυλα in Il. 5.87660 belongs to αἴσυλος. It has been supposed to be an itacistic spelling of *ἀΐσυλα, e.g., by Fraenkel (1955: 308), who connects both forms as *ἀϝίσυλα with *ϝίσϝος (ἴσος),61 but in this case a number of ad hoc changes have to be made to the relevant verses (as discussed by Fraenkel) for which there is no independent evidence. Therefore it seems best to separate the two forms and accept that ἀήσυλα remains unexplained for the time being.62 To sum up: the combined data of Greek and Vedic -su-adjectives and remnants of unreduplicated desiderative stems in various languages may allow the assumption that both Indo-Iranian and Greek inherited an unreduplicated desiderative in -s-to which adjectives in -u-could be built:63
-ἀρτύω 'to arrange, prepare' : Hesch. ἀρτύς· σύνταξις, Ved. r̥ tú-m. 'right time' -κορθύεται 'to rise to a head, tower up' (Il. 9.7) : κόρθυς f. 'heap' -πληθύω 'to be/become full' : Ion. πληθύς f. 'crowd, people' -ὀϊζύω 'to lament' : ὀϊζύς f. 'lamentation' The derivational chain for the desiderative in -σειε/ο-would then look like this: -PIE desiderative *-se/o-→ adj. *-s-u-→ denom. verb *-s-eu̯ -i̯ e/o-> -σειε/ο-. The lack of comparable denominal verbs to simple u-stem adjectives such as *βαρύω 'be heavy' on the one hand, and the presumed productivity of denominals to desiderative u-stem adjectives on the other, may be due to their different semantics: while simple u-stem adjectives mostly describe "basic property concepts" and hence stative concepts such as 'hot, cold, heavy, light' that tend to be expressed nominally in Indo-European languages, e.g. βαρύ ἐστι 'it is heavy' , not **βαρύει 'it heavies' , desiderative adjectives in *-su-would more frequently than not describe an agent's transient desire and effort to bring about a state of affairs relevant at the moment of speaking, e.g. 'wanting/trying to see' , 'wanting/trying to fight' etc., which tends to be expressed verbally. The preponderance of participles in the -σειε/ο-formation may in turn be due to the semantic equivalence between the basic *-su-adjectives and the participles of the denominal verbs, both meaning 'wanting/trying to x' , which may have triggered the replacement of the former by the latter, leaving only isolated remnants in the lexicon as discussed in section 4.67
Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018) 95-116 τῷ ὄντι παραδωσείοντα ἀνεχώρει καὶ οὐκ ἔφη αὐτὸς ἀλλ' ἐκεῖνον στρατηγεῖν. "As for Cleon, he was at first ready to go, thinking it was only in pretence that Nicias offered to relinquish the command; but when he realized that Nicias really desired to yield the command to him, he tried to back out, saying that not he but Nicias was general." 8.56.3 ὁ δὲ Ἀλκιβιάδης, ἐπειδὴ ἑώρα ἐκεῖνον καὶ ὣς οὐ ξυμβησείοντα, δοκεῖν τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἐβούλετο μὴ ἀδύνατος εἶναι πεῖσαι. "But Alcibiades, as soon as he saw that even on his own terms he did not want to reach an agreement, wished it to appear to the Athenians, not that he was unable to persuade him." 8.89.2 ἀπαλλαξείειν conj. for ἀπαλλάξειν (Abresch) οὔτοι ἀπαλλαξείειν τοῦ ἄγαν ἐς ὀλίγους ἐλθεῖν "(They did not indeed openly profess that) they wanted to avoid reducing the government to an extreme oligarchy."