Tmesis of Adverbs in Early Epic Poetry

Индоевропейское языкознание и классическая филология. 2023. Vol. 27. No. 1. P. 507–519.

Maria K.

The article studies a group of prefixed adverbs that appear in tmesis in archaic epic poetry: διαμπερές “right through, piercing through”, διάνδιχα “in two, in half, in twain”, and ἐξονομακλήδην “b name, calling b name”. While adverbial tmesis is mentioned in grammars of ancient Greek and in works on tmesis in early poetry, the examples have not been treated in detail. In this article the tmetic usages of adverbs in Homer and Hesiod are studied one by one, and compared to non-tmetic usages of the same adverb. It is shown that adverbial tmesis is limited to a single syntactic construction with the adverb occupying the initial position in the phrase in a complex paratactic sentence, its preverb separated by the particle δέ, and that the motive for the tmesis of the adverb is primarily stylistic (emphasis, σχῆμα ἀπὸ κοινοῦ).

Keywords: Homer, Гомер, наречия, эмфаза, adverbs, tmesis, тмесис, Homeric Greek, emphasis, гомеровский язык