Why did mean

in the Homeric Greek?

Abstract. This paper attempts a linguistic analysis of the words and , as they
appear in Homeric Greek, emphasizing both their partial synonymy and their phonetic
resemblance. Excerpts from Iliad and Odyssey highlight a presumed relatedness of the
words. The concluding remarks point out the common Proto-Indo-European root of
and .
Keywords: fear, flight, Homeric Greek, Indo-European semantic reconstruction.
The study of the structure of meaning is a relatively new field in the case of modern
languages, and even newer in the case of Indo-European and its daughter languages. Until the
twentieth century, semantics had never been systematically examined within linguistic
studies, although the idea of using etymology for the reconstruction of past events was old
(Morpurgo Davies 1998:174). First steps were made by the ancient Greeks, even if they
mostly speculated on the subject when they tried to detect the truthful meaning of words.
One question that Platos Cratylus dealt with is whether the word has an original meaning
that is to be found in its nature () or its meaning is only a matter of convention ().
The discussion about this issue was continued by the Stoics, who introduced the concept of
etymology and decreed that any proper name (later, any kind of word) has a deeper
meaning () which is to be searched in the history of the word ( ), in order to
have an optimum understanding of the language. This perspective was further adopted in the
Middle Ages but, by overstating the application of the etymological method, there was
generated a popular field of study that concerned a fictional history of words. During the
Renaissance and the early modern period the real meaning of the words was usually
established by a rather groundless etymological examination that set the oldest meaning as
the real meaning, which should have provided a more complete picture of the physical and
intellectual world from the distant past.
In the late nineteenth century, the confidence in the veracity of the etymological approach
changed significantly into a much more cautious attitude regarding the possibility of

reconstructing Indo-European culture on the basis of reconstructed lexical items. Apart from
this attitude, Indo-Europeanists elaborated etymological dictionaries and handbooks that
opened new avenues in the field. In spite of some maintained sceptical opinions regarding
the feasibility of the Indo-European lexical study,1 in last two decades there has been noticed
a general change of attitude that encourages Indo-European semantic approach.2
This paper attempts to step forward into Indo-European linguistics dwelling upon a semantic
partial equivalency between two different Greek words, respectively two different IndoEuropean roots. The paper aims to an etymological examination of this partial synonymy,
which may, in the same time, contribute to a more extended knowledge of the Indo-European
mentality.
The two lexical items chosen for the comparative approach, fear and flight (in the
Homeric writings, and ), differ from one another both from a formal and a
semantic point of view. Nevertheless, fear and flight in Iliad and Odyssey are often used
in a synonymic alternation. Thus, a question is to be answered: why those two words acted as
interchangeable lexical items in Homeric Greek? The hypothesis of this paper postulates the
existence of a single Indo-European root that generated two different words because of its
inherent phonetic instability.
The inquiry into the works dealing with Indo-European semantics reveals plenty of studies
covering various semantic fields, such as physical world, fauna, flora, anatomy and medicine,
family and kinship, hearth and home, clothing and textiles, but not a single study regarding
feelings and emotions. A discussion about the roots that indicate feelings can be found only
in etymological dictionaries, where it is argued that and evolved from the
Indo-European root *bhegw-, meaning to run in disorder, to be driven in rout, to be
frightened, to be terrified (Chantraine 1958:1183). The Greek dictionaries emphasize this
double meaning attested in Homeric Greek: , , () panic flight, the usual
sense in Homer []; once in Odyssey 24.57; frequently in Iliad []; =
1

Zimmer (1990:337): Lexical reconstruction yields only disparate and incoherent items, which cannot be
situated in space and time []. No unequivocal interpretation of the reconstructed word and its reconstructed
meaning in regard to physical reality is possible.
2
R. D. Langslow (2004:31): I consider the potential gain, for Indo-European and for the daughter languages,
of a synthesis of existing work combined with new research along various lines in lexical/semantic fields. My
point of view very much agrees with his.

(LSJ), , () I act. action de faire fuir en effarouchant []; particulirement

action de mettre en fuite, IL. 17,42 II. pass. le fait d tre mis en fuite par la crainte, IL.
11,71 (Bailly).
Some relevant contexts may clarify the issue. The first context belongs to the last quarter of
the sixteenth Book of Iliad, vv. 657-661, when the Achaeans, led by Patrokles, gain more and
more ground against Hektor, the Trojans, and their allies, who are forced to withdraw
towards the Trojan walls.
' ' , '
.
' ' ,

,



He [Hector] leapt upon his car and turned to flight, and called on the rest
of the Trojans to flee; for he knew the turning of the sacred scales of Zeus.
Then the valiant Lycians likewise abode not, but were driven in rout
one and all, when they saw their king smitten to the heart,
lying in the gathering of the dead;3
This passage, as many others, which may extend from a few to several hundred verses, sets
the Trojans in retreat or flight. In the context above there are two major reasons for the
Trojans retreat: the death of Sarpedon, the king of Lycians, and the indirect intervention of
Zeus.4 The latter one motivates Hectors sudden and unexpected reaction ( '
' ), since he feels that the tide of battle has turned and he recognizes
Zeuss unfavourable agency.
Both and appear in this context with their verbal forms (,
respectively ), bearing the same meaning of withdrawal and framing together the
fleeing scene.
3

Homer, The Iliad, trans. A.T. Murray (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1924), Perseus Digital Library.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D17%3Acard
%3D567 (accessed November 29, 2013).
4
There are different categories of motivations for flight reaction: (a) the death or the wounding of a usually
prominent warrior, (b) the advance of an enemy, (c) the direct or indirect intervention of a deity, and (d) the
ability of one side to force the other back (Kelly, 2007:118).

In Odyssey, the single occurrence of from the epilogue, 24.60, reveals the identical
use of and . At the beginning of the twenty fourth book, where the world of
shadows is depicted, Agamemnon, while talking with Achilless shadow, remembers the
following events after the brave Achilles had fell on the battlefield: the recovery of the body,
its carrying at the ships, the washing and the embalmment, the grief and the tears on the
Achaeans faces, and the unexpected appearance of Thetis, accompanied by the Nereids, who
arrives to mourn her son.
, ,
, .


'
, .
', ' .

Hold, ye Argives; flee not, Achaean youths.

Tis his mother who comes here forth from the sea
with the immortal sea-nymphs to look upon the face of her dead son.
So he spoke, and the great-hearted Achaeans ceased from their flight.5
When Thetis appears from the tremendous roaring sea, all Achaeans get frightened and make
a run for it to the ships. They are stopped from their way by the wise old Nestor, who exhorts
the Achaeans not to fear, because the goddess is coming just to mourn her son together with
them. The equivalence between the semantic field of the concepts and is to be
remarked. Nestor stops the Achaeans by telling them
. To show that the Greeks
stopped running, the poet uses the words ' , hence the clear overlap
between the semantic field of the two concepts.
An explanation for this situation has to be sought back in the Greek history, going to its
embryonic phase, before the detachment from the common Indo-European. A comparative
analysis of the roots that generated the words fear and flight reveals substantial data.
According to Indo-European etymological dictionaries, and derived from
the root *bhegw- (Pokorny 1959:116) which meant to flee in rout, to be frightened. The root
5

Homer, The Odyssey, trans. A.T. Murray (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919), Perseus Digital
Library.http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook
%3D24%3Acard%3D35 (accessed November 29, 2013).

has the regular monosyllabic structure: consonant-vowel-consonant. Its phonetic evolution

follows the phonetic laws regarding the transformation of the Indo-European speech sounds
towards Greek, including the labio-velar *gw, which turns into a voiced labial plosive. The
root *bhegw- is to be put in connection with *bhewg- to run away from something, to avoid,
to save oneself (Pokorny 1959:152). A comparative analysis reveals the following
similarities between the roots: (a) the semantic resemblance; (b) the biconsonantal structure;
(c) the same phonetic composition (the labial voiced aspired plosive, the normal grade of the
vowel, the semivowel and the plain-velar plosive / the labiovelar). A deconstruction of the
labiovelar in its constituents reveals the voiced plain-velar plosive *g and the sonant *w. The
diachronic and diatopic evolution of the sonant *w provides some peculiar examples that
show the possibility of the sonant *w to occur before and after the same consonant in
different idioms (e.g. *wl-qos becomes wolf in English and in Greek), which
confirms the fact that the sonants formed unstable syllables in Indo-European (Anne Pippin
Burnett 1966:53; Carlos Quises Casas 2009:69). Taking into account the semantic proximity
of the two roots, the formal similarities and the instability of the sonant *w, the hypothesis of
relatedness between *bhegw- and *bhewg- appears more plausible.
Furthermore, the Indo-European linguistic geography contributes to the demonstration with
significant additional information. Thus, in the Mediterranean space the root *bhegw- meant
fear, and *bhewg-, run, whereas in the Balto-Slavic the senses are inverted. A comparative
approach of Greek, Latin and Lithuanian highlights the lexical selection made by each idiom
and the semantic specialization of the two Indo-European roots, as following:
a) in Greek and Lithuanian both roots had been kept, whereas in Latin only *bhewg- run (by
ablaut it became *bhowg-, hence lat. fugi I ran);
b) in Greek the family of the root *bhegw- generated the semantic sphere of fear, while
*bhewg- that of run or flight.
*bhegw- =

Greek
Fear

Latin

Lithuanian
run

*bhewg- =
Run
Run
fear
The phonetic analysis and the spread of the root in the Indo-European languages mentioned
above sustain that: (a) in Proto-Indo-European existed a single root with an unstable

labiovelar appendix; (b) this unique root had a double signification (flight and fear); 6 (c)
this semantic pair, found in the cause-effect relationship, tends to separate and each meaning
assumes one of the two phonetic versions of the same root; d) the languages or the families 7
of languages that detached form Indo-European differentiate as the signifier-signified
relationship is concerned.
The last argument that can sustain the hypothesis of a single root containing two meanings is
brought by the synthetism of Proto-Indo-European. A very simple and general survey of
Indo-European idioms can prove that during the period when we can watch their growth step
by step, languages have become less synthetic (William Dwight Whitney 1876:279) which
means that in a preceding phase (Proto-Indo-European) the speakers intercommunicated in a
much more synthetic manner. This linguistic fact is proved by the analytical tendency of any
phonetic and morphological evolution from an ancient phase of a language, towards its
modern state (e.g. from classical Greek to modern Greek, as well as from Latin to Romanic
languages). Including semantics in the generally accepted synthetic character of Proto-IndoEuropean, the possibility of a bisemantic root can be easily admitted.
The study tried to prove that the partial equivalency between two different Homeric Greek
words, and , is motivated by a common Proto-Indo-European root. The
etymological examination, based on the analysis of the Homeric contexts, and also the
phonetic, morphological and semantic accounts sustained the existence of a single ProtoIndo-European root that generated two different words because of its inherent phonetic
instability and its bisemantic character.
Bibliography
A. Dictionaries
Bailly, Anatole, 1928, Dictionnaire grec-franais, Paris: Hachette;
Chantraine, Pierre, 1968, Dictionnaire tymologique de la Langue Greque. Histoire des
mots, Paris: Klincksieck;
6

The complex root *bhegw-/bhewg- fear/flight, motivated by the cause-effect relationship of its meanings
reveals that for the Indo-European habit of mind flight was the reaction begun in the very moment when fear
was perceived.
7
Greek is essentially a single language throughout its long history, yet constitutes a separate and distinct
branch of Indo-European, though it too has considerable dialect diversity at all points in its history. Bryan D.
Joseph, The Indo-European Family The linguistic evidence, p. 3, http: www.ling.ohiostate.edu/~bjoseph/publications/2000indo.pdf

Liddell, Hendry George & Scott, Robert, 1948, Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon
Press;
Pokorny, Julius & Walde, Alois, 1959, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wrterboch, Bern,
Mnchen: Francke Verlag.
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13-16, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
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Oxford University Press;
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University Press;
Louw, J. P., 1982, Semantics of New Testament Greek, Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press;
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