Poetics. Aristotle. Thomas Twining (Translator). London, UK. 1789.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Poetics (Thomas Twining, 1789) (OCR draft) (English) (Thomas Twining's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1789 and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
Poetics
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-714
συνετή.
The alternative reading συνθετὴ has been accepted by several editors, as also by
Steinthal (
Gesch. d. Sprachwissenschaft 1 p. 253) and
Diels (
Elementum p. 33).
The main argument in favour of συνθετὴ is that, as defined in b 34, the syllable is a
φωνὴ συνθετή, and that the syllable is viewed in sundry Aristotelian passages (
Bon. Ind. 702 b 39) as a synthesis of
στοιχεῖα.
This is true enough. But it has to be remembered on the other side that
Aristotle often speaks of the
στοιχεῖα ας
στοιχεῖα φωνῆς (
Bon. Ind. 702 b 35)-where
φωνή means the same thing as the
συνετὴ φωνή of the present passage.
And if we assume συνθετὴ to be the original reading, the excepting clause (οὐ πᾶσα δὲ κτέ.), which puts the 'indivisible sounds' of the brutes into a different category, is irrelevant.
Aristotle's argument here seems to be something like this: In the utterances of the brutes there are indivisible sounds, but these 'noises' of theirs are directly significant in themselves (
De interpr.2, 16229
);
they are not
στοιχεῖα φωνῆς, because they do not combine as elements to form a
φωνὴ συνετή.
The indivisible sounds, on the other hand, in human speech exist as elements in speech, and they have no meaning in themselves;
the meaning in human speech is in the words and propositions -not in the 'elements' which analysis reveals in them (comp.
Vahlen,
Beitr. 3 p. 220).
φωνὴ συνετή is perhaps the nearest Aristotelian equivalent for our term 'word'.
It may be taken as including not only the
φωνὴ σημαντική, the word that stands for something, but also the
φωνὴ ἄσημος-words like
ἀμφί,
περί,
μέν,
δέ, etc. (
Aristotle's
ἄρθρα and
σύνδεσμοι), which stand for nothing by themselves, though they have a certain significance in their place in intelligible human speech.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-715
ταύτης δὲ μέρη κτέ.:
Plato
Crat.424 C
ἆρ᾽ οὖν καὶ ἡμᾶς οὕτω δεῖ πρῶτον μὲν τὰ φωνήεντα διελέσθαι, ἔπειτα τῶν ἑτέρων κατὰ εἴδη τά τε ἄφωνα καὶ ἄφθογγα· οὗτωσὶ γάρ που λέγουσιν οἱ δεινοὶ περὶ τούτων· καὶ τὰ αὐ φωνήεντα μὲν οὖ, οὐ μέντοι γε ἄφθογγα;
-
Phil.18 в
ἐπειδὴ φωνὴν ἄπειρον κατενόησεν εἴτε τις θεὸς εἴτε καὶ θεῖος ἄνθρωπος, ὡς λόγος ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ Θεύθ τινα τοῦτον γενέσθαι λέγων, ὃς πρῶτος τὰ φωνήεντα ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ κατενόησεν οὐχ ἓν ὄντα ἀλλὰ πλείω, καὶ πάλιν ἕτερα φωνῆς μὲν οὖ, φθόγγου δὲ μετέχοντά τινος, ἀριθμὸν δέ τινα καὶ τούτων εἶναι· τρίτον δὲ εἶδος γραμμάτων διεστήσατο τὰ νῦν λεγόμενα ἄφωνα ἡμῖν· τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο διῄρει τά τε ἄφθογγα καὶ ἄφωνα μέχρι ἑνὸς ἑκάστου, καὶ τὰ φωνήεντα καὶ τὰ μέσα κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, ἕως ἀριθμὸν αὐτῶν λαβὼν ἑνί τε ἑκάστῳ καὶ ξύμπασι στοιχεῖον ἐπωνό- μασεν.
Here
Plato's
μέσα are
Aristotle's
ἡμίφωνα. In later theory the
ἡμίφωνα and
ἄφωνα of
Aristotle come under the more general designation of 'consonants',
σύμφωνα:
Sextus Emp.
Adv. math.1. 100
τὰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν [scil. τῶν στοιχείων] φωνάεντα προσαγορεύουσι τὰ δὲ σύμφωνα, καὶ φωνάεντα μὲν ἑπτά, αεηιουω, σύμφωνα δὲ τὰ λοιπά 102
των δὲ συμφώνων τὰ μὲν ἡμίφωνά ἐστι κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς .. τὰ δὲ ἄφωνα.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-716
φωνῆεν.
The word had been already used by
Euripides, fr. 578 ed.
Nauck
ἄφωνα φωνήεντα συλλαβὰς τιθεὶς ἐξηῦρον ἀνθρώποισι γράμματ᾽ εἰδέναι. It may be observed that both
Plato (
Theaet.203 B
) and
Aristotle (
Metaph.N 6, 1093 13
) recognize the vowels as being seven in number.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-717
ἄνευ προσβολῆς:
the opposite of μετὰ προσβολῆς in the next line.
The difference between the vowels and consonants is that the latter imply a certain προσβολή as the condition of their becoming audible, whereas no such προσβολή is required to make the vowels audible.
The sense of the word προσβολή as here used is far from clear.
It has been taken to mean
additio (
Valla),
adiectio (
Paccius),
ictus (
Victorius),
percussio (
Robortello), and
allisus (
Goulston);
Castelvetro, who renders it by percossa, confesses that he does not know what it means.
The idea of most interpreters is that the term refers in some way or other to the physical mechanism of speech;
to the impact of the tongue, for instance, on the parts within the mouth, or something of that sort.
Twining, who translates it by articulation (with
Batteux), tells us in a note that it is 'literally percussion: i. e.
of the tongue against the palate or teeth, the lips against the teeth or against each other, and all other modes of consonant articulation'.
In support of this physiological interpretation
Vahlen (
Beitr. 3 p. 224) quotes
De part. an.2. 16, 6608 2
ὁ λόγος ὁ διὰ τῆς φωνῆς ἐκ τῶν γραμμάτων σύγκειται, τῆς δὲ γλώττης μὴ τοιαύτης οὔσης μηδὲ τῶν χειλῶν ὑγρῶν οὐκ ἂν ἦν φθέγγεσθαι τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν γραμμάτων τὰ μὲν γὰρ τῆς γλώττης εἰσὶ προσβολαί, τὰ δὲ συμβολαὶ τῶν χειλῶν ; and argues to show that προσβολή may be used here in a sense wide enough to include the συμβολὴ τῶν χειλῶν, as well as the προσβολὴ τῆς γλώττης, of the De Partibus.
This view, however, is open to more than one objection.
( ) It is hard to see how, in the absence of some explanation in the context, προσβολή can stand for προσβολή γλώττης, or can be taken to include the notion of συμβολὴ χειλῶν.
(2) Such a reference to the physiology of articulation would be out of place in the definition;
the differences in the mechanism of articulation are a separate point, which
Aristotle recognizes apparently for the first time in another section further on in the chapter ( 31 ταῦτα δὲ διαφέρει σχήμασί τε τοῦ στόματος καὶ τόποις).
I think that
Valla was probably right in taking προσβολή in the sense of
additio or
adiectio, i. e.
as equivalent to προσθήκη-the word actually used by
Lucian in a very similar context to mark the distinction between the vowels and semivowels (
Iud. Voc. 5, 88 R.).
It may be observed, too, that προσβάλλειν and προστι- θέναι are synonyms in
Antiphanes fr. 206
Kock. The general sense, then, according to this view of
προσβολή, will be that the vowels are audible by themselves (
ἄνευ προσβολῆς); whereas the semivowels and mutes (the consonants) require the support or addition of a vowel (
μετὰ προσβολῆς) to make them audible. This was certainly the distinction in later grammar:
Dionysius Thrax
p. 11 Uhlig
σύμφωνα δὲ λέγονται ὅτι αὐτὰ μὲν καθ ἑαυτὰ φωνὴν οὐκ ἔχει, συντασσόμενα δὲ μετὰ τῶν φωνηέντων φωνὴν ἀποτελεῖ -
Sextus Emp.
Adv. math. 1. 102
ἄφωνα δέ ἐστι τὰ μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων συνεκφωνούμενα. -
Diomedes
418 P.
mutae dictae quod per se sine adminiculo vocalium non possunt enuntiari.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-718
ἡμίφωνον:
Aristoxenus (quoted below). -
Dionysius Thrax
p. 12 Uhlig
ἡμίφωνα δὲ λέγεται [ότι] παρόσον ἧττον τῶν φωνηέντων εὔφωνα καθέστηκεν ἔν τε τοῖς μυγμοῖς καὶ σιγμοῖς. -
Sextus Emp.
Adv. math. 1. 102
ἡμίφωνα μὲν ὅσα δι᾽ αὐτῶν ῥοῖζον ἢ σιγμὸν ἢ μυγμὸν τινα παραπλήσιον ἦχον κατὰ τὴν ἐκφώνησιν ἀποτελεῖν πεφυκότα.--
Diomedes
416 P.
Semivocales dictae quod dimidium eius potestatis habent: etenim per se enuntiantur, sed per se nec syllabam nec plenam vocem faciunt.
Plato only knows the semivowels as
τὰ μέσα (v. supra on
b24
).
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-719
ἔχον φωνὴν ἀκουστήν.
Apart from the vowels the semivowels have some sort of sound as noises, not a distinctly audible voice-sound (
φωνὴ ἀκουστή) like the vowels; this it is that distinguishes them from the mutes, which have no sound at all by themselves. Comp.
Plato
Theaet. 203 Β
τό τε σίγμα τῶν ἀφώνων ἐστί, ψόφος τις μόνον οἷον συριττούσης τῆς γλώττης· τοῦ δ᾽ αὖ βῆτα οὔτε φωνὴ οὔτε ψόφος, οὐδὲ τῶν πλείστων στοιχείων. -
Aristoxenus ap.
Dion. Hal.
5 p. 72 R.
των μὴ φωνηέντων μὲν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὰ ψόφους ὁποίους δή τινας ἀποτελεῖν πέφυκε, ῥοῖζον ἢ σιγμὸν ἢ μυγμὸν ἢ τοιούτων τινῶν άλλων ἤχων δηλωτικούς, δέ ἐστιν ἁπάσης ἄμοιρα φωνῆς καὶ ψόφου, καὶ οὐχ οἷά τε ἠχεῖσθαι καθ' ἑαυτά· διὸ δὴ ταῦτα μὲν ἄφωνά τινες ἐκάλεσαν, θάτερα δὲ ἡμίφωνα.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-720
ἄφωνον.
In the definition
μετὰ προσβολῆς serves to distinguish the mute from the vowel; the idea of it, however, is repeated in a more explicit form in
μετὰ τῶν ἐχόντων τινὰ φωνὴν. The expression
τῶν ἐχόντων τινὰ φωνήν is wide enough to include the semivowels as well as the vowels. The semivowels are audible by themselves, though only as noises (comp.
Plato
Phileb. 18
έτερα φωνῆς μὲν οὖ, φθόγγου δὲ μετέχοντά τινος); and a semivowel is sufficient to make a mute audible, though only as a noise-not as a
φωνὴ ἀκουστή.
Aristotle carefully chooses his words, therefore, in saying
γινόμενον ἀκουστόν ; since
ἔχον φωνὴν ἀκουστήν, 'with an audible voice-sound', would have been true only of the combination of a mute and a vowel.
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-721
ταῦτα δὲ διαφέρει.
Of the five differences here noted the first and second relate to the physiological mechanism of speech; the remainder come under the head of
προσῳδία-a term which with the ancients included breathing and accent, as well as quantity (see on
25, 1461
a 22
).
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-722
σχήμασίν τε τοῦ στόματος καὶ τόποις.
Plato (
Tim. 75 D
) is aware of the function of the teeth, lips, and tongue in the formation of speech, and has also described (
Crat. 426
) the various movements of the tongue in the utterance of certain letters (comp.
Xenophon
Mem. 1. 4, 12
). From
Alexander's comment on
Metaph. N 6, 1093
a23
(
p. 883 Hayduck
) we learn that these points in the physiology of speech had long before this engaged the attention of
Archinus, the statesman to whom Athens owed the introduction of the Ionic alphabet in 403 (see
Usener, Rh. Mus. 25 p. 591
). For the
σχήματα τοῦ στόματος comp.
De audib. 800
a16
ἀναπνέομεν δὲ τὸν μὲν ἀέρα πάντες τὸν αὐτόν, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα καὶ τὰς φωνὰς ἐκπέμπομεν ἀλλοίας διὰ τὰς τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἀγγείων διαφοράς· ταῦτα δὲ ἐστιν τε ἀρτηρία [i. e. wind-pipe]
καὶ ὁ πνεύμων καὶ τὸ στόμα. πλείστην μὲν οὖν διαφορὰν ἀπεργάζονται τῆς φωνῆς αἰ τε τοῦ ἀέρος πληγαὶ καὶ οἱ τοῦ στόματος σχηματισμοί. For the
τόποι τοῦ στόματος as factors in articulation see more especially
H. A. 4. 9, 535
a28
;
De part. an. 2. 16, 660
a1
;
3. 1, 661
b14
; and
Metaph. N 6, 1093
a23
(with
Alexander's note).
δασύτητι καὶ ψιλότητι καὶ μήκει καὶ βραχύτητι ἔτι δὲ ὀξύτητι καὶ βαρύτητι καὶ τῷ μέσῳ.
The
καὶ τῷ μέσῳ in the next line belongs equally to each of the three pairs of opposites, and not merely to the last of them. The meaning of
δασύτης and
ψιλότης in speech may be seen from
De audib. 804
b 8
δασεῖαι δ᾽ εἰσὶ τῶν φωνῶν ὅσαις ἔσωθεν τὸ πνεῦμα εὐθέως συνεκβάλλομεν μετὰ τῶν φθόγγων, ψιλαὶ δ᾽ εἰσὶ τοὐναντίον ὅσαι γίνονται χωρὶς τῆς τοῦ πνεύματος ἐκβολῆς; and from
Dion. Hal.
5 p. 85 R.
ταῦτα [i. e. τὰ ψιλά] μὲν γὰρ τὴν ἑαυτῶν δύναμιν ἔχει μόνην, τὰ δὲ δασέα καὶ τὴν τοῦ πνεύματος προσθήκην.
ψιλός, 'without addition' (see on
1, 1447
a29
), means in this connexion 'without aspiration'. The threefold distinction in the text, as applied to the mutes, passed on to the grammarians, and became an accepted part of grammar (comp.
Dion. Thrax p. 12
τούτων [scil. τῶν ἀφώνων] ψιλὰ μὲν τρία, \overline{\kappa}\overline{\pi}\overline{\tau} δασέα δὲ τρία, \overline{\theta}\overline{\phi}\overline{\chi}, μέσα δὲ τούτων τρία, \overline{\beta}\overline{\gamma}\overline{\delta}· μέσα δὲ εἴρηται ὅτι τῶν μὲν ψιλῶν ἐστι δασύτερα, τῶν δὲ δασέων ψιλότερα, and
Priscian 549 P.
); and it still appears in our familiar division of mutes into aspiratae, mediae, and tenues-where the tenues represent the
ψιλά of the Greeks.
1
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-723
μήκει καὶ βραχύτητι.
The intermediates (
μέσα) in quantity are the three dichronous vowels , , :
Dion. Thrax p. 10
τῶν δὲ φωνηέντων μακρὰ μὲν ἐστι δύο, \overline{\eta} καὶ ῶ, βραχέα δὲ δύο, καὶ , δίχρονα δὲ τρία, δίχρονα δὲ λέγεται, ἐπεὶ ἐκτείνεται καὶ συστέλλεται. -
Sextus Emp.
Adv. math. 1. 100
τῶν δὲ φωνηέντων τρεῖς λέγουσι διαφοράς· δύο μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν φύσει μακρὰ λέγουσι τυγ- χάνειν, τὸ \overline{\eta} καὶ τὸ ῶ, ἰσάριθμα δὲ βραχέα, τὸ καὶ τὸ , τρία δὲ κοινὰ μήκους τε καὶ βραχύτητος, , ἅπερ δίχρονα καὶ ὑγρὰ καὶ ἀμφίβολα καὶ μεταβολικά καλοῦσιν· ἕκαστον γὰρ αὐτῶν πέφυκεν ὁτὲ μὲν ἐκτείνεσθαι ὀτὲ δὲ συστέλλεσθαι (comp.
Dion. Hal.
5 p. 74 R.
, and
Aulus Gellius
16. 18.5
).
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-724
ὀξύτητι καὶ βαρύτητι.
A third kind of difference is to be seen in the differences of accent. Accent with
Aristotle is a part of
προσῳδία (see on
b31
), but he has no special name for it; the word
τόνος in
Rhet. 3. 1, 1403 b29
relates to the tone or key in which something may be said, and not, as is sometimes supposed (e. g. by
Cope), to the syllabic accent in words.
Aristotle's intermediate accent is clearly that conventionally indicated by a circumflex, as standing between the acute and grave, and having thus something of the nature of both. This was the received view of the phonetic value of the 'circumflex' in antiquity, though the names by which it was known referred to the form of the mark rather than the nature of the accent itself; comp. the pseudo-
Sergius,
4 p. 531 Keil
Ammonius Alexandrius qui Aristarchi scholae successit
ὀξύβαρυν
vocat, Ephorus autem Cymaeus
περίσπασιν,
Dionysius Olympius [read: Olynthius]
δίτονον,
Hermocrates Iasius
σύμπλεκτον,
Epicharmus Syracusius
κεκλασμένην ;
verum ea nunc ab omnibus
περισπωμένη
Graece vocatur, apud nos flexa, quoniam primo erecta rursus in gravem flectitur. For further illustrations of the notion of the circumflex in antiquity see
Nauck,
Aristophanis Byz. fragmenta p. 13
, and
Wilmanns,
De Varronis libris grammaticis p. 187
. It is to be observed that (like
Plato
Crat. 399 A
)
Aristotle ignores the circumflex in the passage in
Soph. el. 23, 179 a 14
εἰ παρὰ προσῳδίαν ὀξεῖαν [scil.
ὁ λόγος ἐστί],
ἡ βαρεῖα προσῳδία λύσις, εἰ δὲ παρὰ βαρεῖαν, ἡ ὀξεῖα, and speaks as though the only substantial difference in accent were that between acute and grave. His view of it in fact was probably very like that ascribed to the Peripatetic
Athenodorus in the pseudo-
Sergius,
4 p. 529 Keil
Athenodorus duas esse prosodias putavit, unam inferiorem, alteram superiorem; flexam autem (nam ita nostra lingua
περισπωμένην
vocamus) nihil aliud esse quam has duas in una syllaba.
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-725
[ἐν] τοῖς μετρικοῖς:
comp. infra
b38
. The preposition has to be bracketed, as there is no hint of a book on metre, actual or contemplated, by
Aristotle himself (comp.
Bergk,
Kl. Schr. 2 p. 753
). He leaves the subject to the
μετρικοί, just as he does in the parallel in
De part. an. 2. 16, 660b 7
ποίας δὲ ταῦτα [scil.
τὰ γράμματα]
καί πόσας καὶ τίνας ἔχει διαφοράς, δεῖ πυνθάνεσθαι παρὰ τῶν μετρικῶν. The theory of metre, in its primitive form, took cognizance of many matters which we should relegate to grammar or phonology. It started, like grammar, with the
στοιχεῖα or elementary sounds in language (
Longinus
Prol. in Hephaest. p. 142 Gaisf.
τοῦ περὶ μέτρων λόγου πολλοὶ πολλαχῶς ἤρξαντο, οἱ μὲν ἀπὸ στοιχείων, ὡς Φιλόξενος); and, as the passage in the
De Partibus intimates (comp.
Dion. Hal.
5 p. 74 R.
), it dealt with the whole question of the number and nature of these elements.
5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-727
φωνὴν ἔχοντος
includes the semivowel as well as the vowel (see on
b 28
).
καὶ γὰρ τὸ ΓΡ ἄνευ τοῦ Α =
τὸ γὰρ ΓΡ καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ Α.
5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-728
τῆς μετρικῆς:
see on
b 34
. As the foot is made up of syllables, the theory of the
συλλαβή belonged to metre just as much as to grammar:
Aristides Quintil.
1. 20, p. 28 Jahn
ἀρχὴ μὲν οὖν ἡ τῆς μετρικῆς ὁ περὶ στοιχείων λόγος, εἶθ᾿ ὁ περὶ συλλαβῆς, εἶθ' ὁ περὶ ποδῶν, εἶθ οὕτως ὁ περὶ μέτρων.-
Longinus
Prol. in Heph. p. 142 Gaisf.
τοῦ δὲ περὶ μέτρων λόγου πολλοὶ πολλαχῶς ἤρξαντο, οἱ μὲν ἀπὸ στοιχείων, ὡς Φιλόξενος, οἱ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ μέτρων ὅρου, ὡς Ηλιόδωρος, ἡμεῖς δὲ Ἡφαιστίωνι κατακολουθήσομεν ἀπὸ συλλαβῆς ἀρξάμενοι. By
τούτων τὰς διαφοράς
Aristotle probably meant not only the familiar distinction of syllables into long and short, but also the finer differences the ancient theory of rhythmic recognized in the times of syllables, when the time of the consonant or consonants in them is taken into account (v.
Kühner, Gr. Gr. 1. 1 p. 300
).
6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-729
σύνδεσμος.
The traditional text of this and the following section (that on the
ἄρθρον) is confessedly corrupt.
Twining finds a good deal of it unintelligible (comp.
Steinthal,
Gesch. der Sprachwissen- schaft 1 p. 263
); and
Vahlen, besides bracketing
ἢ φωνὴ μέσου in
1457a 8-10
, has to assume two lacunas, one after
συντίθεσθαι in
1457a 2
, and another after
δηλοῖ in
1457a 7
. At this point
Aristotle passes from the constituents of words (letters and syllables) to actual words; and he begins by noting this distinction: some words are
φωναὶ ἄσημοι, and others
φωναὶ σημαντικαί ; these latter being the nouns and verbs in language, which have a meaning of their own and stand for something even when uttered by themselves. The
σύνδεσμοι and
ἄρθρα however, are said to be
φωναὶ ἄσημοι; i. e. they convey no meaning when uttered by themselves.
If we may provisionally take them to represent in some way the little connexive words in language, the question arises as to the nature of the two kinds of connexives and the distinction
Aristotle wished to draw between them. It will be observed that he describes them by reference to their position and function in the complex
φωνὴ σημαντική, called a
λόγος a little further on in the chapter (
1457a 23
). It is necessary, therefore, to go back to his idea of
λόγος, and consider the various forms of
λόγοι which he either recognizes or may be presumed to have recognized.
λόγος in the present sense of the term has no exact English equivalent, though 'speech', 'discourse', or 'phrase' is sometimes conventionally made to stand for it. According to the definition in
1457a 23
it is a significant combination of significant words, e. g. of two (or more) nouns, or verbs (including what
Aristotle would call their
πτώσεις), or of a verb and a noun, or of a noun and a verb. Α
λόγος, in
Aristotle's sense of the term, does not necessarily involve predication.
The instance he gives in
1457a 25
of a non-predicative
λόγος is a definition, that of 'man', e.g.
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν - where the combination of the three nouns is equivalent to 'man', and may replace it as one of the terms of a proposition. This form of
λόγος is the
λόγος ὀνοματώδης of
An. post. 2. 10, 93 b 31
.
Under this same head we may include certain other forms of expression, e. g.
βαδίζει χαίρων (a combination of two verbs), and
οἰκοῦσι νῆσον (a verb+ a noun). A more complex instance of the same type would be a combination like
οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, where the terms are combined into one by the copulative, and
οἰκοῦσι περὶ δυσμάς, where the terms are hyphened together by the preposition
2
(comp.
Hartung,
Lehren der Alten über die Dichtkunst p. 284
). The other form of
λόγος is that which involves predication-the
λόγος ἀποφαντικός of the
De Interpretatione (4.17a seqq.).
If we may work out the hint in
De Interpretatione5, 17a 20
, we may divide the
λόγοι of this description into two kinds, the simple and the composite, and take the example in
1457a 28,
Κλέων βαδίζει, as the type of the simple predicational
λόγος. It is not so easy to find an Aristotelian instance of the composite predicational
λόγος; but its nature is indicated in general terms in the passage in the
De Interpretatione: it consists of two or more simple predicational
λόγοι combined in some way or other into one single
λόγος.
How, then, and by means of what kinds of words is this combination effected? The
De Interpretatione ignores this question. We may perhaps supply the omission, however, by reflecting for a moment on the structure of complex sentences and observing the different relations of the parts or members to the whole. In some instances the simple
λόγοι ἀποφαντικοί are merely co-ordinated, and held together by copulative or similar conjunctions, as in
Κλέων βαδίζει καὶ Σωκράτης κάθηται, Κλέων μὲν βαδίζει Σωκράτης δὲ κάθηται, Κλέων βαδίζει ἀλλὰ Σωκράτης κάθηται (comp.
συνδέσμῳ εἷς in
1457a 30
); in others they are subordinated to one another, and form a sort of organic whole knit into one by words which indicate relation and interdependence. This last point in the theory of the
λόγος would have to be recognized in any grammatical analysis of the sentence and its construction. I venture to suggest that it may have been actually present in
Aristotle's mind at the time of framing his definitions of
σύνδεσμος and
ἄρθρον, and that it is to be found in the text, if it be permissible to restore it in some such way as this:—
σύνδεσμος δέ ἐστι φωνὴ ἄσημος, ἢ οὔτε κωλύει οὔτε ποιεῖ φωνὴν μίαν σημαντικὴν ἐκ πλειόνων φωνῶν πεφυκυῖαν συντίθεσθαι [καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου], ἣν μὴ ἁρμόττει ἐν ἀρχῇ λόγου τιθέναι καθ αὑτόν, οἷον μέν, δή, τοί, δέ. ἢ φωνὴ ἄσημος ἢ ἐκ 5 πλειόνων μὲν φωνῶν μιᾶς σημαντικῶν δὲ ποιεῖν πέφυκε μίαν σημαντικὴν φωνήν, (οἷον τὸ ἀμφί καὶ τὸ περί καὶ τὰ ἄλλα). ἄρθρον δ᾽ ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἄσημος, ἢ λόγου ἀρχὴν ἢ τέλος ἢ διορισμὸν δηλοῖ [οἷον τὸ ἀμφί καὶ τὸ περί καὶ τὰ ἄλλα. φωνὴ ἄσημος ἢ οὔτε κωλύει οὔτε ποιεῖ φωνὴν μίαν σημαντικὴν ἐκ πλειόνων φωνῶν], πεφυκυῖα τίθεσθαι 10 καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου.
The words bracketed after
συντίθεσθαι in l. 2 I suppose to be a repetition in the wrong place of those after
τίθεσθαι in l. 9; and the clause
ἢ φωνὴ...φωνῶν in ll. 8–9 to have come in through a repetition of the beginning of the definition of
σύνδεσμος in l. 1 (comp.
Düntzer,
Rettung d. aristotelischen Poetik p. 194
). It will be seen also that the illustration
οἷον τὸ ἀμφί τὰ ἄλλα is assumed to be out of place where it stands, and is transferred to l. 6, so as to form part of the second definition of
σύνδεσμος—a view which has been anticipated by
Hartung. Two kinds of
σύνδεσμοι, then, are recognized in the text as amended. The first is said to consist of the connexive words whose presence in a
λόγος does not affect the coherence of the terms. There is no difficulty in illustrating this point; if
Κλέων and
βαδίζει are combinable terms, the combination of them in the proposition
Κλέων βαδίζει is neither hindered nor helped by the insertion after the first word of a
μέν,
δέ, α
δή, οι
τοί. Little words of this description are what the grammarians called 'expletives'. Though they stand at the beginning of the
λόγος, they are not an integral part of it; they belong to it not
per se (
καθ' αὑτόν), but
per accidens, and only serve to indicate a relation to some other
λόγος before or after it. In contradistinction to these
Aristotle recognizes a second species of
σύνδεσμος (l. 4), one that is a real and constitutive part of the
λόγος into which it enters. This function, as I have endeavoured to show above, in the general survey of the possible forms of
λόγοι, is fulfilled by the prepositions and the copulative conjunctions.
Aristotle's
σύνδεσμος, therefore, whatever else it may signify, may be taken to include the preposition, the copulative conjunction, and also certain particles.
The sense of the word
ἄρθρον is more difficult to determine owing to the absence of examples to illustrate its meaning. The term must clearly denote a particular kind of connexive required for a particular kind of
λόγος. The kind of
λόγος
Aristotle had in mind may perhaps be inferred from the fact that the
ἄρθρον in it is said to indicate the beginning, or end, or dividing-point in its structure. Such a
λόγος may be assumed to be a composite proposition, and moreover one of a more complex form than that in
Κλέων βαδίζει καὶ Σωκράτης κάθηται and the like. The two constituent propositions in it are either intimately connected by being related in such a way that the one is the beginning and the other the end of the whole; or they are in some way divided or separated one from the other. With this we may compare the definition of the 'period' in
Rhet. 3. 9, 1409
a 35
λέγω δὲ περίοδον λέξιν ἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν αὐτὴν καθ᾽ αὑτὴν καὶ μέγεθος εὐσύνοπτον. As a conjectural interpretation of this statement it may be suggested (1) that the
ἄρθρα which mark the beginning of the proposition represent the conditional and causal conjunctions, together with the relative pronouns and adverbs; (2) that those marking the end are the final and illative conjunctions; and (3) those marking the separation or division in the proposition, the disjunctives. The kinds of proposition which involve the use of such words as these are ignored in
Aristotle's logical writings, but it seems to me that he may very well have had something to say of them in an analysis like that in the present chapter of the forms and constituents of ordinary speech.
I am not unaware of the lacunas that may be found in this interpretation of the Aristotelian
ἄρθρον. It must be taken for what it is worth, and with many allowances, as an attempt to recover the rough draft of an all but lost chapter of early grammar. For a discussion of the textual and other difficulties in these two sections I may refer to
Vahlen's
Beiträge, 3 p. 229 and 306
, and
Schömann's
Animadversiones ad veterum grammaticorum doctrinam de articulo (
Jahrb. f. class. Philol. Suppl.-Bd. V p. 5)
.
Both
σύνδεσμος and
ἄρθρον were terms taken by grammar from anatomy (see on
7, 1450
b 34
); the former is properly a 'ligament', and the latter a 'joint'. The language in the text as to the function of the
ἄρθρον or joint-word,
ἢ λόγου ἀρχὴν ἢ τέλος δηλοῖ, recalls that in the passage in
De anima 3. 10, 433
b 21
, which describes the physical joint as the means of locomotion in the animal:
τὸ δὲ κινοῦν ὀργανικῶς, ὅπου ἀρχὴ καὶ τελευτὴ τὸ αὐτό, οἷον ὁ γιγγλυμός· ἐνταῦθα γὰρ τὸ κυρτὸν καὶ κοῖλον τὸ μὲν τελευτὴ τὸ δ᾽ ἀρχή (διὸ τὸ μὲν ἠρεμεῖ τὸ δὲ kινεῖται), λόγῳ μὲν ἕτερα ὄντα μεγέθει δ᾽ ἀχώριστα (comp.
J. of Phil. 17 p. 64
). The joint-word in grammar, therefore, would naturally imply a more structural and organic connexion than is to be found when the
λόγοι are simply strung together by
σύνδεσμοι.
I should add that the instances of
σύνδεσμοι in
Rhet. 3. 5, 1407
a 20
are
μέν and
δή, together with
γάρ,
τέ,
καί, and apparently
ἐπεί [?
ἔτι]; and that a distinction not unlike that in the text between the two kinds of
σύνδεσμοι is implied in
Probl. 16. 20, 919
a 22
ἐκ τῶν λόγων ἐνίων ἐξαιρεθέντων συνδέσμων οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ λόγος Ἑλληνικός, οἷον τὸ τέ καὶ τὸ καί, ἔνιοι δὲ οὐθὲν λυποῦσι διὰ τὸ τοῖς μὲν ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι χρῆσθαι πολλάκις, εἰ ἔσται λόγος, τοῖς δὲ μή.
6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-730
1
κωλύει,
scil.
ποιεῖσθαι.
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-731
φωνῶν:
1.e.
φωνῶν σημαντικῶν.
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-732
λόγου.
The term is explained in 23.
Aristotle is using it without explanation, as though it were a familiar and well-understood word. Just before this (in 1) he employed the periphrasis
φωνὴ μία σημαντική in lieu of it.
καθ᾽ αὑτόν is to be taken with
λόγου (comp.
Top. 8. 11, 161
b 19
). The
λόγος as such is tacitly distinguished from the
λόγος as brought into relation with some other
λόγος by the insertion of a word which is no integral part of it
per se.
καθ᾽ αὑτό is the opposite of
πρὸς ἕτερον ἢ
κατὰ συμβεβηκός (
Bon. Ind. 212
a 3
).
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-733
διορισμός
seems to mean here 'separation' or 'disjunction', a metaphorical extension of the sense it has in the
De Partibus:
3. 10, 672
a 14
τοῦ διορισμοῦ χάριν ἐστὶ (scil. τὸ διάζωμα) τοῦ τε περὶ τὴν κοιλίαν τόπου καὶ τοῦ περὶ τὴν καρδίαν.
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-734
πεφυκυῖα τίθεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου
does not necessarily mean any more than this, that some of the
ἄρθρα have one and others another of these three possible places in the complex form of
λόγος.
πεφυκυῖα τίθεσθαι implies that the rule is general and not always observed in practice.
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-735
ὄνομα.
In this definition
συνθετή differentiates the
ὄνομα from the
στοιχεῖον,
σημαντική from the
ἄρθρον and
σύνδεσμος,
ἄνευ χρόνου from the
ῥῆμα, and what remains (
ἧς μέρος οὐδὲν κτέ.) from the
λόγος. In a
λόγος ( . 8.
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν, οι
Κλέων βαδίζει) the parts retain their several meanings; whereas in an
ὄνομα, if the parts happen to have a meaning, it is lost in the word into which they enter;
Θεόδωρος for instance denotes a certain man, not a kind of gift:
De interpr. 2, 16
b 19
ὄνομα μὲν οὖν ἐστι φωνὴ σημαντικὴ κατὰ συνθήκην ἄνευ χρόνου, ἧς μηδὲν μέρος ἐστὶ σημαντικὸν κεχωρισμένον· ἐν γὰρ τῷ Κάλλιππος τὸ ἵππος οὐδὲν αὐτὸ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸ σημαίνει, ὥσπερ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ καλὸς ἵππος. The general term
ὄνομα must be taken to include not only the nouns, but also the adjectives, the personal and demonstrative pronouns, and possibly even the article as a kind of pronoun—in fact all the declinable parts of speech except perhaps the relatives, which may have been classed among the
ἄρθρα A verb also apart from a subject, as a mere name for an action, may be called an
ὄνομα, as it is for instance in 21, 1457 a 25; 22, 1458 b20; 25, 1461 b 31; comp.
De interpr. 3, 16
b 19
αὐτὰ μὲν οὖν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὰ λεγόμενα ὀνόματά ἐστι [scil. τὰ ῥήματα] καὶ σημαίνει τι (ἵστησι γὰρ ὁ λέγων τὴν διάνοιαν καὶ ὁ ἀκούσας ἠρέμησεν), ἀλλ᾽ εἰ ἔστιν ἢ μὴ οὔπω σημαίνει. It is a
ῥῆμα proper only when actually said of a subject, as the predicate of a proposition.
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-736
οὐ χρώμεθα:
comp. 21, 1457 a 33
πλὴν οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι σημαίνοντος. The construction in the clause may be seen from
Vahlen's paraphrase,
εν τοῖς διπλοῖς οὐ χρώμεθα τῷ μέρει ἡγούμενοι καὶ αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ σημαίνειν. The participial
ὡς καὶ αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὐτὸ σημαῖνον is an acc. absolute like those in 3, 1448 a 37 and 26, 1462 10.
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-737
τῷ Θεοδώρῳ:
i.e. 'the word
Θεόδωρος'; comp. infra 28
ὁ Κλέων, ' the word
Κλέων'. —
Plato
Crat. 392 D
τὸν Ἀστυάνακτα, ' the name Astyanax'; for the similar Latin usage v. Wilkins on
Cicero
De Oratore 2, 193
. In the
De interpr. we have the more scholastic form of expression with a nominative,
ἐν τῷ Κάλλιππος.
τὸ δῶρον: i. e. the word
δῶρον implied in
Θεόδωρος. As the parallel in the
De interpr. is
ἐν τῷ Κάλλιππος τὸ ἵππος οὐδὲν αὐτὸ καθ ἑαυτὸ σημαίνει, it has been proposed to restore here
τὸ δωρος for
τὸ δῶρον. The two cases, however, as
Düntzer reminds us, are not quite similar, since
δωρος does not exist as a separate word, as
ἵππος does, and there would therefore be no point in saying of it that it is without meaning (
οὐ σημαίνει).
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-738
ῥῆμα:
De interpr. 3, 16b 6
ῥῆμα δέ ἐστι τὸ προσσημαῖνον χρόνον, οὐ μέρος οὐδὲν σημαίνει χωρίς, καὶ ἔστιν ἀεὶ τῶν καθ᾽ ἑτέρου λεγομένων σημεῖον. λέγω δ᾽ ὅτι προσσημαίνει χρόνον, οἷον ὑγίεια μὲν ὄνομα, τὸ δὲ ὑγιαίνει ῥῆμα προσσημαίνει γὰρ τὸ νῦν ὑπάρχειν ... 16 τὸ ὑγίανεν ἢ τὸ ὑγιανεῖ οὐ ῥῆμα ἀλλὰ πτώσεις ῥήματος διαφέρει δὲ τοῦ ῥήματος, ὅτι τὸ μὲν τὸν παρόντα προσσημαίνει χρόνον, τὰ δὲ τὸν πέριξ. In this passage (though not in
De interpr. 10, 19b 13
) the past and future tenses of the verb are set aside as
πτώσεις, the verb in the logical theory of predication being always in the present (comp. Mansel,
Prolegomena Logica p. 273). It is to be noted that in these instances of verbs, the verb is in the third person singular of the present; the reason for this is that a proper name like
Κλέων οι
Κορίσκος is tacitly assumed to be its subject. With
Plato, it may be observed, the
ῥῆμα includes the predicative adjective as well as the verb (v.
Crat. 399 A
).
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-739
προσσημαίνει.
Boethius,
In Aristot. de Interpr. 2 p. 66 Meiser
, translates this by
consignificat, thus identifying its sense with that of the later word
συσσημαίνειν.
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-741
ἄνθρωπος:
Phys. 3. 7, 207
b 34
ἄνθρωπος εἷς ἄνθρωπος καὶ οὐ πολλοί.
10.
mvp-aristotle-comment-742
τὰ ὑποκριτικά:
see on
19, 1456 b 10.
ἐπίταξιν: see on
19, 1456b 16
.
10.
mvp-aristotle-comment-743
βάδιζε:
to be read as
βάδιζε , i. e. as a dictatorial imperative.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-744
λόγος.
The definition is framed to distinguish a
λόγος from an
ὄνομα; see above on 10, and comp.
De interpr. 4, 16
b 26
λόγος δέ ἐστι φωνὴ σημαντικὴ κατὰ συνθήκην, ἧς τῶν μερῶν τι σημαντικόν ἐστι κεχωρισμένον, ὡς φάσις, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς κατάφασις ἢ ἀπόφασις.
λέγω δέ, οἷον ἄνθρωπος σημαίνει μέν τι, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὅτι ἔστιν ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλ᾽ ἔσται κατάφασις ἢ ἀπόφασις, ἐάν τι προστεθῇ. The clause
ἧς ἔνια μέρη καθ᾽ αὑτὰ σημαίνει τι refers to the nouns and verbs (with their
πτώσεις) as the significant parts of all
λόγοι;
the
σύνδεσμοι and
ἄρθρα are
φωναὶ ἄσημοι. For the meaning of
λόγος and the various forms of
λόγοι see on
20, 1456
b 38
(also
Bon. Ind. 433
b 48
).
12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-745
οὐ γὰρ ἅπας, κτέ.
An indirect reproof, perhaps, to
Plato, who seems to speak as though a
λόγος were always in the form of a proposition:
Soph. 262 Α
οὐκοῦν ἐξ ὀνομάτων μὲν μόνων συνεχώς λεγομένων οὐκ ἔστι ποτὲ λόγος, οὐδ᾽ αὖ ῥημάτων χωρὶς ὀνομάτων λεχθέντων.
12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-746
ὁ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁρισμός:
e.g.
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν (
Top. 1. 7, 103
a 27
) οἱ
ζῷον ἐπιστήμης δεκτικόν (
Top. 5. 2, 130 b8
).
12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-747
ἐνδέχεται ἄνευ ῥημάτων εἶναι λόγον.
This is the
λόγος ὀνοματώδης of
An. post. 2. 10, 93b31
—a combination of words that may serve as an equivalent for a name, and take the place of one as a term in a proposition (comp.
De interpr. 11, 21 a 29
). It may be a more or a less exact equivalent; the most exact is what
Aristotle calls a definition (comp.
Metaph. Z 4, 1030 a 14
).
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-748
εἷς δὲ ἐστι λόγος διχῶς.
That a
λόγος, in spite of its composite nature, has a certain unity in it is tacitly assumed in the definition in a 23
λόγος δὲ φωνὴ συνθετὴ κτέ. This unity, as the text implies, is not of the same order in all kinds of
λόγοι. A definition (a
λόγος without predication) is one, because the combination of terms in it signifies and stands for one thing (
ἓν σημαίνει), just in the same way as a name may do. The proposition also, e. g.
Κλέων βαδίζει, is one because the combination of terms describes a single act or fact (comp.
De interpr. 5, 17 a 16
ὁ ἓν δηλῶν λόγος), and admits of only one assertion or denial. On the other hand in a composite
λόγος consisting of two or more propositions with copulative or other coordinating conjunctions to connect them together, the formal unity of the whole is due to this conjunction of the parts, the several propositions which compose it. The
Iliad is an extreme instance of such a
λόγος. This point, the difference in the unity in these two kinds of
λόγοι, is more than once noticed by
Aristotle elsewhere in very similar terms:
De interpr. 5, 17 a 8
ἔστι δὲ εἰς πρῶτος [? πρώτως] λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς κατάφασις, εἶτα ἀπόφασις· οἱ δ᾽ ἄλλοι [scil. λόγοι ἀποφαντικοί] πάντες συνδέσμῳ εἷς ἔστι δὲ εἷς λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς ἢ ὁ ἓν δηλῶν ἢ ὁ συνδέσμῳ εἷς, ... πολλοὶ δὲ οἱ πολλὰ καὶ μὴ ἓν ἢ οἱ ἀσύνδετοι.
An. post. 2. 10, 93 b 35
λόγος δ᾽ εἷς ἐστι διχῶς, ὁ μὲν συνδέσμῳ, ὥσπερ ἡ Ἰλιάς, ὁ δὲ τῷ ἓν καθ᾽ ἓν δηλοῦν μὴ κατὰ συμβεβηκός. —
Metaph. Η 6, 1045 a 12
:
ὁ δ᾽ ὁρισμὸς λόγος ἐστὶν εἷς οὐ συνδέσμῳ καθάπερ ἡ Ἰλιάς, ἀλλὰ τῷ ἑνὸς εἶναι (comp. also
Metaph. Z 4, 1030 b 9
).
13.
mvp-aristotle-comment-749
ἐκ πλειόνων
,
scil.
λόγων.
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-467
20.2
2. La lettre est un ſon indiviſible, non pas quelque ſon que ce foit, mais celuy qui est articulé & intelligible.]
1
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-468
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-469
20.3
4. La demy-voyelle est celle qui pour se faire entendre, emprunte la voix d'une voyelle qui la précede.]
3
5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-470
20.4
5. Il y a encore entr'elles une autre difference qui ſe tire,
on
ou de la conformation de la bouche, & des autres endroits qui ſer-vent à la prononciation. ]
4
6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-471
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-472
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-473
20.4
8. Mais il ne convient de traiter en détail de toutes ces dif-ferentes qualitez des lettres, que dans les traitez qui enſeignent l'art de faire des vers.]
7
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-474
20.5
9. La fyllabe est un ſon qui ne ſignifie rien, & qui est
compo- Fée
compoſée d'une muete & d'une voyelle.]
8
10.
mvp-aristotle-comment-475
20.6
10. La conjonction eſt un ſon qui ne ſignifiant rien par luy-mème, ne fait ny n'empèche que chacun des autres avec lesquels elle se trouve, n'ait sa fignification, mais qui les détermine tous à n'en avoir qu'une feule, & ne fait qu'un ſeul & mème ſon de tous les differens ſons qu'elle unit.]
9
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-476
12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-477
20.7
12. L'article est un ſon, qui ne ſignifiant rien par luy-mème, ſert ſeulement à montrer le commencement ou la fin du discours]
11
13.
mvp-aristotle-comment-478
20.8
13. Le nom est un ſon composé, qui fignifie quelque choſe ſans marquer le temps, & dont les parties qui le compoſent ne fignifient rien ſeules.]
12
14.
mvp-aristotle-comment-479
20.8
14. Car même dans les noms doubles, chaque nom ſeparé n'a aucune fignification, comme Theodore.]
13
15.
mvp-aristotle-comment-480
20.9
15. Mais le verbe a cet avantage ſur le nom qu'il marque le temps, ce que le nom ne fait pas.]
14
16.
mvp-aristotle-comment-481
17.
mvp-aristotle-comment-482
20.11
17. L'oraiſon, ou le diſcours, eſt un ſon compoſe qui fignifie, & dont quelques parties ſeparées ont leur ſignification.]
16
18.
mvp-aristotle-comment-483
20.12
18. Car il ne faut pas s'imaginer que l'oraiſon ſoit toujours un composé de noms & de verbes, comme la définition de l'homme.]
17
19.
mvp-aristotle-comment-484
168.
mvp-aristotle-comment-168
NOTE 168. P. 105.
20.4
IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE MOUTH.
Τοποις.—Clearly right; nor can I conceive, what should have induced any critic to suspect this reading. See
Dionys. Halicarn. Sect. 14
. his curious and accurate analysis of articulation: and
Aristides Quintil. p. 89, ed. Meib.
—where, in describing the formation of the letters, these expressions occur:—
ἐκ των περι τους όδοντας ΤΟΠΩΝ—and,
ἐκ μεσου του φωνητικου ΤΟΠΟΥ. See, also,
Hermes, III. 2, p. 322.
—
ΤΟΝΟΙΣ, which had occurred to Mr. Winstanley,
1
would be mere tautology; for that idea is fully expressed afterwards, by
ὀξυτητι και βαρύτητι. Thus,
Rhet. III. 1.
τοις ΤΟΝΟΙΣ, ΟΙΟΝ ὀξεια και βαρεια, και μεση.
169.
mvp-aristotle-comment-169
NOTE 169. P. 105.
20.4
AS THEIR TONE IS ACUTE, GRAVE, OR INTER-MEDIATE.
Οξύτητι, βαρύτητι, και τω μεσω.—All the commentators seem agreed, that by
τῷ μέσῳ is meant the circumflex. Mr. Foster, in his
Essay on Accent, &c. expresses some degree of doubt about this
; and, I confess, it appears to me to be somewhat more than doubtful. Certainly, the only obvious and proper sense of the word mean, or middle, thus applied to the pitch of sound, is, that which is between
ὀξυ and
βαρυ; not, that which is compounded of the two, as the circumflex is always represented to be. At least the expression, in this latter sense, would not be very accurate and philosophical. A circumflexed syllable is described to be, a syllable that has both an acute and a grave accent;—
ἀμφοτερας τας τασεις, as it is expressed by
Dion. Halicarn. Sect. 11.
The voice first rises, and then falls, on the same syllable. A man would be thought to speak very strangely, who should describe any object painted half white and half black, by saying, that it was of a colour between black and white.
But, farther, I observe, that in other passages of Aristotle's works, where he speaks of accents, the word
μεσον no where occurs. Indeed, he uses neither this, nor any other word, to denote the circumflex accent. He mentions only
ὀξυ, and
βαρύ, acute, and grave. See
De Soph. Elench. p. 284, C.
—
288, A.
—
304, A.
—
306, A. ed. Duval.
In the last of these passages especially, his expression is remarkable:
ἐι παρα προσῳδιαν όξειαν, Ἡ ΒΑΡΕΙΑ προσωδια λυσις· ἐι δε παρα βαρειαν, Ἡ ΟΞΕΙΑ. That is—"If the sophism supposes the acute accent, the answer is—it is the grave accent; and vice versa."
2
Here are no traces of the triple division of accents, given by later writers, into acute, grave, and circumflex. Nay more; he speaks in the same way, even when the very ambiguity in question lies between an acute, and a circumflex, accent; as
οὐ, (
non,) and
οὗ (
ubi). See the passage, p. 304, A: where the circumflexed is expressed by the word
βαρυτερον.—This, I confess, much increases my doubt with respect to the word
μεσῳ in the passage before us. For, had that been Aristotle's term for the circumflex accent, as the common explanation supposes, we probably should have found the expression in some of the passages referred to; at least, in that last mentioned.
I cannot, surely, be misunderstood, as meaning to infer, from these passages, that the flexure itself of the voice upon a single syllable, which was afterwards denominated by Grammarians,
περισπωμενη, was unknown to Aristotle and the earlier writers. The thing, undoubtedly, has always existed, and must exist, more or less, in every language. But these passages do, I think, afford a pretty strong presumption, that the circumflex had then no appropriated term, and, consequently, that, in this passage, the word
μεσον has a different, and its usual and proper, meaning;
3
that, in which it is used continually by the writers on Harmonics.
4
But, farther, it appears to be so used by Aristotle himself, in a similar passage of his Rhetoric. In the beginning of the third book, speaking of oratorical action or delivery, (
ὑποκρισις) as far as it relates to the voice, he says,
ἐσι δε άυτη μεν ἐν τη φωνη, πως αυτη δει χρησθαι προς ἐκασον παθος· διοι, ποτε μεγαλη, και ποτε μικρα, και ποτε μεση· και πως τοις τονοις, διον, ὀξειᾳ, και βαρειᾳ, και ΜΕΣΗ. Now, even supposing this to relate to accents, it seems, that
μεσῃ, here, should naturally have the same meaning, with respect to
ὀξειᾳ, and
βαρειᾳ, as it has when applied immediately before to
μεγαλῃ and
μικρᾳ, where it plainly means the medium between loud and soft.—But I think the passage clearly does not relate to the mere syllabic accent: for he is there professedly speaking of the accommodation of the voice to the expression of different passions; he must therefore mean such variation of tone or pitch, as depends upon the speaker's choice; not that of the accentual acuteness and gravity; for this is always spoken of as a fixed and invariable thing.
5
Aristotle therefore means, I believe, exactly what
Cicero
has expressed in the following words; and, from the similitude of the expres- sion, it seems probable, that he had this very passage of Aristotle before him, or in his memory.
6
"Nam voces, ut chordæ, sunt intentæ, quæ ad quemque tactum respondeant, acuta, gravis; cita, tarda; magna, parva; quas tamen inter omnes est sua quoque in genere mediocris." That is, as it seems rightly explained by Dr. Pearce, every one of these differences of voice, high and low, loud and soft, &c. has its medium—
μεσον.
To this passage of Cicero, I shall add one from
Quintilian
to the same purpose, and which affords a still clearer commentary upon that in the Rhetoric of Aristotle.
"Utendi voce multiplex ratio. Nam præter illam differentiam quæ est tripartita, acuta, gravis, flexa, tum intentis, tum remissis—tum elatis, tum inferioribus modis, opus est,— spatiis quoque lentioribus aut citatioribus. Sed iis ipsis MEDIA interjacent multa."
7
If the reader compares this with the passage of Aristotle, he will see how exactly it answers to the Greek. Here are three differences of voice corresponding plainly to the three mentioned by Aristotle. The difference of
intentis and
remissis (loud and soft) expresses his
μεγαλη και μικρα; that of,
elatis,
et inferioribus modis, (acuter, or graver, tones or pitches,) his
ὀξεια και βαρεια; and that of
spatiis lentioribus, &c. (quicker or slower times) his
ῥυθμοις τισι, &c. And, that Quintilian did not understand, by
ὀξειᾳ and
βαρειᾳ, the acute and grave syllabic accent, is clear from his expressly saying, that there are those three differences besides that of the different accents—
"præter illam differentiam," &c.—Lastly, the
"media interjacent multa," plainly alludes to the
μεση of Aristotle.
The following passage, from the clear and accurate musical treatise of
Euclid
, will serve to illustrate, at the same time, both the terms of Aristotle,
τονοις
8
and
μεση. Enumerating the different accep- tations of the word
τονος, one of which is
τασις, tension or pitch, his instance of that sense of the word, is,
ὁ δε, ὡς τασις, τονου λεγεται, καθ' ὁ φαμεν ὀξυτονειν τινα, ἢ βαρυτονειν, ἢ ΜΕΣΩ, ΤΩΙ ΤΗΣ ΦΩΝΗΣ ΤΟΝΩΙ κεχρησθαι: i. e. a middling pitch of voice.
9
On the whole, then, I see no reason why we should not understand the word
μέσῳ to be used in the same sense in the passage which is the subject of this note. For though, indeed, Aristotle is there speaking of single letters, and therefore can only mean syllabic accents or tones, yet it is plain, that these accents must have admitted of the distinction of high, low, and intermediate, even in single words, when of more than two syllables;
10
much more, in whole sentences or periods, where what Mr. Foster calls the oratorial accent, (if, indeed, it be compatible with a fixed syllabic accentuation of single words, of which I profess myself not yet convinced,) must necessarily have varied the tone or pitch of the same nominal syllabic accent, from word to word.
But whatever sense of the word
μέσῳ we adopt, there is a difficulty, in this passage, which I must leave as I find it. The mention of tone or pitch of voice here, seems to me to be strangely misplaced. Accent, or tone, belongs to syllables, not to letters, of which Aristotle is here speaking. The vowels, indeed, may be acute or grave; but as syllables making a part of words, not as letters, separately considered, as they here are. Besides; the other differences mentioned are fixed, essential differences. Of these letters, he says, some are formed in this manner, and others, in that: some are aspirated, and others smooth—some long, others short. But, can it be said, with any propriety, that some are acute, and others grave? Are there vowels that are always acute, as there are vowels that are always long? This seems not more accurate, than it would be to conclude an enumeration of the differences of words, by adding that some are said, and some are sung: or rather, it seems just the same, as if a man, describing the different sorts of bricks that are made, should conclude with telling us, that some are put at the top of a wall, some at bottom, and some in the middle.
170.
mvp-aristotle-comment-170
NOTE 170. P. 105.
20.6
A CONJUNCTION IS A SOUND, &c.--The whole of this first definition of the conjunction appears to me to be corrupt beyond all hope of restoration from conjecture.
Mr. Harris plainly passes it over as inexplicable, and takes the second definition only.
I may well, therefore, be excused for not attempting to translate, what I confess myself totally unable to comprehend.
I do, indeed, understand very well, that a conjunction,
"neither hinders nor constitutes—neither gives nor takes away—the meaning of the sentence in which it stands." But how this can be regarded as a definition of a conjunction, I do not understand. To define a thing only by what it does not do, (for it is here given as a separate and complete definition,) is hardly reconcileable with Aristotle's logical accuracy.
11
Dacier
, in his translation, has obviated this objection, by uniting the two definitions; but without any authority from the text.
I must, again, confess, that what follows, about the situation of the conjunction in different parts of a sentence, has not been made intelligible to me, by any explication I have seen; particularly, the expression,
καθ' αυτον, which
M. Batteux
, after
Castelvetro
, renders,
"by its nature:"—
"à moins que par elle-même elle ne soit faite pour être au commencement." But this sense cannot be admitted; nor, I think, any other, than—
"by itself—alone." This
Mr. Winstanley
explains by
ἄνευ ἀνταποδοσεως: but I cannot see how his translation—
"modo eas conjunctiones excipias quæ in initio periodi,
&c. accords with Aristotle's words—
καθ' αυτους, —ritè stare non possunt,"ὴν μη άρμοττῃ ἐν ἀρχῃ λογου τίθεναι καθ' αυτον i. e. "unless they are such as should be placed in the beginning, by themselves." To make these words correspond to Mr. Winstanley's version, another negative seems wanting.
171.
mvp-aristotle-comment-171
NOTE 171. P. 105.
20.7
AN ARTICLE MARKS THE BEGINNING OR THE END OF A SENTENCE.The commentators all tell us, that this means the prepositive, and the subjunctive article; but none of them have clearly and fairly shewn us, how the one, because it is placed before a word, marks the beginning of a sentence or discourse, (
ΛΟΓΟΥ ἀρχην;) or, how the other marks the end of it, because it follows the word to which it belongs. In the very sentence before us, for example,
Αρθρον δε ἐστι φωνη άσημα Ἡ λογου άρχην ἢ τελος, ἢ διορισμον, δηλοι—in what sense does the subjunctive article,
Ἡ, mark the end of the sentence—
τελος λογου?
"L'article subjonctif," says
Dacier
,
"est celui qui marque la fin du discours: c'est-à-dire, qu'il suit la chose qu'il designe, comme, qui, lequel."—It is easy to explain things in this manner.
For my part, I see not what is to be made of this, unless we may understand Aristotle to mean only that power of the article, by which, in the Greek language, it distinguishes the subject from the predicate, in certain propositions, and determines the order of construction. See
Hermes, II. 1. p. 230.
—But, then, this is no other than a species of
διορισμα, and is, indeed, given by Mr. Harris as one example of the definitive or ascertaining power of the article.
The second definition of the article, (
—φωνη άσημα —— to συντίθεσθαι) I have omitted. It is the first definition of the conjunction repeated verbatim. It may, indeed, be true of both; but if so, it must inevitably follow, I think, either that the two things must be the same, or, that the words are not truly a definition of either. Yet this passes smoothly with all the commentators I have seen, except
Madius
and
Piccolomini
.
172.
mvp-aristotle-comment-172
NOTE 172. P. 105.
20.8
FOR EVEN IN DOUBLE WORDS, &C.Compare
cap. ii.
and
iv.
of Aristotle's treatise
Περι Ερμηνειας
. This is rendered by
Piccolomini
, with his usual accuracy,
"perochè nei nomi doppij [ò ver composti] non usiamo le parti d'essi, secondo che, da per se prese, hanno significatione: come, (per essempio) in questo nome Theodoro, quella parte (doro) non é significante."
12
173.
mvp-aristotle-comment-173
NOTE 173. P. 106.
20.9
INDICATION OF TIME IS NOT INCLUDED, &c. —
Ου ΠΡΟΣΣΗΜΑΙΝΕΙ το ποτε. See
Hermes, I. 6, note (d), p. 96
. Aristotle has given a fuller definition of the verb, in the book
περι Ἑρμ. cap. iii.
174.
mvp-aristotle-comment-174
NOTE 174. P. 106.
20.10
OTHERS RELATE TO ACTION OR PRONUNCIATION —
Ἡ δε, κατα τα ὑποκριτικα — sc.
σχηματα: meaning the
σχηματα λεξεως mentioned just before, cap. xix. with which these modes plainly coincide; for the
πτώσεις ῥηματων here mentioned are no other than the
Ἐγκλισεις, modes, or moods, of the Grammarians. — [See
Hermes, I. 8, p. 144
, and particularly the notes there.]
Και κατα ποιας ἐγκλισεις, ὡς δη τινες ΠΤΩΣΕΙΣ ΡΗΜΑΤΙΚΑΣ καλεσι.
Dion. Hal. de Struct. &c. Sect. 6.
— But he speaks of the term as applied only to the modes; for the tenses,
διαφοραι χρονων, are immediately after mentioned by him, as not included in that term. But Aristotle, in the
περι ἐρμην.
expressly mentions the tenses also, as
πτωσεις ῥηματων. See
cap. iii. Sect. 5.
175.
mvp-aristotle-comment-175
NOTE 175. P. 106.
20.12
FOR ALL DISCOURSE IS NOT COMPOSED OF VERBS AND NOUNS: THE DEFINITION OF MAN, FOR INSTANCE —
Ου γαρ άπας λογος ἐκ ῥηματων και ὀνοματων συγκειται· διον, ὁ του ἀνθρωπου ὁρισμος· ἀλλ᾽ ἐνδεχεται άνευ ῥηματων είναι λογον.
This is very ambiguously expressed. We are left to make out, as well as we can, whether the "definition of man," is referred to as an instance of a sentence without a verb, or of a sentence with both noun and verb. The construction seems, indeed, to lead more naturally to the latter interpretation. But the other, I think, is more to Aristotle's purpose, (for, an example of a sentence with both noun and verb, it was hardly necessary to produce,) and is confirmed by the following passage in his book
περι Ἑρμηνειας
:
Αναγκη δε παντα λογον ἀποφαντικον (every assertive sentence or speech)
ἐκ ῥηματος είναι, ἢ ἐκ πτωσεως ῥηματος· και γαρ ὁ του ἀνθρωπου λογος (i. e.
ὁρισμος, definition; for so
λογος is continually used by Aristotle,)
ἐαν μη το, ἐστιν, ἢ, ην, ἢ, ἐσται, ἢ τι τοιουτον ΠΡΟΣΤΕΘΗι, ουπω λογος ἀποφαντικος.
13
The definition itself, (the same, probably, to which he alludes in the passage before us,) follows; it is,
ζωον πεζον διπουν.
14
Now these three words alone constitute the definition, and it is of this only that Aristotle here speaks. In the full, assertive sentence,
Anthropos esti zoon pezon dipoun, the two first words are no part of the definition itself, but, as Victorius has well observed, only indicate the thing defined. And accordingly, the philosopher, we see, in the above quotation, considers the verb as superadded to the definition.
However, this sense would be so much more clearly expressed, if the words —
διον, ὁ του ἀνθρωπου ὁρισμος followed, instead of preceding, the words
ἀλλ' ἐνδεχεται άνευ ῥηματων είναι λογον, that I should hardly doubt of their being misplaced, if this sort of embarrassment were less frequent than it is in Aristotle's writings. This whole passage receives much illustration from that part of the treatise
περι ἐρμ.
to which I have referred.
15
A sentence without a verb is what Aristotle calls a significant sentence, but not an assertive sentence, or proposition; i. e. that affirms or denies something, and of which it may be predicated, that it is true, or false. Such only, in that logical work, it was to his purpose to consider; the other, the merely significant sentence,
16
he dismisses, as belonging rather to rhetoric and
POETRY.
Οι μεν ουν άλλοι [λογοι], ἀφεισθωσαν· ρητορικης γαρ, ἢ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗΣ, οικειοτερα ἡ σκεψις· ὁ δε ἀποφαντικος της νυν θεωριας.
17
176.
mvp-aristotle-comment-176
NOTE 176. P. 106.
20.12
SIGNIFICANT, AS THE WORD CLEON IS, &C.It has been observed, that the sense seemed to require an instance of a sentence with only one significant word; at least, not composed of both verb and noun, as
βαδίζει Κλεων is. But I rather believe, that Aristotle did not intend this as an instance of such a sentence, but merely as an explanation of the
σημαινει, and
καθ' άυτα σημαινει τι, that precede. "It is not," says he, "essential to what I call
λογος,
oratio, that it should contain both a noun and a verb, i. e. that it should be a complete proposition: but some significant part it must have; significant, I mean, as a whole word, separately taken, as
Cleon is, for example, in the sentence,
Cleon walks; not as making a part of a word, like
δωρον in the compound name
Θεοδωρος, which has, indeed, a meaning, but not
καθ' αυτο κεχωρισμενον — by itself as a word in the sentence."
That this is the meaning, seems probable from the chapter in which
λογος is defined in the book
περι Ερμηνειας
. For there, as soon as he has given the definition, (
Λογου δε ἐσι φωνη σημαντικη ἧς των μερων τι σημαντικον ἐσι ΚΕΧΩΡΙΣΜΕΝΟΝ,) he immediately proceeds to explain the expressions; declaring what fort of significant part he means. "Significant," he says, "as the word
ανθρωπος is; that is,
κεχωρισμενον, by itself; not as,
syn-anthropos is, or
uk esti, which signify as assertive sentences, nor yet, as a syllable, or part of a simple word, (like
υς in
μυς,) or, even as a word making part of a compound word."
18
Now, what Aristotle there expresses fully, he meant, I think, to say, more briefly, in the words,
ΜΕΡΟΣ μεντοι άει τι σημαινον ἐξει· διον ἐν τῷ, Βαδίζει Κλεων, ὁ Κλεων.
177.
mvp-aristotle-comment-177
NOTE 177. P. 107.
20.13
A DISCOURSE MAY BE ONE, IN TWO SENSES, &C.Compare,
περι Ερμην. cap. v. p. 38.
—
Analyt. Post. lib. ii. cap. 10. p. 169, E.
Metaphys. VII. 4. p. 910, D.
(where he uses
τῳ συνεχει, as equivalent to
συνδεσμῳ) and
VIII. 6, p. 931, C.
20.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-81
20.2
A VOWEL.
IT seems very extraordinary, that while every art is in a progressive state of improvement, and that our mode of expreffing clearly the meaning of language to the eye, both in writing and printing, is so much fuperior to that of the ancients from the use of stops, capital-letters, &c. that the means of painting found to the eye should continue to be so very deficient and inaccurate. If the fame character always expressed the fame vowel found, the true pronunciation of language would be as easily conveyed by writing as by speaking. But this is so far from being the cafe, that the vowel sounds marked by letters, are not only confounded with each other, but the fame vowel found when long and short, is hardly ever expreffed by the fame letter, though we have only five [A] charac- [A] I confider Y (when a vowel) and I as the fame, fince they always have the fame found in the same fituation; their diftinct use relates solely to orthography, and has no relation with orthoepy. ters
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ters to express all our vowel founds. For example, the short found of A, which when long is pronounced, as in BACON, MAJOR, is marked by e as in BEND, MEN. The short A as in MAN, has feldom I believe [B] a congenial long found in our language but when it is followed by two confonants, as in MASTER, TASK, BARGE. However A, as in the first instance, may be confidered beyond comparison as the most ufual long found of the vowel, either when lengthened by an E mute, as in BANE and DARE, or when independent of a succeeding confonant, (which case always makes the vowel long in English) as in BASON and MASON. Our long vowel found of 1 has no correspondent short found; but we use I to reprefent the short found of E, as DEAN, DIN. Even if we should wish to express the short colloquial found of BEEN to the eye, we must not write BEN, but BIN [C]. That our characters paint words and not founds is obvious from the directions for pronouncing the vowels prefixed to the vocabulary printed at the end of Cook's Second Voyage to the South Seas. Or if that is not at hand, the hearing a child taught to spell, (the word DIVINATION for inftance,) will be equally conclusive. The Greek diftinguished two of their long and short vowel founds E and o by different characters, while the orientals contented themselves with only three characters, A, O, and 1, to exprefs all their vowel sounds; the two last of which were also used to express one an afpiration, and [B] There are however exceptions, as FATHER, where the TH can be confidered only as one confonant. [c] This subject is treated more at large in Mitford's Essay on the Harmony of Language, Sect. III. page 32. 3 E the
the other a confonant. The different found of these vowels, and sometimes their total omiffion, when [D] very short are left to be supplied by the memory and judgment. When the Arabians under the Caliphs became a polite and learned people, they invented other marks to shew the nicer distinction of the vowel sounds where they were noticed, and to fupply them where they were not. This invention, adopted by the Jews, and afterwards sanctified by a little rabbinical mystery, and then strengthened by monkish superftition and papal authority, is the true history of those wonderful Hebrew vowel points, which have made so much noise, and created so many violent schisms in the learned world. Perhaps some contrivance of this fort would be the best mode of giving our written language the most perfect precision as to its pronunciation, without any confufion as to the etymology of words, from which our irregular orthography in a great measure arises, and which is of the utmost consequence in a language like ours, whose words are drawn from so many different fources. [D] We are not very accurate in this cafe. I think there is not a very diftinguishable difference between the first syllables of MYRTLE, HURTLE, CERTAIN.. NOTE
20.2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-82
20.3
BY ACUTENESS, GRAVITY, OR THE MEDIUM BETWEEN BOTH.
I HAVE no doubt of Mr. Twining being in the right in fuppofing that Aristotle, by ' the medium between both,' (τῷ μέσω) did not mean the circumflex. His reasoning on this is conducive. It is very obvious that in every word of more than three syllables, or even in words of three fyllables, whose first or last syllable is acuted, other fyllables are diftinguished by a stronger accent than the contiguous ones, though in a less degree than that which is peculiarly emphatic, and which regulates the accent of the others, in our language at least, and in the pronunciation which we give to Greek and Latin. There is no necessity to feek an illustration of this from the ancient languages, our own will afford sufficient examples which will have fo much more weight, as our prosody is allowed to be essentially regulated by accent, which is indeed the sole efficient cause of our verfification. It will appear from our verse, that this inferior accent has a force not only to distinguish itself in those syllables on which it is placed, but to anfwer the purpose of the strongest accent in the word as to the versification. There is no place in our heroic, or dramatic pentameter, in which ' ùn- • dertáke' would come in, that 'múltiply" would not equally do, as to the measure; though it is obvious that the principal accent is on the first fyllable in the one, and the last in the other [E]. In the burlesque [E] For the fake of perfpicuity I have diftinguished the strongest accent by the acute, and the weaker by the grave mark. 3 E 2 drama
drama of Crononhotonthologus, there is a character of the name of Äldiberòntephöfcophórnia, which is a complete verse in itself, containing one principal accent, to which I have given the acute mark; one inferior to this, but more emphatic than the rest, which has the grave mark; and three others fufficiently diftinguished from the others for the purposes of verfification, which are noticed by a double dot. This fubject has led me unawares into an investigation in which I am much interested. I mean the distinction between accent and quantity. My Greek quotations will shew my opinion on this matter to the learned reader. To him therefore I owe some reason for adopting this fide of the question, but to the mere English reader I am likewise bound not to employ too much of these notes on a subject which must be totally uninteresting to him. I shall confine myself therefore to two points only, and dispatch them both with as much brevity as possible. The arguments I use shall be drawn also from circumstances obvious to the fenfes, and appealing to them for support. The authority of antiquity, produced by Dr. Foster in his Essay on Greek Accent, and enforced and illustrated by Mr. Mitford in his Effay on the Harmony of Language, are and always must remain unanswered, because they are unanswerable. First then, the authenticity of the Greek accentual marks have been proved beyond controversy by the abovementioned treatises; but the pronunciation of them, as it is managed by modern voices, destroys that cadence to which modern ears are accustomed (F). In confequence of this [F] Some persons I know talk of marking both accent and quantity in Greek verse.. I pretend to no such power, but I am far from faying fuch a power did not exift among the Greeks. they
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. they have been disused, and few Greek scholars from such disuse being able to write them accurately, it became necessary to get rid of them at any rate, and this was done by explaining away their utility when their authority was shewn to be unquestionable. They were to fignify mufical notation, tones unknown to the irreligious ears of the moderns; in short any thing but what we call accent. But if these kind of musical notes accompanied the common pronunciation of the Greek language ; if, as is suggested by Lord Monboddo in his letter on this subject to Mr. Steel, In Greek a man raised his voice upon certain fyllables and no other, whether he was speaking with paffion or without paffion, • whether he was haranguing or in ordinary conversation;' if this were the cafe, the most perfect language we know must have been totally deprived of the power on which the force of poetry and oratory moft essentially depends, that of exciting of the feelings of the hearer by congenial modulations of the speaker's voice. And if the ancients by προσωδία and ACCENTUS did not mean what we call accent, which is fo general a property of language, and so distinct from quantity, what word had they to express this property ? for we cannot suppose their languages were without it. This dificulty Dr. Beattie and Mr. Nares have tried to obviate by calling our accent EMPHASIS. But this is substituting the effect of a thing for the thing itself. A man in a red coat is eminently confpicuous among others in black or white, therefore one of the qualities of redness is confpicuity, but redness is not confpicuity itself, because there are other colors that are also comparatively confpicuous. So we know it is one of the properties of accent to make the syllable on which it falls emphatic, or confpicuous; but this property is not peculiar to accent, for, as will be shewn presently, there are cafes in which accent cannot
cannot be so employed, and then quantity produces the same effect. Among monosyllables if it be necessary to make one word emphatic, or confpicuous, it is done by accent, and sometimes with the addition of quantity, or rather the emphatic accent changes the short vowel found to a long one, when the voice is not stopped by a confonant. As in Milton. Know ye not ME? ye knew me once, no mate For you, there fitting where YE durft not foar.' Here in the first line, ME in the former part of the verse is emphatical, and supplies the place of an accented syllable where the verse requires one: the second ME is not emphatical, and is placed where the verse does not require an accent [G]; the vowel found of the first is long also and the second short. In the second line the pronoun ve is emphatical, but the natural vowel found of it is so short as not to be capable of the accent without altering its quantity, which is accordingly done, and the E lengthened, but without altering the accent as far as regards the structure of the verse. When it is required to make a particular fyllable [G] From this circumstance of the ductility of the accent, which is the essence of our verfification, our poets have the power sometimes of regulating the proper expreffion of the thought by the cadence; an advantage denied the ancients from the inflexibility of quantity in Greek and Latin. Of this the first line of the quotation from Milton is an example. A paffage in Thomson's Tancred and Sigifmunda will shew this more strongly from oppofition.
، I will give This scatter'd will in fragment to the winds, • Crush all who dare oppose me to the duft, And heap perdition on THEE.' Here the reciter is under the necessity of either spoiling the sense, or the verse. of
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ! of a word of more syllables than one confpicuous, or emphatic, which is not accented, it is never allowed to alter the accent, therefore this is a cafe when quantity must be employed. This I shall illustrate by two examples from Pope. • Curl'd or Uncurl'd fince locks will turn to grey.' The syllable UN is still confidered as unaccented in the verse, and is only made confpicuous by the quantity, not by lengthening the vowel found of u, for that the connected confonant forbids, but by marking more strongly the two following subsequent confonants by dividing them, and so rendering the length of the fyllable by [H] position more confpi- In this line from Pope's Iliad the length of the vowel is altered. • Turns and Returns him with a mother's care.' cuous. The affair of the accentual marks however, after all that has been faid and proved in their favour, has been finally decided as things of much greater consequence are often decided, by the majority of votes; their pronunciation and even their notation, where detached pieces of
[H] In scanning ancient verse it is usual to say a vowel is long by position, but this is not correct, it is the syllable not the vowel that is lengthened. For as Mr. Mitford justly obferves, • Ten confonants would not oblige even a Greek or Roman voice to give to a pre- ⚫ ceding epfilon or omicron the found of eta and omega, but two consonants distinctly pro- • nounced will necessarily retard any voice in pronouncing the syllable.' ESSAY ON THE Harmony of Language, Sect. IV. p. 55. Double confonants we pronounce as fingle, and the only effect they have is shortening the preceding vowel found, as Holy Holly, WRITING WRITTEN, and as we carry the fame pronunciation into the learned language, as in καλος καλλος, FERO FERRE, we always in this cafe make a false quantity. The ancients I suppose pronounced these double consonants diftinctly like the modern Italians, which perhaps requires a greater delay of the voice than to diftinguish between two different confonants. Greek
Greek are quoted, are entirely disused; and this leads me to the second observation I proposed to make, which I shall introduce by this question. What have we substituted in their place? How do we now read Greek ? I know the answer, and it will not be given without a contemptuous sneer at the ignorance of the querift and the abfurdity of the query. According to quantity to be sure! the only essential constituent of the structure of ancient verfification, and on which its cadence entirely depends. But let us enquire first what reading by quantity is, and if we really do it either in Greek or Latin verse. Do we mean by quantity what it only can properly mean, giving length to the syllables that are really long? (In fyllables long by position we cannot err if we pronounce all the confonants distinctly,) or do we mean giving the acute accent to all long syllables? Now let us try this on the two first verses of the Iliad. Do not we give the found of the eta to the epfilon in Θεα, and do not we lay the accent also on the same short vowel in this word, and in the omicron in Ουλομενην ? The fame in the first line of Virgil's Eclogues. Do we not pronounce the first fyllable of Tityrus as short as it is possible for a fyllable to be pronounced? and do we not accent the first syllable of PATULE ? Therefore if either of the abovementioned modes of reading be reading by quantity we follow neither of them, and if neither of these be what we mean by reading by quantity, I should like to know what is. But though I do not know what reading by quantity is if it is not marking the true time of every fyllable by the voice, I perfectly know what we substitute for the pronunciation of Greek according to the accentual marks, and CALL reading by quantity. It is in fact reading Greek according to rules of Latin accentuation, which naturally produces the fame cadence that we find in Latin verse, depending entirely
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. tirely on accent; for though our judgment revolts at a false quantity our ear is much more offended by a misplaced accent, and the cadence of the verse is much more hurt by it [1]. That the rules of Greek and Latin accentuation were different we know from the authority of Quintillian. One of the canons of Latin accentuation is, that the accent of the penult in all polysyllables depends on its quantity; and I challenge any, the most partial advocate for the modern mode of reading Greek, to fhew me any other reason for laying the accent on the omicron instead of the epsilon, as directed by the accentual mark in the first word of the second verse of the Iliad. It does not even mend the accentual cadence of the verse, for in two lines that follow each other in Virgil's first eclogue,
' Ilius aram Sæpě těnēr noftris ab ovilibus imbuit agnum. • Illě měās errare boves ut cernis, &c.' The four first syllables are exactly, both in accent, quantity, and usual. pronunciation, like Ουλομένην, pronounced according to the Greek accentual mark. Whence this mode of reading Greek has been called. by way of eminence, and in oppofition to the other, reading by quantity, it is perhaps not very difficult to discover. The whole system of. Latin [1] To those critics who are not satisfied of the truth of the accentual cadence of Latin verse being different from the quantity, I would recommend it first to read, and then scan any line of Virgil they chuse. This must convince their ear, but if they chuse authority rather than the teftimony of their senses, I would advise them to read the conclufion of the eighth chapter of Dr. Foster's Treatise on Accent and Quantity, and especially the postscript to it; Mr. Harris's Philological Enquiries, Part 11. Chap. II. and Col. Mitford's Essay, Sect. vI. See also Note Iv. Chap. xxiv. of this commentary.. 3 F accentuation
accentuation in every polysyllable depends on the quantity of the penult. Dissyllables have always the first syllable accented, whether long or short; and all the other accents of polysyllables, which are always on alternate fyllables, depend on the accent, and confequently on the quantity of the penult. Therefore when we hear an error in the accent of this fyllable, as it is the (K) only place where an erroneous quantity is marked in pronunciation, we directly censure the speaker for making a false quantity, and for this reason when we carry this mode of regulating the accent into another language, we use the fame expreffion, and call it reading or pronouncing according to quantity. We can know nothing of the genuine pronunciation of ancient verse but from conjecture. I should imagine quantity was more marked, and accent less, in Greek than in Latin verse. How this was done we can no more judge than an Englishman who had learned to read and pronounced Italian like English could judge how it would found from the mouth of a Tuscan. We must suppose Greek verse to be the natural poetic language of the country, and in this case quantity, the constituent of it, must have been strongly marked by the voice, and that, as in English and Italian verse, scanning was only an exaggerated expreffion of its real cadence. But this might not be the cafe with the Romans, who borrowed their rules of profody from the Greeks. They might like the modern writers of Latin verse, while they regulated the quantity by the judgment, produce also an accentual modulation by the ear. When I fee such a poet as Virgil uniformly employing what I know from classical authority to be [K] Were I to say SIDERIS instead of SIDERIS, I should be immediately accused of a false quantity, but not at all for giving the first syllable one of the shortest possible founds and no accent, inftead of the proper long vowel and the strong accent, by which it is diftinguished in the nominative cafe SIDUS. the
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ، the genuine accentuation of his language, to produce a most delightful cadence, independent of the quantity, to which however he rigidly adheres, I cannot conceive it to be only accident, but that such accentual cadence must have been even essential to the beauty of the verse, especially as we find from the passage in the Philological Enquiries above cited (Note K) that when Latin began to be corrupted more attention was paid to this accentual cadence than to quantity. And does not this receive some support from the expression of Cicero quoted by Mr. Twining (note 5) that the poet was RATHER more confined by numbers than the ora- ' tor.' • Numeris adftrictior PAULO.' I certainly do not mean to infinuate that the quantity of fyllables was not fufficiently obvious to the ears of the Romans; they certainly did not, like us, pronounce the first syllable of VELIM long, or of VELLEM short, but that the verfification of Latin depended more on accentual cadence than that of Greek, may I think be traced in the corruption of both. When quantity. ceased to regulate Latin verse it still retained the accentual modification as the foundation of its cadence, as will appear from the lines of Commodianus, quoted Note 111. Chap. xxII. But when the fame thing happened to the Greek verse it entirely changed its form of verfification, and adopted a new and barbarous cadence, which was regulated by the accentual marks, as in the Chiliad of Tzetzes. See PHILOLOGICAL INQUIRIES, Part 11. Chap. 11. That the cadence of Greek verse depended so much, (not on Latin accentuation surely) but on the strict attention to quantity, as in the recital almost to fink the power of the accents which was forcibly marked in the delivery of prose, is obvious from a passage quoted from another work of Ariftotle in Note VIII.. Chap. xxv.. 3: F 2 I will
I will now release my reader from a subject which, however interesting to myself, may be little so to him. Those to whom it is interesting I congratulate on a prospect at least of the fubject being resumed, and treated of more at large than it has been already, by Col. Mitford.
20.3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-83
20.7
AN ARTICLE IS AN UNMEANING SOUND WHICH MARKS THE BEGINNING, THE END, OR SOME PARTICULAR DISTINCTION OF A SENTENCE.
HOW an article can be said to mark the end of a fentence, is I own beyond my comprehenfion. By the distinction of a sentence I imagine Aristotle means such words or phrafes as are diftinguished by an article, and by that distinction feparated from the rest of the difscourse, and in fact made substantives; as when we say, the conjunction AND,' ' the article THE.' In this power 'the Latin, for want of an article, is greatly deficient; and the critical writers in that language are sometimes obliged to have recourse to the Greek article; as for inftance Goulston, in his paraphrase of a sentence in this treatise, uses rò prius, and τὸ pofterius. By means of the article in English a whole sentence is frequently made a substantive, as sometimes also a single gerund is. I say sometimes; as what Dr. Lowth has observed in his grammar, (p. 140) on the gerund being always a substantive when the article THE is prefixed to it, and requiring to be followed by the genitive cafe, I can by no means affent to. In some instances it certainly is so, but in nine out of
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. of ten, when the article is prefixed, it is because the whole sentence, and not the gerund only, is the substantive. For instance, in the example in Lilly's Grammar of a fentence being the nominative case to a verb.
Ingenuas didiciffe fideliter artes • Emollit mores, nec finit esse feros.' If we translate as we may [L], • The having learned the liberal arts,' furely were we to alter the tense of the infinitive from the preterite to the present, we should retain the same general sense and say, 'The learning ' the liberal arts,' not • The learning of the liberal arts.' The gerund seems never to be properly a substantive but when the noun that it governs would be its nominative case if it continued a verb. To explain myself more clearly, were I to say, suppose speaking of a court of justice, such a thing happened before the swearing the evidence, meaning previous to the clerk of the court's adminiftering the oath, SWEARING is a gerund governing EVIDENCE, and THE makes a fubstantive of the whole sentence. But were I to say, before the swearing of the evidence,' I should conceive EVIDENCE as the governing cafe of the verb, which would not then be transative but neuter, and express the act of the evidence and not of the officer of the court, and in this case it would indeed be a substantive. In such expreffions as • the crowing of a cock,'' the neighing of a • horse,' the gerunds are compleatly changed into substantives, and as such will admit a plural. [L] There is no doubt but in this as in several other of the instances, the article may be more elegantly omitted, but it is equally clear that it may also be prefixed, and in some cafes - must be prefixed, which is quite sufficient for the purpose. • Steed
• Steed answers steed in high and boastful neighings.' Or the English genitive, as a horse's neighing. But whether I say ' eating bread,' or 'the eating of bread,' ' EATING' will neither admit the plural, nor the English genitive. The flying a kite' is the diversion of a boy or the experiment of an electrician. • The flying of a kite' is the motion of the machine, or the action of the bird from which it is named. • The carving a door' is the act of the artist; ' the carving of a door' the object of that act compleated. Another proof that the word still continues a gerund without assuming any of the characters of a substantive is the necessity of its being followed by an infinitive, and its incapacity to govern another gerund. We cannot say' the defiring of feeing' as we might the ' defire of feeing, we must say ' the defiring to see.' That the fentence and not the gerund is to be confidered as the fubstantive, will be further proved from instances where the gerund is preceded by a noun in the English genitive case, or a pronoun possessive, which equally with the article mark one or other of them to be a fubftantive. • Peter's denying Christ, would any correct writer say' of • Chrift?' • My reading a passage of Ariftotle;' Would you say' of a passage of Ariftotle ?" if you do you change the sense. Reading will indeed be a substantive, but will fignify some alteration affecting the fenfe, and not the pronunciation of the words.. Dr. Lowth mentions the use of CONTINUAL and CONTINUALLY, the adjective and adverb as a criterion in this cafe. By that criterion. I am
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. am content that my hypothefis shall be tried. If the gerund can poffibly be connected with an adjective, I give up my cause. • He is continu- ، ally teaching Paul.' Is 'the continually teaching Paul laudable ?' Here the article is necessarily prefixed in the last member of the sentence; but it is said if THE is prefixed of must follow. Then must we fay • the continually teaching of Paul?' If we do the sense is entirely changed; of ceases to be a fign of the genitive case, and becomes a prepofition, and would be rendered in Latin by ' de Paulo,' concerning, about Paul. If the adverb CONTINUALLY is made an adjective, and we say' the continual teaching of Paul,' TEACHING will undoubtedly be a substantive, but Paul will be the teacher. Instead of • the soundly beating a man,' could we say the found beating of a • man? Or to take Dr. Lowth's own example, instead of by well • observing which,' could we say, ' by the good observing of which ?' for directly gaining wisdom,' could we say, • the direct gaining of • wisdom?' for ' easily supplying our wants,'' the easy supplying of our wants?' for ' quietly enjoying,'' the quiet enjoying?' It must be observed this is marked most strongly when WELL and Good are the examples, as in other cafes the adjective and adverb are sometimes confounded by incorrect speakers. I must however allow that the gerund, confidered merely as such, may sometimes be followed by a genitive case on the authority of the Latin, whose grammar in doubtful cases is generally allowed to be decifive as to our own. For example: ‘Aliquid fuit principium generandi ← animalium.' VARRO. • Fuit exemplorum legendi potestas.' CICERO. • Vestri adhortdi causa.' TACITUS. !.. • Generandi gloria mellis.' VIRGIL. NOTE
20.4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-84
20.8
IN NAMES COMPOSED OF TWO WORDS WE NEVER CONCEIVE EITHER OF THE PARTS TAKEN SEPARATELY TO HAVE ANY MEANING.
THE same observation is just as to common nouns or names of things as well as persons if they are either of foreign or obsolete derivation [M]. And fometimes even if the words are compounded of terms in general use. This is well illustrated in Mr. Jackson's Letters. ، Perhaps,' (he says)' it may be imagined that those words which carry their fignification with them should be most expreffive, whether long or short; that is when they are compounded of known words which express that fignification. But this is not so; when we say " adieu," " farewell," we mean no more than a ceremony at parting. No one < confiders " adieu" as a recommendation to God, or "farewell" as a wish for happiness. Frequent use destroys all idea of derivation; • but if we speak a compound or self-fignificant word that is not common, we perceive the derivation of it. Thus if a Londoner says " butter-milk," he has an idea of something composed of " butter" " and " milk," but to an Irishman or Hollander it is as fimple an idea. as either of the words taken separately is to us.' LETTER III. [M] See for example what is said of Curfew, Note IV. Chap. XIV. NOTE
20.5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-85
20.9
A CASE IS INCIDENT BOTH TO THE NOUN AND THE VERB.
AS much of the elegance and peculiarity of speech depends on the inflection of verbs, and as most languages in this respect deviate at times from what may be called the rules of universal grammar, I shall venture briefly to mention a few cursory observations that I have made on this point in the course of my reading. Dr. Lowth has mentioned the confufion frequently made even by good writers, of the participle and preterite of such verbs as form the participle in En, as 'wrote,' ' written,' ' rode,' ' ridden;' which has indeed been more carefully avoided, even in conversation by those who are tolerably accurate, since his admonition. But he has either overlooked, or neglected to mention the distinction custom has made as to the impropriety of using the preterite for the participle, in the different circumstance of its being connected with the auxiliary verb ' to have,' ' to be,' or being connected with a substantive as a verbal adjective. 'It is wrote' seems to convey a more ungrammatical found to the ear than ' I have ' wrote;' but no person whatever would say, ' wrote language' for • written language.' This appears even in cafes where the proper participle, as used with the auxiliary verbs, is nearly obsolete. It might favour a little of pedantry to say, in common conversation, ' I have beaten him,' ' I have • eaten it; but we always say 'weather-beaten,'' moth-eaten.' 3 G The
The two auxiliary verbs, ' shall' and 'will, which constitute the future tense in English, are perpetually confounded not only by foreigners, but by the Scotch and Irish. The proper fimple future is this, ' I shall,' 'Thou wilt,' or 'You will,' 'He will,' 'We shall,' 'You, or Ye ' will,'' They will.' Were I to say ' I will go,' or • You shall go,' it is no longer the simple future, but speaks determination in one instance, and command or compulfion in the other. What a difference between these expreffions, • I shall not succeed in this but you will,' and I will not fucceed in this but you shall.' The last part is nonsense, fince the verb 'fucceed' being accidental requires only the simple future; but for 'fucceed,' substitute ' attempt,' which is in the power of the agent, the fimple future will be the fame; but change the signs, say ' I will not attempt this, you shall ; and determination on one part, and command on the other are clearly expressed. On this principle it is that our neighbours often raise a laugh at their own expence, by telling us they will break their necks, and that their friends shall win a rubber at whift. It feems very wonderful that two languages so very different, and in all apparent circumstances fo entirely unconnected as the English and modern Greek, should unite in the fingular circumstance of using the verb ' I will' for a fign of the future tenfe, the latter ufing θέλω for this purpose. A fanciful writer might perhaps be tempted to impute this corruption of the Greek tongue to the conversation of the Barangi, a body of English guards, to whom the particular defence of the Grecian Emperor's person was entrusted, and who preferved the use of their native language to the last age of the empire [o]. [o] See a quotation from Codinus in Note 48, on Chap. LV. of Mr. Gibbon's History. Πολυχρονιζᾶσι ὁι Βάραγγοι καλὰ τῶν παλρίον γλῶσσαν ἀνθῶν, ἡτὸι Ιγκληνισὶ. There
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. There is a distinction in the passive voice of the ancient languages to which all the modern ones I have any knowledge of are strangers, I mean the perfect and imperfect present, AMATUS SUM and AMOR. This is observed by the later editor of Lilly's grammar; but AMO being the example it is not so clear, it not being very easy in that verb to mark the distinction, though by accurate investigation it may be traced. AMOR means simply, that at the present time I am beloved; AMATUS SUM has in this verb a kind of retrospect. It is the word Prior's Henry would have used to express his situation. • When industry and time, (the mighty two • That bring our wishes nearer to our view,) • Made him perceive that the inclining fair • Received his vows with no reluctant ear.'- The distinction is more obvious in DOCEOR, which means ' I am now learning,' or ' in the act of being taught; whereas DOCTUS SUM fignifies the completion of my purpose, ' I am instructed.' The same advantage that the Latin has over the English in the passive, the English in its turn has over the Latin in the active voice, from using the auxiliary, 'I am,' with the participle, ' I think, I am thinking.' In verbs deponent in Latin, the active voice has also the same advantage and from the same cause. There is an anomaly in the Italian verb substantive exactly resembling the Latin deponent. It is conjugated by itself, assuming, as an auxiliary, the power of TO HAVE, SONO STATO, 'I have been.' The cause appears to be this. The Latin verb sum having nothing like the 3G 2 paffive
paffive participle, its derivative the Italian borrowed one for the verb STARE; and SONO STATO literally means ' I AM PLACED.' There is a remarkable nicety in Spanish between SER and ESTAR, the first always fignifying only fimple essence; as for instance, SER QUATRO LUGARES DI LONDRA, would not signify being four leagues distant from London; but being actually the four leagues, the proper verb here iS ESTAR. In fome languages, the Hebrew for instance, the genders of the perfons are fignified by the termination of the verb itself. At first sight this may appear an advantage, but in fact it is a defect, for it often enforces difcrimination where difcrimination cannot be really made. What happens from this to the Hebrew in all its persons, happens to the French, Italian, and Spanish in the third person of both numbers, from the use of the pronoun. Here Greek and Latin have manifeftly the advantage, as where discrimination is necessary they can employ the pronoun or nominative cafe, or otherwise, omit them. In the fingular pronoun the English is in the fame cafe with the other modern languages; and we feel an inconvenience when we wish to mention a circumstance relating to a person, whose sex we either do not know or wish to conceal; and we must either use a periphrafis, or have recourse to the colloquial barbarism of substituting the third person plural, ' They.' CHAP.
2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-136
Ritter, cap. 20 § 2
στοιχεῖον μὲν οὖν ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἀδιαίρε τος: recte ponit
στοιχεῖον, non
γράμμα. elementa enim sive
στοιχεῖα sunt unde voces quae audiri possunt tamquam ex principiis conflantur; litterae sive
γράμματα (radix verbi est
γρ) sunt quatenus scalpuntur vel scribuntur.
ἀδιαίρετος et Latinum indivisus non solum de iis dici quae divisa non sunt sed etiam quae dividi non possunt, verbo monere sufficit.
ἐξ ἧς πέφυκε συνετή γίνεσθαι φωνή: ea est vocis illius indivisae sive individuae natura, ut vox quae intelligi possit fieri inde possit.
3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-137
Ritter, cap. 20 § 3
ταύτης δὲ μέρη: per
ταύτης non singularis quaedam vox indivisa denotatur sed genus elementorum comprehenditur. quae statim sequitur
προσβολή, est vocis ictus quidam, quem allisum novo sed apto nomine consignavit Hermannus. paulo post nonnisi a paucis codicibus (vid. not. crit.) exempla vocalium litterarum
οἷον τὸ Α καὶ τὸ 2 exhibentur. fortasse personatus auctor in re manifesta supersedere se posse exemplo credidit, cum discrimen illud intersemivocale et non vocale (quod continuo memorat) ut exemplis illustraretur magis desiderare et flagitare eidem videretur.
4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-138
Ritter, cap. 20 § 4
ταῦτα δὲ διαφέρει σχήμασί τε τοῦ στόματος καὶ τόποις:
σχήματα τοῦ στόματος sunt varii habitus in quos formatur os nostrum dum litteras proferimus,
τόποι sunt oris loci unde litterae inter pronuntiandum praecipue afficiuntur, dentes et lingua et labia et guttur.
καὶ δασύτητι καὶ ψιλότητι: prout spiritu aspero aut leni (
δασείᾳ et
ψιλῇ) enuntiantur.
ἔτι δὲ ὀξύτητι καὶ βαρύτητι καὶ τῷ μέσῳ: accentum acutum designat
ὀξύτης, gravem
βαρύτης, circumflexum ex acuto gravique compositum ideoque media natura praeditum
τὸ μέσον. –
περὶ ὧν καθ' ἕκαστον ἐν τοῖς μετρικοῖς προσήκει θεω - ρεῖν: homo perdiligens et accuratus paulo post monet similiter
ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτων θεωρῆσαι τὰς διαφορὰς τῆς μετρικῆς ἐστίν. prodere haec videntur grammaticum Alexandrinum : Aristotelis aevo doctrina metrica a grammatica nondum seiuncta et nondum tamquam propria et peculiaris disciplina constituta videtur fuisse. videant alii. interpolator ubique
τέχνας suas crepat. vid. Comment. ad c. 25, 5.
5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-139
Ritter, cap. 20 § 5
καὶ γὰρ τὸ ΓΡ ἄνευ τοῦ Α συλλαβή: inauditum hoc est et falsum. nimirum vir sapiens qui haec scripsit suis se laqueis irretivit: nam cum posuisset syllabam constare ex
ἀφώνου καὶ φωνὴν ἔχοντος (non
καὶ φωνήεντος), inde falsum hoc consequitur, syllabam esse FP, cum Put
ἡμίφωνον habere vocem (
ἔχειν φωνήν) negari nequeat. ex his mihi se prodit grammaticus et mediocris et argutiarum studiosus. eiusdem studii specimina magis manifesta in subsequentibus producemus.
6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-140
Ritter, cap. 20 § 6
σύνδεσμος δ' ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἄσημος-πεφυ κυῖαν συντίθεσθαι: quae hac §. comprehendimus, in iis tria interpretibus et editoribus mira et offensioni obnoxia visa sunt, primum huius definitionis forma et ingenium, tum quod continuo alia subsequitur definitio, quasi scriptor suae definiendi arti parum ipse crediderit, deinde quod alteradefinitio priori prorsus contraria videtur. quae incommoda dum tollere aut allevare conantur, audacibus fere coniecturis indulgent, quibus loci recte pertractandi fundamenta subtrahuntur. ego quae tradita sunt explicare in hunc modum adgredior. auctor falsus alicubi legerat
σύνδεσμον esse vocem
ἄσημον, h. e. quae neque quod est ut nomen, neque quod fit ut verbum, significet. iam ille nomini
συνδέσμῳ conchae instar adhaerescens sapientiam suam profert. scilicet quamquam est
σύνδεσμος, tamen neque facit neque impedit vocem unam significativam, quae ut ex pluribus vocibus componatur natura sua inclinat: quid enim
συνδέσμῳ opus est ad vocem ex pluribus componendam, si sua sponte coalescere potest (
ἐκ πλειόνων πεφυκυῖα συντίθεσθαι)? adhuc nonnisi duae negantes notionis
συνδέσμου notae prolatae sunt; quae praeterea accedunt, de collocatione convinctionum nonnulla monent plane inutilia :
καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου, h. e. convinctiones alias in extremitatibus (in principio aut fine enuntiatorum) comparere, alias in medio, si non conveniat in principio solas ponere. earum convinctionum quas in principio enuntiati ponere nudas non conveniat affert tres,
μέν,
ἤτοι,
δή. particula
ἤτοι non pro asseverante sed pro disiungente (aut) accipi debet: nam eo intellectu inchoari ab ea pronuntiatum nequit. pessima sane definitio, quae non declarat quid sit
σύνδεσμος, sed potius quid non sit enarrat. sed nondum quiescit: immo
σοφιστικῶς aliam
συνδέσμου ponit definitionem quae priori contraria videtur esse, sed re vera non est. nam si voces una plures assunt, quarum quaevis per se significativa est, ut
θεὸς καὶ δῶρον, convinctionis ea vis est, ut ex diversis totum quoddam efficiat. hoc est illud
φωνὴ ἄσημος ἐκ πλειόνων μὲν φωνῶν μιᾶς,
σημαντικῶν δέ,
ποιεῖν πεφυκυῖα μίαν σημαντικὴν φωνήν. utramque definitionem (ita liceat appellare) exemplo planam faciam. in enuntiato
παρὰ Θεόδωρον βαδίζω convinctio
παρὰ (praepositiones enim
συνδέσμοις comprehenduntur) neque facit neque impedit vocem unam significativam (
Θεόδωρον), ex pluribus vocibus (ex voce
θεὸς et
δῶρον) aptam componi, ac posita est in enuntiati principio. sed in enuntiato
θεὸς ἢ θεοῦ δῶρόν ἐστι convinctio
ἢ ex pluribus vocibus quae per se significant totum quoddam efficit et posita est in medio. hoc totum quoddam interpolator argute disputans et obscura captans dixit
μίαν σημαντικὴν φωνήν. haec quae probabiliter proposui (nam certi quid in eiusmodi locis vix afferre possumus), si vere exро- sita sunt, frigidum habemus verborum lusum semidocto nugatore utique dignum, nihil amplius. Unum etiamnum monendum videtur, ab Aristotele omnem praeter nomina et verba linguae materiem voce
συνδέσμου (convinctionis) comprehensam fuisse, adverbia et articulos et praepositiones et coniunctiones et interiectiones: idem factum est a personato, nisi quod is quartam orationis partem articulum Stoicos secutus constituit. frustra, ut mihi quidem videtur, sanam sententiam huic loco conciliare viri et ingeniosi et docti tentaverunt, verborum contextum immutando, supplendo, transponendo. lege prae ceteris quae conatus est Hermannus in suis ad h. 1. Commentariis et post cum Classenus de Grammaticae Gr. primordiis p. 57. ego hanc normam tenendam putavi, ut ab immutandis vocabulis et transponendis religiose abstineam, et haec esse hominis in grammaticis caecutientis declarem.
7.
mvp-aristotle-comment-141
Ritter, cap. 20 § 7
ἄρθρον δ' ἐστὶ φωνὴ ἄσημος-διορισμὸν δηλοῖ: quod articulus orationis sive enuntiati initium designare dicitur, hoc intelligi videtur, multa enuntiata ab articulo inchoari: quomodo idem
τέλος indicet ego non expedio. exempla
τὸ φημί et
τὸ περί solam postremam articuli vim, ubi distinctionem denotat, respiciunt. sed ut quod deest virtuti definitionis, numero compensetur, iam altera articuli explicatio succedit,
ἢ φωνὴ ἄσημος,
ἢ οὔτε κωλύει οὔτε ποιεῖ φωνὴν μίαν σημαντικὴν ἐκ πλειόνων φωνῶν,
πεφυκυῖα τίθεσθαι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄκρων καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέσου. quae
συνδέσμου definitio modo posita erat, eadem paucis omissis paucisque mutatis iam pro altera articuli definitione venditatur. num mirum hoc est? mihi secus videtur: nam quipaulo ante duas convinctionis definitiones non veras attulit, cur idem articuli duas non minus ineptas non producat? at haec nimium similis est illi convinctionis definitioni. est sane et esse potest. nam quemadmodum
σύνδεσμος est (sic ille fere cogitavit) id quod convincit, ita
ἄρθρον est quod iungit (
ἄρει) 1). quapropter indicare voluit quatenus vox illa non iungat, ne quis nomine
ἄρθρον decipi se pateretur.
8.
mvp-aristotle-comment-142
Ritter, cap. 20 § 8
ὄνομα δ᾽ ἐστὶ φωνὴ συνθετή - καθ' αὑτὸ σημαντικόν: haec omnia non bene repetita sunt ex libro Aristotelis de Interpretatione c. 2., ubi legimus
ὄνομα μὲν οὖν φωνὴ σημαντική κατὰ συνθήκην ἄνευ χρόνου,
ἧς μηδὲν μέρος ἐστὶ σημαντικόν κεχωρισμένον. pro
κατὰ συνθήκην (ex consensu, ex instituto) falsus Aristoteles dedit
συθετήν, h. e. componendam, vocem ambiguam atque eo magis ambiguam, quod eandem in syllabae definitione posuit §. 5.
οἷον ἐν τῷ Θεοδώρῳ τὸ δῶρον οὐ σημαίνει: debuit
οἷον ἐν τῷ Θεόδωρος τὸ δῶρος οὐ σημαίνει. male imitatus est verum Aristolelem qui scribit de Interp. c. 2.
ἐν γὰρ τῷ Κάλλιππος τὸ ἵππος οὐδὲν αὐτὸ καθ' ἑαυτὸ σημαίνει.
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-143
Ritter, cap. 20 § 9
ῥῆμα δὲ φωνὴ συνθετή,
σημαντική μετὰ χρόνου: melius verus Aristoteles de Interpr. c. 3.
ῥῆμα δὲ ἐστι τὸ προσσημαῖνον χρόνον,
οὗ μέρος οὐδὲν σημαίνει χωρίς,
καὶ ἔστιν ἀεὶ τῶν καθ' ἑτέρου λεγομένων σημεῖον. exempla quae definitionem sequuntur hominem male sedulum lectoribusque non multum tribuentem produnt.
10.
mvp-aristotle-comment-144
Ritter, cap. 20 § 10
πτῶσις - εἴδη ἐστίν:
πτῶσιν (casum) Graeci tam nominum quam verborum terminationum affectiones appellant. vid. Aristotel. de Interpr. c. 2 et 3. Latini quoque varias verborum positiones casuum nomine interdum denotaverunt. statim in illis
ἡ μὲν τὸ κατὰ τὸ τούτου alterum
τὸ accepi a Robortello sustentandae structurae plane necessarium. 1) Ego non is sum qui illam nominis
ἄρθρον explicandi rationem veram esse contendam, immo
ἄρθρον passivo intellectu dictum existimo.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-145
Ritter, cap. 20 § 11
λόγος δὲ φωνὴ συνθετὴ σημαντική,
ἧς ἔνια μέρη καθ' αὑτὰ σημαίνει τι: exprimere voluit locum ex libro de Interpretatione c. 4.
λόγος δὲ ἐστι φωνὴ σημαντική κατὰ συνθήκην,
ἧς τῶν μερῶν τι σημαντικὸν κεχωρισμένον. sed male admisit
συνθετή pro
κατὰ συνθήκην, male quoque
ἧς ἔνια μέρη pro
ἧς τῶν μερῶν τι κεχωρισμένον, quae sequuntur
οὐ γὰρ ἅπας λόγος ἐκ ῥημάτων καὶ ὀνομάτων σύγκειται,
οἷον ὁ ἀνθρώπου ὁρισμός, haec saltem hoc loco supervacanea sunt.
λόγον Aristoteles dixit non modo enuntiatum (Satz) sed etiam quamcumque significantium vocum copulationem, v. c.
ζῷον ἄπτερον,
ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός. interpolator quaerenti
τί ἄνθρωπος respondentem aliquem cogitat
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν 2), non
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν ἐστίν, qui est
λόγος ἀποφαντικός. vid. de Interpr.
ἀνάγκη δὲ πάντα λόγον ἀποφαντικὸν ἐκ ῥήματος εἶναι ἢ πτώσεως ῥήματος·
καὶ *
γὰρ ὁ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου λόγος,
ἐὰν μὴ τὸ ἔστιν ἢ ἦν ἢ ἔσται ἤ τι τοιοῦτον προσθετῇ,
οὔπω λόγος ἀποφαντικός. sed plane absurda et falsa quae post haec allata legimus,
μέρος μέντοι ἀεί τι σημαῖνον ἕξει (
ὁ λόγος),
οἷον ἐν τῷ “
βαδίζει Κλέων”
ὁ Κλέων. hic homo Aristotelis sententiam in libro de Interpretatione propositam adeo non intellexit, ut
βαδίζει pro voce non significante habuerit.
12.
mvp-aristotle-comment-146
Ritter, cap. 20 § 12
εἷς δ᾽ ἐστὶ λόγος διχῶς- τῷ ἓν σημαί νειν: imitatus est sed non intellexit illa de Interpr.
ἔστι δὲ εἷς λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς ἢ ὁ ἓν δηλῶν ἢ ὁ συνδέσμῳ εἷς 3).
λόγος ὁ ἓν δηλῶν v. gr. est “
ζῷον πεζὸν δίπουν," quippe qui pluribus verbis unum quid (hominem) denotet.
λόγος συνδέσμῳ εἷς est “
εἰ ὁ θεὸς ἀγαθός,
ἀἴδιον τὸ πᾶν.” vid. quae Ammonius ad 1. c. copiose disputavit in Scholiis in Aristotelem I. p. 110 a 31 - 111 a 9. ed. Brandis. falsus Aristoteles
τὸν λόγον qui est oratio vel enuntiatum commutavit cum
τῷ λόγῳ qui est notio, quasi adhuc de notionibus locu- 2) Conf. de Interpr. c. 5. Metaphys. Z. 12 init. 3) Codices in Poeticae loco
συνδέσμων exhibent, quod librarii vitio irrepsisse pro
συνδέσμῳ liquet.tus esset. itaque pro notione multa in unum comprehendente nomen collectivum
Ἰλιάδα posuit. - sapienti sat. qui haec partim perobscura partim falsa partim absurda et inutilia Aristoteli, acutissimo homini prudentissimoque harum rerum arbitro tribuere potest, is suo iudicio fruatur: ego non potui.