Prepositional prefixes beyond the Attic pale often lose their final vowel. This causes the consonant to assimilate to the consonant of the verb root; thus anaphanen becomes amphanen once the nu makes contact with the phi. In the case of anamimnesko, however, the loss of the vowel can be catastrophic. The root here is mna with reduplication and suffix -sk- in the present tense alone. Neither reduplication nor the continuous suffix apply to the aorist, so anamnase becomes the unpronounceable anmnase. This is further reduced to amnase, which form now clashes with the alpha privative. If it were the alpha privative, it would have the opposite sense – both a catastrophe and an antistrophe. It is fortunate, therefore, that the preferred word for forgetfulness is lethe rather than amnesia!
No comments:
Post a Comment