Un problema de lengua homérica: la desinencia -φι

Abstract

The author of this paper tries to show the historical evolution of -φι in Mycenaean and Homeric Greek. In spite of the apparently considerable divergence between mic. - pi and hom. -φι, the function of the -φι case in Mycenaean —instr. locat.— is also the primary function of -φι in the Epic language. Moreover, in the language of Homer -φι always functions in a way closer to the dative than to the genitive. The traditionally adduced examples of -φι as a genitive in some passages of the Iliad and the Odyssey can be interpreted otherwise. The evolution of -φι that we can test in the Homeric works, was not a merely artificial one. On the contrary, it bears a close relation with a series of morphophonological developments which took place in the spoken language during the shift from the second to the first millennium B.C. As a result from that, -φι disappears from the normal spoken language very early, but the Homeric bards maintain this archaism for metrical and poetical reasons.