is followed by forms of 
, mainly in Comedy but also (very rarely) in Tragedy. These are notable because they fall outside the usual range of hiatus in drama, which covers passages with interrogative 
(probably the most common) and 
, invocatory 
exclamations such as 
, and interjections. The use seems to deserve closer attention.
is conjectured by Meineke for 
at the start of the line. This would make the only example in Aristophanes of the phrase at the start of an iambic line. The passage is from the Daedalus and could be by Plato and not Aristophanes.
on without 
. A parallel use of 
without a subordinate clause is seen in 
: here the equivalence to an adverb is especially marked in the form 
. Cf. Dale on 
, to which we shall come below. It may be noted on the other hand that 
appears shortened in hiatus in Pl Com. 153. 3 
(anapaestic) and Archestr. ap. Ath. 6. 300 e 
(hexam.).
and not 
in the citations of both Dion. Hal. 1. 41. 3 and Strab. 4. 1.7.
recurs in Ar. Pax 1302 
and is surely a reflex of current speech. So too Broadhead, ad loc.
, in Ar. Vesp. 425 (trochaic), and of the participle, 
, in Telecl. 41. 4 (also trochaic), due to analogical extension. It is not difficult to accept that the three meanings ‘I am sure’, and ‘You may be sure’ (imperative, singular and plural) would be much the most common uses.
(
, Lesb. * 
as shown by 
; also Cypr. 
where the second of the alternative forms preserves the original 
the sound of the semi-vowel f(w) has been anticipated, changing the initial vowel into a diphthong. This change, seen also in some other forms (e.g. Lesb. 
, Hom. 
: 
as showing a contamination of the two spellings av and 
, so that this would be a purely graphic phenomenon and 
would represent a single sound. I find it difficult to agree with his refusal to accept the possibility of a glide sound w between a and v, which he claims, in criticism of Buck, would not be natural in the position preceding the u–sound, but only following it (op. cit., pp. 53–54 fn.). The glide may facilitate transition to the u–sound, as well as from it.
may also occur in Attic on a fragmentary stone from the Acropolis, illustrated in Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Plate II. 7, where afur is found: the inscription is too fragmentary to show whether it is metrical.
is used in close association with certain words (e.g. 
). With 
hiatus would not arise, as the alternative forms 
are regularly used before vowels. But note the use of 
with hiatus in the phrases 
(Aristophanes, Alexis, Menander: 
is required here because of the underlying wish).
in 
was not appreciated as such: that seems hardly credible. 
(Alcaeus, Democritus) remarked that this showed that on ne sentait pas 
. But this is to read too much in the evidence of this plainly artificial form, which is due to a sophisticated rather than an ignorant division into 
. I have dealt further with 
on pp. 235 ff.
, a valuable indication is given by the form 
which in Attic and elsewhere displaced 
in popular favour for a period from the start of the fourth century B.C.; for 
owed its 
to the influence of the aspirate on the final of 
, and so shows consciousness of a division 
.
its it may also be remarked that there seems no reason to suppose that this feature made the hiatus easier (as suggested by Jebb ad Bacchyl. 15. 5 
). Cf. 
84) read 
, but, as noted, in Poet. Lesb. Frag, return is made to the form 
.
Crossref Citations
This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.
Willi, Andreas
2003.
New language for a New Comedy: A linguistic approach to Aristophanes'Plutus.
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society,
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A Commentary on the "Aspis" of Menander.
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