Variant: alternative form of word
| Values: | Greek |
Variant is used to distinguish word forms that differ only from a formal point of view, but that otherwise share the same lemma and morpholexical features. In Latin this is seen in the possible adoption of Greek case endings for nouns and adjectives.
Greek: Greek morphology
Due their descent from a common ancestor (Proto-Indo-European), Latin and (Ancient) Greek share many similarities, especially with regard to their nominal inflectional paradigms. This was evident also to native speakers at the time, so that it has always been straightforward to adapt words of one language to the inflectional schemes of the other.
In Latin, we observe that, for words of Greek origin, sometimes such affinities have given rise to mixed Greek-Latin paradigms, or to the sporadic use of morphologically Greek forms in an otherwise Latin syntax. We mark these cases with Variant=Greek on top of all other morphological features. Whereas this phenomenon is quite common for nouns, Greek morphology seems not to occur with regard to verbs.
This is different than simply marking words of Greek origin which comply to “regular” Latin inflectional classes: a Variant=Greek form has to deviate from Latin inflectional paradigms and to correspond to a Greek one (on the basis of possibly different transcriptions), so that e.g. acc. basim ‘basis’ from basis does not receive Variant=Greek.
Examples
(nom. = nominative case, acc. = accusative, gen. = genitive; pl. = plural, singular elsewhere; gr. = Greek)
- nom. mystes ‘priest of secret rites’, gen. mystae, masculine first declension, gr. μύστης; cf. “regular” mysta
- acc. Lethen ‘forgetfulness (name of a river in the Underworld)’, nom. Lethe, feminine first declension, gr. acc. Λήθην from nom. Λήθη; a “regular” Latin form would be Letham (or Lethem if interpreted as a third declension)
- acc. delphyna ‘dolphin’, nom. delphin, masculine third declension, gr. acc. δελφῖνα from nom. δελφίν; in Latin one would expect delphinem from delphin
- nom./acc. melos ‘tune’, neuter second declension, gr. nom./acc. μέλος; the corresponding “regular” Latin form would be melum (or a masculine melus)
- gen. metamorphoseos ‘(of a/the) metamorphosis’, nom. metamorphosis, feminine third declension, gr. gen. μεταμορφώσεως from nom. μεταμόρφωσις; one would expect the “regular” Latin form metamorphosis (identical to the nominative)
Variant in other languages: [be] [cs] [cu] [de] [koi] [kpv] [la] [lt] [mdf] [myv] [orv] [pl] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sl] [uk]