The kinship terminology of Homeric Greek

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PART

II

SUPPLEMENT INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

TO

OF AMERICAN

LINGUISTICS

Vol. 37, No. 4, October 1971

INDIANA

UNIVERSITY in

ANTHROPOLOGY

PUBLICATIONS

AND LINGUISTICS

MEMOIR

27

of the

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS

THE

KINSHIP

TERMINOLOGY

OF HOMERIC

By H. PHELPS GATES University of North Carolina

Mt.

Published at the Waverly Press, Inc. Royal and Guilford Aves., Baltimore, Md.

21202

by Indiana University under the auspices of Linguistic Society of America American Anthropological Association with the cooperation of Conference on American Indian Languages

GREEK

THE

KINSHIP

TERMINOLOGY

OF

HOMERIC

HENRY PHELPS GATES

GREEK

INDIANA

IN

UNIVERSITY

ANTHROPOLOGY

PUBLICATIONS

AND

LINGUISTICS

Editor: C. F. VoEGELIN Memoir 27, 82 pp. Issued October, 1971 Paper $4.00 Memoir of International Journal of American Linguistics

International Journal of Americal Linguistics is published quarterly at the Waverly Press, Inc., Mt. Royal and Guilford Avenues, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, by Indiana University. Subscriptions ($8.00 a year) will be received by the Business Manager, Mrs. Alice Zorn, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401. Supplements may be ordered separately.

CONTENTS Introduction.

...... ...ὐνν νιν ννν νειν ννν γεν

en

The kinship terms of Homeric Greek.................. 1.1. Parent... 0.0... ccc cece ees

1.1.1.

007 esse

1.41.3.

MEET...

12. 13.

14.

Spouse... 14.1.

15.

1.6.

17. 18.

19. 1.10.

1.11. 2.

3.

lee eee

1.4.3. (okeás........... cece ees Child................. usus eee es Sibling........... 2.0... cece esses eren.

1.0.0.2... cece cee Wife..........

ee

γεν εν εν εν ees

Lulu

142. Husband...................0. 000 eee Lineals.......... 0.0.0... ccc ccc ee nn 15.1. Grandparents...................l lusus. 15.2. Descendants...................s sess 15.2.1. Grandchildren...................... 1.5.2.2. nEpodes........:.: 222222 Ablineals............ 0... cc cece en 1.6.1. Uncles and aunts....................... 1.6.2. Nephews and nieces..................... Collaterals......... 0.0... ccc ee eens Affines.......... 0. ccc cece teen ees 18.1. CA types........... 0... cc eee 182. AC typeS............ ccc eee cece eee Step-kin......... 0... cece eee ees General terms for kin......................00.

1.10.1. 1.10.2.

gnólós........ eee péà8...... eee

1.10.3.

6é4$....................

llle

1.10.4. Abstract terms...................005. Terms used in address only....................

The development of the Greek kinship system. ......... 2.4.. The Greek system considered synchronically...... 2.2. The Greek system considered diachronically...... PIE kinship terminology..................sessseusss. 3.1. The dialects of PIE...................L.uuuuus.. 3.2. The disappearance of Omaha skewing features in the PIE dialects. .... 0.0.0.0... cece eee 33. The father’s sister in PIE....................... 3.4. The dialectal distribution of features other than skewing of generations......................4.

3.5. 4

3.4.1. Parallel aunts and uncles................. 3.2. Spouse........... sese 3.43. Child...................uueses eee 3.44. Cousin................ eese Summary............ νιν ννννν νιν νιν hh n

Conclusions..........

00...

ccc ccc

eee

51 52 53 53 54

n

56

Appendix. Supposed matrilineal descent groupsin Homer....

61

PREFACE This is a revised version of my Princeton University doctoral dissertation, completed in the fall of 1970 under the supervision of Prof. Samuel D. Atkins. Valuable suggestions also came from Bernard Fenik, Martin Silverman, and David Crabb at Princeton and from William Berg at Stanford. Those named have helped me to avoid numerous errors of approach and execution. The responsibility for errors which remain is my own. The study is addressed to anthropological linguists as well as classical scholars, and all Greek is therefore romanized and translated; the notation for Greek is a transliteration rather than a phonemic transcription. The abbreviation LSJ refers to the 9th edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. The publication of this work was partially subsidized by a grant from the Regearch Council of the University of North Carolina.

LIST OF DIAGRAMS Figure 1.1. Figure 1.2. Figure 1.3. Figure 2.1. Figure Figure Figure Figure

3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4.

Possible distinctive features of Homeric terms Homeric terms for two-step affines

offspring

Possible distinctive features of Homeric affinal terms Inappropriate partial taxonomy of Greek consanguineal terms PIE and Homeric consanguineal terms for male ego PIE and Greek affinal terms PIE dialects, according to Meillet (1908)

Stocks where mother's brother equals grandfather

(*awos)

Figure 3.5. Figure 3.6.

Stocks where sister's son equals grandson (*nepot-) Stocks where wife's father equals husband's father

(*swekuros) Terminology for wife's brother Stocks where son's wife equals brother’s wife Stocks using a derivative of *mdtér ‘mother’ for ‘mother’s sister’ Figure 3.10. Terminology for spouse Figure 3.11. Stocks where *sunus (*suyus) ‘son’ is not attested Figure 3.12. Terminology for cousin Figure 4.1. Distribution of Omaha features in selected languages

Figure 3.7. Figure 3.8. Figure 3.9.

INTRODUCTION

0.1. The kinship terminology of the Indo-European languages and the terminology of PIE have been a favorite topic of anthropologists and historical linguists ever since Delbrück (1889) laid the foundation for study in this area with his monumental work on Indo-European kin terms. In recent years, a numberof extensive examinations of PIE kinship terminology have appeared: Galton 1957, Ghurye 1962, Friedrich 1966, Benveniste 1969. These studies have aimed at three goals: reconstructing, as precisely and completely as possible, a single kinship terminology for PIE, speculating on the origins of this terminology, and exploring the relationship of PIE terminology to PIE society. Further insights into these topics are likely to be reached only through the discovery of more data or the development of more powerful anthropological methods. In the present study I will be concerned rather with the processes by which PIE kinship terminology changed into the terminologies found in the daughter languages, Greek in particular.! Greek, especially the Greek used by Homer, is one of the most important

sources of information about PIE kinship terminology. For one thing, it is one of the oldest sources: the Homeric poems were probably composed no later than the seventh century B.C., and they preserve obsolete vocabulary from a much earlier time, because of their traditional, archaic language. Only the Indic and

Hittite stocks provide earlier documentation than Greek, and in Hittite, kinship terms are often represented by ideograms, so that we are ignorant of most Hittite kin terms. The Mycenaean Greek documents are several centuries older than Homer, but they provide little information on kinship terminology.? Greek kinship terminology demands a diachronic, rather than a synchronic approach. Since knowledge of &ncient Greek comes exclusively from written sources, we lack information about items which must be considered when producing an adequate synchronic analysis. For example, the terminology used for more distant kinsmen is very poorly attested: in Homer, even terms for nephews and nieces are absent. Also, no native speakers of ancient Greek survive to serve as informants, and recent work has shown the difficulty of properly analyzing a semantic structure from an examination only of the terms and their denotata. On the other hand, the information available is sufficient to test certain hypotheses about how kinship terminologies change, even in the absence of a fully satisfactory synchronic description. 0.2. Why does kinship terminology change? When anthropologists encounter change in kinship terminology, they generally look to features of social structure for an explanation (e.g. Eggan 1937, Spoehr 1947, Faron 1956, Friedrich 1963, 1967). Some changes in terminology can, to be sure, be easily and convincingly explained in this way. In Central Algonquian, for example, terms for cross cousins seem to have arisen from terms for ‘little sibling-in-law' (Hockett 1964:251); in a society where cross-cousin marriage is the norm, these kinsmen would indeed be little (i.e. potential) siblings-in-law. In other cases, however, the changes are less clearly due to influence from social structure. A correlation between Omaha 1

2

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kinship terminology and patrilineal descent groups has often been observed (e.g. Goody 1970), but the exact relationship between Omaha terminology and social structure is not completely clear (for two different approaches, see Eyde and Postal 1961, Coult 1967). It cannot be said that full success has been achieved in explaining kinship terminology in terms of social structure. Since this is so, it might be worthwhile to try to explain some changes in kin terminology as linguistically, rather than socially conditioned? Kinship terms are, after all, linguistic entities: they are more culture-dependent than many, but there is no reason to believe that they will behave in a fundamentally different way than other words. The present study will consider three possible linguistic causes of change in terminology: (1) contact with other languages, (2) structural pressures within the system of kinship terminology, and (3) structural pressures in a language as a whole. The first of these can involve semantic loans (Weinreich 1953: 48-50): i.e. the borrowing of features of terminology without the terms themselves being borrowed. Gifford (1922) found many examples of this phenomenon in the American Indian languages of California. For example, the distinction between cross and

parallel siblings-in-law has spread over a wide area in northwestern California without extensive borrowing of terms.* Similar semantic loans may be involved in the affinal terms of modern European languages (Sapir 1949:26), and a recent study has found possible semantic loans from Hopi into adjacent dialects of Navajo (Freed and Freed 1970). The second influence, internal structural pressure in the kinship system, is

analogous to the structural pressures which Martinet (1964) has suggested as explanations for sound change. Certain principles which kinship terminologies often observe were pointed out by Radcliffe-Brown and amplified by Tax (19372; cf. Radcliffe-Brown 1950:13-43). Tax lists a dozen such principles: for example, the principle of “uniform descent" states that “if somebody whom ego calls A has children whom ego calls B, then the children of everybody whom ego calls A are called B." (Tax 1937a:19). Tax and Radcliffe-Brown regard these principles not only as synchronic “rules that seem to be fairly universally followed," but also as determinants of change. Synchronic universals, indeed, imply diachronic universals, since synchronic states arise from diachronic processes (cf. Greenberg 1966:61), and PIE kinship terminology has in some cases changed in the direction of observing these principles more fully, as will be seen.

Structural pressures in a language as a whole can also influence a kinship system and seem to have done so at several places in the Indo-European languages. Sanskrit, for example, has replaced many PIE kin terms by compounds; this reflects the frequency of compounding in Sanskrit. Likewise, Greek has moved toward a terminology which employs similar terms for male and female relatives, with sex being denoted only by a suffix (e.g. adelphós ‘brother’, adelphé 'sister") ; this evidently results from the increasing importance of word pairs like these in the language as a whole (see section 2.2). 0.3. During the past ten years, there has been a revival of interest in “kinship algebra": i.e. the attempt to describe kinship terminologies in terms of purely formal mathematical models. Two approaches to the formal analysis of kinship

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terminology have received particular attention: componential analysis and transformational analysis.5 Componential analysis, in its weaker form, is an attempt to find semantic dimensions which assign the appropriate denotata to a set of kin terms; in its stronger form, it is an attempt to find those dimensions which are actually used by native speakers to segment the semantic domain of kinship. Transformational analysis, on the other hand, seeks to discover rules by which the kin types denoted by a set of terms can be reduced to core kin types which can then be subjected to componential analysis. It has found its widest application in dealing with Omaha and Crow systems, where a single term may apply, for example, to grandfather, mother's brother, mother's brother's son, etc., a situation which cannot easily be described directly in terms of dimensions.* Kinship analysts have often been satisfied with observational adequacy: i.e. with an analysis which merely predicts the denotata of terms from their componential or transformational definitions (on the weakness of the claims sometimes made, see Burling 1964, Wallace 1965:229). It is clearly desirable, however, to strive for some measure of descriptive adequacy: to describe as correctly as possible the intrinsic competence of the native speaker (Chomsky 1965:24). Recently, analysts have attempted to justify their results from this standpoint (e.g. Buck 1965, Wallace 1970, Dentan 1970). Among the methods used to evaluate the adequacy of an analysis have been the administration of tests to informants (Wallace 1965, Sanday 1968; in & non-kinship domain, Bendix 1966) and the investigation of how children acquire a kinship terminology (Burling 1970). One evaluative criterion which has not been exploited, however, is the study of how kinship terminology changes; this is the approach which I will be taking. One test which can be applied to a kinship description is the relative ease and elegance with which it permits a description of change. In other words, the study of how kinship systems change is one way of getting at the competence of native speakers. There is an analogy with phonemics here: the most adequate phonemic descriptions often account most elegantly for phonemic change (cf. Halle 1964 and numerous subsequent studies). I will be concerned primarily with transformational analysis, rather than componential analysis, for several reasons. First, the Omaha features of PIE lend themselves more easily to this approach. Second, recent studies suggest that the transformational model may be intrinsically more adequate than the componential one, even for American English, which seems particularly well suited to the componential approach (e.g. Burling 1970, Wallace 1970, cf. also Berlin and Kay 1969: 13). Third, the incomplete information available for the more distant kin types makes it impossible to produce a complete componential analysis of Greek (much less PIE) even in the weaker sense of finding dimensions which will assign the appropriate denotata to the kin terms; the transformational approach, however, permits interesting conclusions to be drawn about the reduction rules which apply to those kin terms which can be reconstructed. For example, it appears

that the changes in PIE kin terminology which resulted in the attested terminologies did not come about through additions or deletions of entire rules of the type Lounsbury suggests. Lounsbury's general rules are, logically, the sum of a number of more specific rules (i.e. rules applying to individual kin types) and it is these specific rules which are involved in changes (see section 4).

4

KINSHIP

1.

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KiNsHiP

TERMS

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or

HOMERIC

HoMERIC

GREEK

GREEK

1.0. We have three sources of information for the meaning of Homeric words: the use of a word in the Iliad and Odyssey, the testimony of ancient lexicographers and commentators, and etymology. Homer himself is the most reliable source, though it must be kept in mind that the original meaning of some words had evidently been forgotten at the time when Homer composed. These obsolete words, or '*glosses," were kept alive as part of the traditional epic language, often in fixed formulas, e.g. Aélikas bots ‘crumple horned? (black?) oxen’; cf. English kith in kith and kin (see in particular Parry 1928). The extant works of the lexicographers and commentators are mostly late compilations, but they are ultimately derived from the lost works of Alexandrian and earlier scholars; the meanings of Homerie words were already being disputed in the fifth century B.C. (Sandys 1906:32). The conclusions of ancient scholars were largely based on their examination of the Homeric text and are therefore of little independent value. The scholars did have access to works now lost, however, and they also provide some information on the dialectal use of words (though most of their dialectal information is based on literary sources rather than field work: see Thumb and Kieckers 1932: 23-24). An examination of Homeric vocabulary is complicated by the fact that Homer's language is à mixture of elements from various Greek dialects, as the ancients already recognized (e.g. D. Chr. 11.23). While it is basically Ionic, especially in phonology, it has many features which are absent from the Ionic dialect, or at least from the Ionic dialect of historical times. Some of these forms (e.g. acc. sing. masc. euréa), are purely artificial creations of the epie poets, invented for metrical convenience. Other features are attested in non-Ionic dialects of Greek, notably Aeolic, Arcadian, and Cyprian. Scholars have tried to explain this dialect mixture in many different ways (for & discussion, with copious bibliography, of the earlier attempts to deal with the problem, see Ruijgh 1957: 1-4). It has now been recognized, however, that the Homeric language is the final product of a centuries-long poetic tradition, with non-Ionic features serving as convenient metrical substitutes for the corresponding Ionic forms. Uncertainty remains, however, over the way in which this poetic language developed. A widely-held view is that Homer's language results from three consecutive phases of epic poetry: i.e. it was recited first in the '*Achaean" dialect (the assumed ancestor of Arcadian and Cyprian), then in Aeolie, and finally in Ionie, with each phase leaving its mark on the language; this view was suggested by Meillet (1930a: 178) and is supported by Ruijgh (1957) and Chantraine (1958:495-513). But the subject remains controversial, and it is inextricably linked with the equally controversial problem of the prehistory of the Greek dialects (see Palmer 1968, with bibliography). The dialectal makeup of the Homerie language, however, is of relatively little importance to an examination of Homeric kinship terminology ; the only Homeric kinship term which is demonstrably from a non-Ionic dialect is kastgnétos ‘brother’ (section 1.3). In natural languages, synonyms are rare or non-existent (Ullmann 1962:141155, Alston 1964:44-49); even where the referential meaning of terms is the same, features of association allow distinctions to be made between near-syno-

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δ

nyms. But the Homeric poems are not written in natural language; their traditional, formulaic diction has accumulated archaic and dialectal words to serve merely as metrically convenient synonvms for frequently expressed ideas. The five Homeric words for ‘helmet’, for example, do not distinguish between five different kinds of helmet (Gray 1947), and the Achaeans, Danaans, and Argives differ only metrically. On the other hand, it is not safe to assume that apparent synonyms are always merely metrical variants: Snell (1953:1-5) has discussed the precise distinctions observed among the Homeric words for seeing. One task in investigating Homeric kinship terminology is to discover to what extent apparent synonyms differ semantically. This problem arises chiefly in three areas: the Homeric terminology for ‘child’ (3 terms: section 1.2), ‘wife’ (6 terms: section 1.4.1) and ‘husband’ (4 terms: section 1.4.2). This chapter deals with the referential meaning of all kin terms used in the Iliad and Odyssey, in the following order: primary kin types (sections 1.1 to 1.4), non-primary types (1.5 to 1.9), general terms (1.10) and terms used only in address (1.11). 1.1 Parent. Homer applies three terms to parents: the inherited words paler

‘father’ and métér ‘mother’ and the Greek innovation tokets ‘parent’. The PIE term *atta was possibly the specific PIE word for the father, *patér being originally applicable to the father’s brother as well (see section 3.4.1). Atta survives in Homer, but not as a kinship term (section 1.11). 1.1.1. patör. Homer uses patér in four ways: (1) as a kin term, ‘father’, (2) as an epithet for Zeus, (3) as a term of address to older men, and (4) in the sense ‘ancestor’.

The first sense of patér is the most common, accounting for about three out of four occurrences of the word. In the great majority of these occurrences, simply used as the equivalent of a name.! Patér is occasionally used in (always short ones), and the point of comparison is generally the affection the father for his son, and not the son's obedience, respect, or affection

patér is similes felt by for his

father.” One motif which turns up again and again is a comparison of the merits of a son and his father: typically the son is said to be (or claims to be) better than or equal to his father (better: Iliad 1.404, 4.405, 4.410, 6.479, 15.641; equal: Odyssey 14.177; cf. also Odyssey 2.276-277). This motif no doubt reflects the Homeric attitude toward inheritance of status. The status of a hero is in part dependent on the position of his father, but not in the sense that he was automatically the heir of his father's prestige. Rather, he is heir to his father's prowess, both by heredity and precept, but must win his own prestige by using this heritage (cf. Benardete 1963: 12-13). Patér can refer either to the biological father (the man who actually engendered a person) or to the social father (the man who occupies the social position normally occupied by the engenderer, regardless of whether he is biologically the father). The Molione, for example, are the sons of Aktor in the social sense (note their epithet Aktorföne ‘sons of Aktor’), but they were engendered by the god Poseidon, and the god is called their patér (Iliad 11.751). Conversely, Telemachos points out that he does not in fact know whether Odysseus is biologically his father (Odyssey 1.215-216), but Odysseus is, of course, his patér.

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The epithet patér applied to Zeus has its origin in his status as head of the divine household, as has long been recognized.‘ Nilsson (1938:160) points out that such phrases as pater andrön te thedn te ‘patér of gods and men’ can hardly mean that Zeus was the begetter, or the ancestor, or even the creator of gods and men, since he was in fact none of these. Rather, Zeus is the divine counterpart of the prehistoric head of the extended family (Nilsson 1938:161). Both Calhoun and Nilsson point out the relevance of such epithets as Herkeios '(god) of the courtyard, (god) of the household' to the conception of Zeus as pater familias (Calhoun 1935: 16, Nilsson 1938:161). That this conception dates from PIE times is clear from the parallels in Sanskrit (dyaus pita), Latin (uppiter), and Illyrian (Deipdturos: on this word, see Krahe 1955:54). Out of about 400 occurrences of patér in Homer, more than a hundred refer to Zeus, though some of these could be interpreted as referring to him simply as the father of some particular god or mortal.5 When it refers to Zeus, patér is usually accompanied by the name Zeüs or the patronymic Kronfdés or by the phrase andrón te theön te ‘of gods and men’; patér is used only eleven times without such qualifiers when it clearly refers to Zeus as pater familias.$ Iliad 1.534 is particularly interesting, since in this passage palör may actually be alive in the original sense *head of the household', rather than merely serving as a fossilized epithet for Zeus: the gods all rise sphoß patrós enantion ‘in the presence of their patér? ' Homer uses paiér in the vocative singular (pdier) as an affectionate term of address to an older man, even if he is not the speaker's father. The vocative occurs 65 times in Homer, and 8 of these occurrences are in this non-kin sense; in all cases where information is available, the addressee is older than the speaker.? This use of páter is exactly parallel to the use of /ékos and téknon (both literally offspring") in affectionate address to any person younger than the speaker (section 1.2). In fact, a speaker addressing an older man as páter is often addressed as tékos or téknon in an adjoining speech by the person he calls páter (e.g. Iliad 24.373, Odyssey 7.22). Like the corresponding use of offspring terms, this use of páter is apparently metaphorical, in the sense that the addressee is being placed in a role which only partly applies to him: the partial applicability lies in the real or supposed affection between speaker and addressee, corresponding to the affection between father and son which forms one of the major aspects of the patér role, as pointed out above.’ The affectionate tone of páter is shown by the nature of the speeches where it occurs: these often include an expression of solicitude over the addressee's safety (Iliad 24.362-365, Odyssey 7.48-77) or a wish for his well-being (Odyssey 18.122-123), and are always friendly in tone (the affection may be feigned, as at Odyssey 8.145, but the speaker is never openly hostile). In Homer, páter (in this sense) is almost alwavs addressed to complete strangers, in the context of the friendly welcome due a stranger.'? According to Ebeling (1885), pdter is a respectful term of address ('*honoris causa"), but the miserable vagabonds to whom it is addressed indicate that the word is, rather, an affectionate term; note also that it is sometimes accompanied by the particle 8, which frequently expresses affection and is not ordinarily used when addressing superiors (on ö, see Chantraine 1953:37, with literature). Finally, patér can mean ‘ancestor’. Homer uses it in this sense only in the plural

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(Iliad 6.209, Odyssey 8.245, 24.508; it could conceivably have this sense also at Odyssey 4.94 and 4.687). In later authors, however, patér can mean ‘ancestor’ in the singular as well.!! This meaning clearly dates from PIE: cf. Skt. pitarah." The meaning 'ancestor' may have developed from the meaning *head of household': the Indian pitarah and Greek pateres, both of which are associated with cult, especially ancestor cult, represent the succession of heads of the household, to whom offerings were due from their descendants. According to Chantraine (1947:235), the associations of patér are primarily linked to the honor and respect, bordering on worship, due the head of the household: he describes it as “un terme dont la valeur est surtout sociale et religieuse." As evidence, he points to the application of the term to Zeus and to ancestors, and the absence from Homer of metaphorical uses in the sense ‘creator, originator (of inanimate objects)’. Any kinship term, however, will have associations which are primarily social, and the way palér is used in similes (above, note 2) suggests that the father-son relationship was looked at chiefly in terms of the affection and concern of the father for his son, rather than the son's respect for his father. Note, further, that the religious associations of patér were no longer fully alive in Greek. The two senses of the word which could be called religious (‘Zeus’ and 'ancestor are both obsolescent survivals from PIE." In post-Homeric Greek, the word developed along lines which suggest, rather, biological associations. For example, the sense 'creator, originator’ is common in later Greek, e.g. Plato Mz. 240e, where reference is made to the Marathon fighters as ou mónon tin somáton tin hämeterön patéras . . . alld kai tés eleuthertas ‘not only fathers of our bodies but also of our freedom’ (on this passage see

Alföldi 1954:136-137; LSJ also cite numerous other uses of paier in this sense). The use of patéres in the sense ‘parents’ (1.6. mother and father), though first citable from Diodorus Sieulus (21.17), also suggests that a patér could be viewed simply as the child's progenitor, rather than in his role as head of household. Chantraine is correct in stating that patér is not used metaphorically in the sense ‘creator’ by Homer. Only once is patér used (in reference) in a way which might be called metaphorical, and the metaphor is based, apparently, on the mutual affection between father and child, and the protection of the child by the father (Iliad 6.429: Andromache says that Hektor is her palér kai pótnia

meter édé kasignetos ‘father and mother and brother’). Homer’s failure to use palér metaphorically in the sense ‘creator’ is perhaps better explained, however, as a result of the general rarity of metaphor in Homeric style (on this rarity see Lattimore 1951:41). In short, Homeric patér, usually ‘father’, retains two senses (‘Zeus’, ‘ancestor’) which probably derive from an original sense ‘head of household’ which may still be present in one or two Homeric passages. Similes show that the father-son relationship was felt to be a model for affection and concern; the affection of this relationship underlies the use of pdter as a term of address to older men. 1.1.2. métér. Homer seems to have viewed the role of the métér ‘mother’ primarily in terms of procreation and in terms of her relationship to an infant or young child, in contrast to the patér role, which involves older children. Note, first, that the four similes which refer to human mothers involve the relationship

8

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between a mother and an infant or very young child. A mother brushes flies away from her child (Iliad 4.130-131); a child hides under his mother’s skirts (Iliad 8.271); a little girl holds tightly to her mother’s clothing (Iliad 16.8-9).

At Iliad 23.783, the lesser Aias claims that Athene watches over Odysseus möter hös ‘like a mother’, seemingly using the mother as a model of the protectress, regardless of the age of her child; but the use of métér in other similes, together with the unfriendly tone of Aias’ speech, suggests rather that Odysseus is here being compared to & young child watched over by its mother.

Métér, unlike patér, is used of animal parents (Iliad 2.313«327, 2.315, 5.555, 17.4, Odyssey 10.414) and in & metaphorical sense (apparently with reference to

procreation) in such phrases as métér therön ‘mother of wild beasts’, an of Mount Ide (Iliad 8.47) and métér mölön ‘mother of flocks’, an epithet of places.!5 Méér is often used in expressions like oud’ em2 pámpan análkida métér ‘my mother did not bear me completely without courage’ (Iliad or émati (81 höte me pröton téke métér ‘on the day my mother bore me’ (Iliad

epithet various geínato 13.777) 6.345),

where the reference to the mother is purely formal (i.e. "my mother did not bear me without courage" does not differ in substance from “I am not without courage").!€ Mö&tzr is used in an apparently wider sense than ‘mother’ in one repeated line

(Iliad 14.201«302) : Ókeanón te, then génesin kai météra Téthtin ‘Okeanos, source (i.e. ancestor?) of the gods, and mother Tethys'. Tethys is not, literally, the mother of the gods, but it is impossible to tell from this single passage whether

métér is being used in the sense ‘female ancestor’ (cf. sense 4 of patér), or is an epithet specifically applicable to Tethys, perhaps as an especially fecund mother (cf. Hesiod, Theogony 337-370), or has the metaphorical sense ‘origin, source’ (cf. the word genesis ‘source’ applied to Okeanos in the line). The applicability

of métér to other goddesses, e.g. Rhea (Pindar, P. 3.78), favors the second interpretation." Homer often applies the epithet pdinia (cf. pótna ‘mistress’) to métér; the words combine to form a convenient formula (pótnia métér) for use after the bucolic

diaeresis. Pótnia occurs without métér as an epithet of goddesses, generally Here, in line-end formulas such as pótnia Hér (e.g. Iliad 1.551). One Homeric passage calls for the original sense 'mistress' (Iliad 21.470: Artemis is called pótnia thörön ‘mistress of wild beasts’). Pótnia occurs in Mycenaean Greek (potinija) as the name or epithet of a goddess. In Mycenaean, the word apparently refers to one specific goddess, who receives offerings on & large number of tablets. Numerous attempts have been made to find out who she was, and of several candidates Athene is probably the most likely (see Chadwick and Baumbach 1963:238-239, with literature). Pótnia is cognate with Skt. patni ‘wife’ (Frisk

1970), but potinija is not closely linked with any male god, and the contexts where her name appears seem better suited to the sense ‘lady, mistress’, than ‘wife’. In Homer, pótnia is almost completely decorative, and is evidently applicable to any goddess or woman; that it does not imply ‘“queenliness” or the like is indicated by its application to the mother of the beggar Iros.!? It would appear that the frequent application of pótnia to métér is a matter of metrical convenience

and simply reflects the metrical equivalence of métér with Héré and other goddess

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names in line-end position, rather than any earlier conception of pótnia as ‘mistress of the household’. 1.1.3. tokeás. This term usually refers to a parent, but is probably applicable to any near ancestor: parent or grandparent. At Odyssey 7.54-55, Homer describes the ancestry of Arete and her husband Alkinoos: Arété d’ ónom' estin

epónumon, ek dé tokéon/ión aut0n hot per tékon Alkinoon basiléa ‘her name is Arete (and she is) from the very same tokées who were the parents of king Alkinoos'. The poet then gives the family tree in verses 56-66, according to which Arete is Alkinoos’ brother's daughter. As the passage stands, then, tokées refers to the grandparents of Arete (the parents of Alkinoos): tokées looks like a general term for near ancestors. Tokées ‘ancestors’ and patéres ‘ancestors’ are not synonymous, however. Shewan (1925) restricts lokdes to "grandparents or near ancestors" in contrast to the more general patéres. An examination of the contexts where the words appear supports his view. T'okées have a direct social relationship with ego: ego protects them (Iliad 21.587 etc.), accompanies them (Iliad 4.476-477), is named by them (Odyssey 8.554), etc. Patéres, however, are referred to in terms of upholding the reputation of the paterön génos ‘lineage of ancestors’ (Odyssey 24.508, Iliad 6.209) or simply in measuring time (“from the time of our patéres": Odyssey 8.245). The passage quoted above, however, is a favorite piece of evidence for the theory that the Homeric poems have been expurgated. 'The controversy goes back to Kirchhoff (1879:320-322). He claims that the genealogy of verses 56-66 is a later addition: in the original text, tokées referred to parents, and Alkinoos and Arete were brother and sister, but since their incestuous marriage was offensive to a later age, verses 56-66 were added to make them uncle and niece. The chief argument in favor of interpolation is that the passage is misleading, if not contradictory, since tokdes elsewhere seems to refer to parents. If Homer intended to describe Alkinoos and Arete as brother and sister, it is odd that he should first say that they were ek tokéon tn autön ‘from the same tokées’, thus implying, it would seem, that they were siblings. Kirchhoff also points out that Hesiod is said to have described Alkinoos and Arete as brother and sister (our source is a scholion on this Odyssey passage); Hesiod's text of the Odyssey, he maintains, could not have contained the genealogy in verses 56-66. Other analyst critics have followed Kirchhoff, but without significant new evidence.?? The unitarians have rallied to the defense of the text as it stands, however (Düntzer 1872:74, Blass 1904:95, Rothe 1914:59, Shewan 1925, Ridgeway 1931:124, Scott 1939). They contend that there is no contradiction: tokées simply means ‘ancestors’ here, as it can elsewhere. Shewan points to Odyssey 4.596, where Telemachos speaks of his desire for his home and tokées; since Odysseus was not at home, tokées, he reasons, cannot there refer to his father and mother. This is probably too literal an interpretation of that passage, but there is more substantive evidence. Wackernagel (1926:83) has pointed out that Homer uses the dual number either in reference to natural pairs (e.g. eyes, hands) or in reference to two things which are not natural pairs; in the latter case, however, a dual is regularly accompanied by the number dà (see also Chantraine 1953: 24).

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Tókeus occurs in the dual only once, and in that one passage it is accompanied by duo (Odyssey 8.312). It would seem, therefore, that tokées did not refer to a natural pair, i.e. ‘parents’, but rather had the wider sense ‘ancestors’.?! In postHomeric Greek, tokeüs is replaced by goneüs; goneüs, like tokeüs, usually refers to a parent, but it is clearly not limited to parents, since there are a number of passages (especially Isaios 8.32) where it refers to at least grandparents as well (Scott 1939, LSJ:s.v. goneüs). Unitarian crities point out several difficulties which arise from the assumption that Odyssey 7.54-66 has been expurgated. First of all, it is clear that we are dealing not with a simple insertion of lines but rather with a reworking of the passage: the syntax will not allow a clean excision of the offending lines (see Bolling 1925:236, Von der Mühll 1940:714). Moreover, if someone added the genealogy of 56-66 he must also have tampered with line 146, where Arete is called the daughter of Rhexenor.? If the passage was reworked rather than merely interpolated, however, the reviser could hardly fail to notice the incon-

sistency, if it is such, of toköön t6n aut8n with the genealogy which follows (Düntzer 1872:74). Furthermore, the supposed expurgator does not seem to have been offended by the fraternal incest of Aiolos’ children (Odyssey 10.7), not to mention that of Zeus and Here (Shewan 1925). In any case, the marriage of brother and sister would no doubt have dismayed the Greeks less than us: the marriage of homopatric half-siblings was not rare in classical Athens (Lacey 1968: 106, Harrison 1968:21—23). Hesiod's reference to Alkinoos and Arete as brother and sister does not prove that his text lacked verses 56-66. Hesiod may have read the passage carelessly (Blass 1904:95, Shewan 1925) or, probably more likely, this is just. one of the many genealogies where the Homeric and Hesiodic traditions diverge (Von der Mühll 1940:715).? The theory that Homer has been expurgated is less popular than it once was, and in any case, the evidence for expurgation here seems insufficient. Most editors and commentators, from the ancient scholiasts to Stanford 1959, do accept the applicability of tok&es to grandparents here: a scholion on verse 54 reads: to gar tokédn délot kai té progónon ‘tokées can also mean “ancestors”.’ * The phrasing of verses 54-55 remains somewhat puzzling, however, since tokeüs usually does refer to a parent. Why did Homer find the fact that Arete and Alkinoos were from the same tokées so important to the genealogical situation that he mentioned it first, at the risk of misleading his audience? Also, why should he point out that Rhexenor died dkouros ‘without male issue’? Apparently, Homer conceived of Arete as an eptkleros.25 At Athens, when a man died leaving only female issue, his daughter became an epikleros (‘heiress’), and the law provided for her marriage to one of her father's relatives, typically his brother, to insure the continuance of the male line of succession (Harrison 1968: 132-138, Lacey 1968:139-140); the Gortyn code also makes provisions for the marriage of such a daughter to one of her father's relatives. The Homeric parallel is striking: Arete, as the daughter of a man without male offspring, became an heiress and married a man ek tokéon t6n autén. The exact relationship between an heiress and her husband was not important: what was important was simply that he be a relative of her father, and hence the emphasis here on the phrase ek tokéon tin autön.?®

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1.2. Child. Homer applies seven terms to offspring: huiós, thugdtér, koüros, koüre, pdis, tékos, and téknon.? Like the English terms son, daughter, boy, girl, child, young, etc., the Homeric terms have a complex and overlapping network of referents. Some of them are applied not only to offspring but also (particularly in address) to young persons regardless of kinship: the defining criteria, as with the English terms, include qualitative concepts (sex, absolute age, human/animal), relational concepts (the kin concept ‘child-of’, age relative to the speaker), and other less easily statable criteria such as affection, for example. Semantics cannot yet give a convincing and meaningful account of the exact relationships among the English terms, and the Homeric terms are even less amenable to analysis, in view of the limited corpus and the artificiality of Homer’s language. Also, the metrical requirements of oral poetry have probably distorted the semantie picture: for example, the phrases aglaà tékna 'glorious children’, Diös tékos ‘O child of Zeus’, and paides emot ‘O my children’ are all unusual and possibly deviant uses of the terms téknon, tékos, and pdis, respectively, as will be seen, and they perhaps owe their existence to metrical convenience. Nevertheless, there are certain obvious differences among the Homeric terms, and some less obvious ones can be tentatively suggested. I will first consider the use of the terms in reference, then their use in address. Huiös ‘son’ refers, like English son, to male offspring, human only. Thugdtér ‘daughter’ is the female equivalent of Au?ós, and refers to female offspring, human only. Koüros and its feminine koüré usually have a non-kin sense (‘young man’, ‘young woman’, respectively), but can also mean ‘son’ and ‘daughter’; when used in the latter sense, however, they are regularly accompanied by the genitive of a parent’s name.?? The sense ‘young man (woman) is the etymologically original one (Frisk 1970), and the syntactic restriction on the use of these words in reference to offspring calls to mind similar, though not identical, syntactic restrictions on boy ‘son’ in English: e.g. one can say my neighbor’s son, my neighbor's boy, and the son of my neighbor, but not *the boy of my neighbor. Koüros ‘son’ and koáré ‘daughter’, however, apparently do not have the stylistic feature associated with boy ‘son’.®° Páis ‘child’ resembles English child in having both kin and non-kin senses. As in the case of koüros and koüre (and child), the non-kin meaning is the original one. Unlike koüros and kotré, however, pdis is not restricted to use with the genitive of a parent's name, but seems as free in its distribution as huids or lhugdter.?! Tékos and téknon, like pdis, refer to offspring of either sex, but they clearly differ from páis in two ways: they are never used (in reference) in the non-kin sense 'young person', and they can refer to animal as well as human offspring (in the latter respect, they differ from all the other offspring terms).” Téknon (in reference) is always plural: cf. English young. Homer thus has three words which can refer to human offspring without specifying sex: pdis, tékos, and téknon. His choice of word depends partly on metrical convenience, but there are certain differences in usage which suggest that there is indeed a semantic difference among these terms.” T'ékos is apparently a more impersonal term than the others, emphasizing the idea of the child simply

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as offspring, rather than as a personal participant in the action. Téknon differs from the other two words in that it probably refers par excellence to infant children.* The impersonality of tékos can be seen both in its formation and in the way Homer uses it. The derivation of the neuter noun tékos from κί ‘bear, beget’ is parallel to the derivation of génos (‘kinship’, then concretely ‘kinsman’: see section 1.10.4), from gignomaz ‘come into being, be born’. The underlying sense of i&kos is apparently ‘birth, engendering’, which has been idiomatically concretized as ‘offspring’, though (ékos, unlike génos, no longer retains its original sense (at least it is not attested in Homer). Note that tékos is not accompanied by deseriptive adjectives, while the other offspring terms freely admit them.?5 In this respect, t&kos is like génos and other originally abstract terms, which do not take personal descriptive adjectives when used in the concrete sense 'kinsman’.?® Another peculiarity of i&kos is that it is not regularly used in naming formulas, i.e. phrases like (Hékiór) pdis Pridmoio ‘(Hektor) son of Priam’, where Homer is simply naming or identifying someone without laying emphasis on the fact that he is the son of a particular person. Phrases like this are a common context for the other offspring terms. T'ékos, however, is used in this way only in the phrase Diös tékos ‘child of Zeus (Athene)’, and it is significant that Dids tékos occurs only in the vocative (e.g. Iliad 1.202); it is evidently serving as a metrically equivalent vocative for the nominative Diös pdis ‘child of Zeus’ (e.g. Iliad 13.825). This type of suppletive declension of formulas is not uncommon in Homer; the best-known example is the alternation of gaia and aia ‘earth’ in the formulas patrídos atés and patrída gaían.Evidently, tékos is avoided in naming formulas because it emphasizes the offspring relationship too strongly.” Many Homeric uses of tékos confirm the idea that the term is impersonal. At Odyssey 4.175, for example, Menelaos says that he would have invited Odysseus to come and live with him, bringing his property and his tékos and all his subjects. The tékos (Telemachos) is important not as a person but merely as part of Odysseus’ establishment: the impersonality is especially striking here because Menelaos refers to the tékos in the third person, even though Telemachos is actually present.*5 Some evidence suggests that téknon was associated, in the poet's mind, primarily with infant children. It is very often accompanied by the adjective népios ‘infant’ (15 of 33 occurrences in reference), though this may simply reflect the metrical convenience of the line-end formula népia tékna ‘infant children’. Perhaps more significant is the association of tékna with the child's mother: téknon is especially common in phrases referring to women or female animals bearing children (7 times) and in reference to wives and children (13 times). This usage does not seem to result from the metrical convenience of a few fixed formulas, since a wide variety of expressions is used.?? Moreover, LSJ point out that in Attic tragedy, téknon has special reference to the mother, e.g. Euripides, 7A 896: 0 téknon Neréidos, ὃ pai Peleös ‘O téknon of the Nereid, pdis of Peleus’. The association of méter ‘mother’ with infants and young children was pointed out in section 1.1.2, and the association of téknon with the mother suggests that Homer thought of the term as referring particularly to infants. T'éknon is not confined

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to infants, however, nor is it always associated with the mother in Homer: at Iliad 24.542, for example, Achilleus refers to Priam's tékna (Priam's youngest child was no longer an infant: Iliad 20.409). T'ékna also refers to adult offspring at Odyssey 11.631, and presumably in the five occurrences of the phrase aglaà

tékna ‘glorious children’ (Iliad 2.871, 18.337, Odyssey 11.249, 11.285, 14.223). This phrase, however, is à convenient metrically equivalent plural for aglaós (-6n) huiös (-ón) ‘glorious son’, and it may be that metrical considerations have overridden semantic ones here. I turn next to the use of the Homeric offspring terms in address.*? Huids ‘son’ and thugáter ‘daughter’ are not regularly used in address, although thugdtér is so used once, in the phrase gambrös emös thugdtér te ‘O my son-in-law and (my) daughter' (Odyssey 19.406). Note the use of nominative for vocative in this phrase, possibly for metrical reasons (Chantraine 1953:36); this suggests that it is an artificial poetic usage. T'ékos and téknon are used in address to anyone younger than the speaker, regardless of kinship; indeed, both terms are more commonly used in this way than referentially to offspring." Páis, though far commoner in reference than tékos and téknon, is used only twice in address: Iliad 7.279, where heralds address Hektor and Aias as paíde phtlö ‘O (two) dear children’, and Odyssey 3.475, where Nestor addresses his sons (apparently) as paídes emot ‘my children’.“ These two uses clearly do not permit any conclusions about the criteria for calling a person pdis.“ Note that both uses are in phrases which are metrically equivalent to the common téknon emón ‘O my child’, and they may be artificial poetic creations to preserve the metrical value of that formula in dual and plural. Koüros and koür& are also used in address to unrelated young persons. The criterion for addressing a person as koáre (-é) is probably absolute age, rather than age with respect to the speaker, however: i.e. koßros and koáré have their non-kin sense in these addresses. Note, for example, that Penelope addresses the suitors as koüroi ‘young men’ (Odyssey 19.141). Homeric offspring terms resemble those of English in at least five ways: the existence of a term which can refer both to the kin concept ‘child-of’ and the non-kin concept ‘young human’ (child, pdis), the use of a term for ‘boy’ in a syntactically restricted idiom for ‘son’ (boy, koáüros), the existence of a term used in the plural only (young, tékna: note that both can apply to &nimal offspring), the use of offspring terms in address to unrelated younger persons (son, child, tékos, téknon). and the lack of a term of address which is restricted to the speaker’s children. These shared features are certainly not universal, though they may result in some way from universal semantic tendencies. À comparative study of how various languages deal with the semantic domains ‘offspring’ and ‘young person’ might be instructive (along the lines of Ullmann 1963). Figure 1.1 summarizes the use of Homeric offspring words in terms of semantic dimensions (the table ignores uses described above as artificial poetic creations). Subscript numerals 1 and 2 refer, respectively, to kin and non-kin senses. The table is meant as a summary of usage rather than as a description of native cognition; moreover, it is somewhat misleading, since the age ranges of kouros, and pais, are probably different (see note 31).

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huiós + + +

CHILD-OF HUMAN MALE

TERMINOLOGY

— thugálér + + —

YOUNG HUMAN MALE YOUNGER HUMAN MALE

THAN

FiGunE

SPEAKER

OF

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koüros, koürdı + + + + + — koüros, ^ koüréà + + + + + — tékoss

téknons

+ + 0

+ + 0

GREEK

päisı + + 0 pars: + + 0

!ékos; + 0 0

ἰἱέκποπι + 0 0

1.1: Possible distinctive features of Homeric offepring terms.

1.3. Sibling. In referring to siblings, Homer uses (1) adelpheós ‘brother’, and (2) a family of words containing the stem kastgnét-: kasígnétos and autokastgnétos

‘brother’, kasignété and autokasignéte ‘sister’. Adelpheós occurs twenty times in Homer, and refers to a brother in all cases where the referent is a specific person (17 of 20 occurrences). The feminine

adelpheé ‘sister’ never occurs in Homer, probably by chance

(it is attested as

early as Sappho and Alkaios); adelpheé presents scansional difficulties in hexameter, especially in the oblique cases. Adelpheds is never used in address in Homer, but this too may be mere chance, since the vocative ddelphe is common later in address to a brother (e.g. Ar. Ra. 58). The etymological connection of adelpheds with delphüs ‘womb’ was already recognized in antiquity (e.g. Hesychios, s.v. adelphot, Arist. HA 510^13-14). Nevertheless, adelpheós is not confined to full brothers or to homometric half-brothers, either in Homer or later. Indeed, Homer never uses the word of homometric half-brothers, while it refers to homopatric half-brothers at Iliad 8.318, 13.695, and 15.334. Some have attributed the formation of adelpheós from delphüs ‘womb’ to influence from a matrilineal substratum (e.g. Kretschmer 1910, Autran 1938:332), but Gonda (1962) has shown from similar formations in other languages that adelpheós need have nothing to do with matrilineal influence (see also Hermann 1935: 101). Kastgnétos and autokastgnétos, together with their feminines in -2, are the more common way of referring to siblings in Homer (64 occurrences in all, in address as well as reference: e.g. Iliad 4.155). Autokastgnétos (-&), to judge from its use by Homer, is probably just a metrically convenient variant of kastgnétos (-é), found in verse-initial position only (so Lejeune 1960:20). The use of auto- is hard to parallel, but the older view, that this was the original form of the word (i.e. *auto-tekasi-gnétos ‘born of the same mother’) seems untenable (much literature in Frisk 1970). Kastgnétos is attested in Aeolic and is the regular word for ‘brother’ in Cyprian, but it is not found in Attic-Ionic prose in this sense, though Herodotos does use it in the sense “kinsman” (see below).** Apparently, kasígnétos, at least in the sense ‘brother’, is part of the Achaean or Aeolic stratum of the epic language: as Chantraine (1960:28) points out, kastgnétos is more likely to occur in fixed formulas than adelpheós, as we would expect if kastgnétos is from an older stratum. Like adelpheós, kastgnétos is not confined to full brothers, but applies

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to homopatric half-brothers at Iliad 3.333 and 20.419 (and to Aphrodite's homopatric half-brother Ares at Iliad 5.359). Its etymology is not certain.“® At Iliad 15.545-547, kastgnétos is applied not to a brother but to a cousin: Héktór dé kasignétoisi kéleuse pási mála, pröton d’ Hiketaonfden enénipen, iphthimon Melánippon. ‘Hektor urged on his kastgnétot, all of them (pási mdla); first he addressed strong Melanippos, son of Hiketaon'. Hiketaon is Priam's brother, and this makes Melanippos Hektor's cousin (his father's brother’s son).7 This passage has led scholars to the general opinion that kastgnétos includes first cousins as well as brothers.“ Many kinship systems use a single term for brothers and all male first cousins, and others use a single term for brothers and male parallel cousins only (parallel cousins are the children of same-sex siblings: e.g. father's brother's son, mother's sister’s son). PIE *bhräter, for example, has long been recognized as referring to at least parallel cousins, as well as brothers (cf. Latin frater). Such terms are said to refer to “‘classificatory brother." Odyssey 16.95-98 is possibly relevant here: Odysseus, in disguise, asks Telemachos the cause of his troubles. ‘Do you blame your kasígnéto?" he asks, “upon whom a man relies to fight on his behalf?" Telemachos replies that he does not blame his kastgnétot, for he has none; he continues (verses 117-120): hóde gar moünon mofinon moünon

hémetérén geneén moünöse Kroníón Laértén Arkefsios huión étikte, d’ aüt! Oduséa patér téken; autar Odusseüs ém’ en megároisi tekón lipen oud’ apónéto.

‘For Zeus has made our family to consist of a single line, thus: Arkeisios engendered Laertes as his only son, and (Odysseus’) father (Laertes) engendered Odysseus alone, and Odysseus, having engendered me alone in his halls left me behind and had no joy of me’. According to Glotz (1904:87), Telemachos mentions the fact that Arkeisios and Laertes each had only one son because their descendants (i.e. Telemachos’ first and second cousins) could have been his kastgnétoi, and Telemachos, in order to show himself to be without kasígnétoi, must point out his lack of first and second cousins as well as his lack of brothers. Odysseus had a sister (Ktimene: Odyssey 15.363); this passage suggests, therefore, that if kasígnétos is a classificatory term, it is applicable only to parallel cousins. On the other hand, the lines can be understood merely as a reference to the continuing infertility of Telemachos' family, of which his own lack of brothers is the latest example; the lines do not necessarily prove anything about the range of the term kastgnetos.5° Fundamentally, therefore, the applicability of kastgnétos to cousins depends on a single passage (Iliad 15.545-547), and it is for that reason suspect. Furthermore, there are several difficulties in interpreting kasígnétos as 'classificatory brother’. First, if kastgnétos is applicable to both cousins and brothers, it is odd that it should refer to a cousin only once. Of course, & person's brothers are more

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likely to be mentioned than his cousins, but anepsiós ‘cousin’ does occur five

times, while kasígnélos and its derivatives refer to siblings 33 times and only once clearly to à cousin. Furthermore, and perhaps more kastgnétos as if he felt it to be confined to brothers. are mentioned together with parents and children nuclear family.*' If kastgnétos were a classificatory pheós to be used in such passages. At Iliad 10.317,

important, Homer often uses In many passages, kasígnétoi as a natural group, i.e. the term, one would expect adelmoreover, Dolon is described

as motinos . . . mela pénte kasignétéisin ‘an only (son) with five kasignätai’. The poet surely means that Dolon had five sisters, not five female cousins and sisters: compare Iliad 19.293, where Briseis refers to her three brothers. But if kastgnétos does not mean ‘classificatory brother’, what is the explanation of Iliad 15.545-547, where it must refer to a cousin? Perhaps the best solution is to be found in a scholion on the passage, which states, tinés dé eti kai nün

par’ lósi ἰοὰβ sungeneis kasignétous phasi kaleisthai ‘some (sources?) say that kinsmen are still called kastgnétoz in Ionic’. Herodotos indeed uses kastgnétos twice in the sense ‘kinsman’. At 1.171, the Lydians, Mysians, and Carians are said to share the use of a temple because they are kasignétoi ‘kinsmen’; Herodotos describes their common descent. At 4.104, the Agathyrsi are said to practice promiscuous sexual intercourse so that they may all be kastgnétoi allélón ‘each others’ kinsmen’, thus avoiding quarrels. Evidently, kastgnétos has two senses in Homer: the Aeolic or Achaean sense ‘brother’ and the Ionic sense 'kinsman'.9 The scholiast’s statement about the Ionic use of kasígnétos may simply refer to the Herodotos passages cited above. On the other hand, the words kai nün ‘even now’ (presumably referring to the Hellenistic period) and the lack of a specific reference to Herodotos suggest that this use of kastgnétos occurred elsewhere in Ionic, either in Ionic technical literature or even in spoken Ionic (on the survival of Ionic, see Thumb and Scherer 1959: 243-244). Herodotos’ language is full of Homerisms, and this may be one of them (so Leumann 1950:307). At the very least, however, it shows that Herodotos thought that kastgnétos could have the sense ‘kinsman’ in Homer. Homer's use of pási mdla ‘all of them’ in verse 546 of the crucial passage is perhaps significant. This phrase recurs five times in Homer, always with strong emphasis on all-inclusiveness.® But Hektor does not literally call upon all of his kastgnétoi here: in fact, the only one he actually addresses is Melanippos. Apparently, Homer is using pási mála simply to call attention to the fact that he is using kasígnétoi in its wider sense ‘all of his kinsmen’, rather than just his brothers. There are a number of other passages where the meaning ‘kinsman’ gives good

sense for kastgnétos: for example,

Odyssey

8.585-586: ou mén ti kasignétoio

khereiön,gignetai hós ken hetairos edn pepnuména eid ‘whoever is a wise-hearted comrade is not a bit worse than a kastgnétos.’ Similarly, Iliad 24.793: ostéa leuka légonto kastgnétot th’ hétarot te ‘his kastgnétot and comrades gathered the white bones’. Likewise, Odyssey 15.273, perhaps Iliad 16.456=674. 1.4.1. Wife. Homer uses six words for ‘wife’: (1) dkoitis, (2) pardkoitis, (3) dlokhos, (4) guné, (5) ddmar, and (6) dar.5° None of these words is surely inherited

from PIE in this sense.** Guné is the only one which was current in later prose,

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and it may well have been the only term used by Homer and his audience in colloquial speech.” Guné can mean ‘woman’ as well as ‘wife’. One might ask whether it actually has the sense ‘wife’ in the Homeric language, or whether it is merely the word for ‘woman’ which we sometimes translate ‘wife’ because of the semantic structure of English. At Odyssey 1.433, however, Homer is surely using guné to specify that a woman is a wife, and not merely an adult female: eun&i d" οὐ pot’? émikto, khólon d' aléeine gunaikós ‘he never had intercourse with her (the slave Eurykleia), but avoided the anger of his wife’; almost as clear are Iliad 17.36, Odyssey

11.162. Guné, then, is clearly polysemous: it is ambiguous, rather than vague. Those occurrences of guné which are surely or probably tokens of guné ‘wife’ can be separated from those which are tokens of guné ‘woman’, without great difficulty. Out of 263 occurrences of guné, 58 probably call for the meaning ‘wife’.5® How do the six Homeric words for wife differ? Two suggestions have been made regarding semantic differences. First, dlokhos has been regarded as a term with particular associations of 'legitimacy"'.*" Chantraine (1947:225) suggests, further, that dkoitis and pardkoitis are affectionate terms. A careful examination of the passages where the terms occur indicates, rather, that dlokhos and guné (also, probably, dar and dámar) are simply kin terms, referring to the social and familial position ‘wife’, while dkoitis and pardkoitis, on the other hand, refer to the personal relationship between two people who happen to be man and wife. The passage usually cited to support the idea that dlokhos refers to legitimacy of a wife is Odyssey 14.199-204, where Odysseus tells a false story of his background. He says that his father had many sons who were gnösioi ez alókhou ‘legitimate, from an dlokhos’, but he himself was the son of an ónétt . . . meter pallakts ‘a bought (i.e. slave) mother, a concubine’. The dlokhos, it would seem, is the woman whose children are gnésioi ‘legitimate’. Alokhos, says Schmidt (1878: 407), is “ein Wort mit dem man die Frau ehrend und rümend hervorhebt als die im Hause waltende, als die Herrin des Gesindes und im Gegensatz gegen die Sklavinnen." But Homer does not restrict himself to the word dlokhos when he wishes to specify that a wife is legitimate: at Odyssey 1.433, guné is the legitimate wife in contrast to a slave, and at Iliad 9.449 an dkoitis is contrasted with a pallakts ‘concubine’. Dámar and dar are rare in Homer, but the legalistic connotations of dámar in later Greek suggest that its associations of legitimacy in Homer were at least as strong as those of the other terms.*! Actually, there are two Homeric passages which could be interpreted as evidence that dlokhos in fact had weaker, not stronger associations of legitimacy than the other terms. At Iliad 9.336, Achilleus refers to Briseis as his dlokhos (cf. verse 340).* Briseis’ status and the criteria for legitimacy of Homeric wives in general have been much discussed (e.g. Finley 1955:190, Lacey 1966). Briseis may not have been a legitimate wife of Achilleus; on the other hand, she may have been. Thus, this passage proves little one way or the other about dlokhos. At Iliad 21.498499, Hermes says to Leto: argaléon de plékttzesth’ alókhoisi Diós ‘it is hard to fight against the dlokhoi of Zeus’; cf. Hesiod, Theogony 886: Zeus de

theón basileüs prétén dlokhon théto M8tin ‘Zeus, king of the gods, made Metis his first dlokhos’. It would appear that Zeus had a number of dlokhoi. If dlokhos is a

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term with particularly strong associations of legitimacy, it is odd to find it used of Zeus’ secondary wives. In any case, dlokhos is not the specific Homeric term for "legitimate wife’, since all the wife terms apparently have this meaning. Chantraine's suggestion that dkoitis and parákoitis are affectionate or emotional terms is close to the truth but perhaps misleading. He cites several passages, but finding a particularly affectionate tone in a passage is subjective at best. Wives are naturally referred to in an affectionate way, and the passages Chantraine cites do not differ strikingly in emotional tone from similar contexts where other terms for ‘wife’ occur. More can be learned by examining, rather, the contexts where these two terms do not occur. A study of the distribution of ákoitis and parákoitis reveals that they are limited to contexts where Homer wishes to refer to the personal relationship between a man and his wife. The first restriction on the distribution of (par-)dkoitis is that it is used only of the wives of specific men, as Knebel (19552) points out. One never finds the kind of general references to wives which are common with the other terms. In fact, the term occurs in the plural only once (Odyssey 10.7), and it refers there to a specific group of wives (the six daughters of Aiolos). The restriction goes further than that, however. (Par-)ákoitis is not ordinarily used of wives whose husbands are dead. The exceptions are all in genealogical passages, where Homer seems to use the six terms interchangeably.“ Thus Andromache, for example, is called both dlokhos and dkoitis while Hektor is alive, but after his death she is called only dlokhos (Iliad 22.437, 24.36, 24.710; cf. Iliad 22.88). Homer often refers to the wife's duty of tending her husband's corpse (e.g. Iliad 7.80«22.343, Odyssey 24.294); the wife is always called dlokhos in such passages, never dkoitis or parákoitis. One very common role for wives in Homer is as persons to be captured in war or, conversely, to be defended from capture. In the Iliad, almost a third of the occurrences of dlokhos, guné, dámar, and dar fall into this category. But neither ákoitis nor parákoitis is ever used in such contexts. Clearly, the more personal sense of these two words was felt to be inappropriate to the role of the

wife as an object to be fought over (sometimes joined with ktémata ‘possessions’, as at Iliad 3.255). In phrases which refer to taking a wife, dkottis and pardkoitis are the terms generally used.® But when Homer refers to the possibility of one of the suitors making Penelope his wife, he does not use (par-)ákoitis: in such a marriage, her status as wife would have been more important than the personal relationship. At Odyssey 21.316, however, reference is made to the possibility of Odysseus (in disguise) stringing the bow and making Penelope his wife, and, perhaps significantly, dkoitis is the term used. To sum up, none of the Homeric terms for ‘wife’ has any associations of legitimacy absent from the others. Álokhos, guné, dámar, and dar are kin terms referring to the kin type ‘wife’ in terms of her position in the family. Akoitis and parákoitis, on the other hand, are not kin terms strictly speaking; they refer to the personal relationship between a man and a woman who happens to be his wife. As in the case of terms for offspring, however, metrical considerations sometimes override semantic ones: specifically, in the interchangeable use of all wife terms in genealogical passages. 1.4.2. Husband. Homer uses four terms for ‘husband’: anér, pósis, akottés, and parakottés. Of these, pósis and anér are the only ones inherited from PIE.%

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Anér is the regular word for ‘husband’ in post-Homeric Greek.” Anér is parallel to

guné in having the sense ‘man’ as well as the sense ‘husband’; the sense ‘husband’, however, is comparatively rare; Latacz (1955) cites only 17 places, out of several hundred, where anér has the meaning ‘husband’.® As in the case of the terms for ‘wife’, a distinction can be seen between simple kin terms (anér, pósis) and terms which have personal or emotional associations (akottés, parakotiés), but the nature of the difference is not the same as it is for the feminine terms. While the feminines dkoitis and parákoitis have associations with personal relationship (see previous section), the masculine terms seem to be simply emotionally charged words for ‘husband’. Note, for example, that in two of the five occurrences of the masculine terms, the akottés or parakottés is dead (Iliad 8.156, Odyssey 21.88); as pointed out above, the feminine (par-)ákoitis is used only of a relationship between living persons. Furthermore, at least two of the occurrences of (par-)akottés are in contexts which are highly emotional by any standards: Iliad 8.156 ("the Trojan wives whose parakoitai you have hurled down in the dust”), Iliad 6.430 (Andromache says that Hektor is her father, mother, brother, and parakoítés).

Anér and pósis do not seem to differ clearly in meaning. Schmidt (1878:396397), followed by Chantraine (1947:221), claims that pósis has an implication of legitimacy (Schmidt: “der Mann im legitimen Sinne"; Chantraine: "époux légitime"); cf. the traditional views on dlokhos discussed in the previous section. This view has ancient support: note, for example, the definition of Apollonios Sophistes (134.8): pósios . . . toà kata nómon andrós ‘pésis: the husband according to law’. Both Schmidt and Chantraine emphasize Sophokles, Tr. 550-551:

tat? oün phoboümai m? pósis men Héraklés/emés kalétai, t8s neotéras d’ anér ‘I fear Herakles may be called my pósis, but the younger woman's anér’ (Deianeira is speaking). Delbrück, on the other hand, denies the existence of any semantic distinction (at least in terms of legitimacy) between pósis and anér (1889: 423); he rejects the evidence of the Sophokles passage on textual grounds.5? In any case, the passage is not really relevant to Homer: an archaic word like pésis might well have had associations of legitimacy in the fifth century which it had not had in Homer. Chantraine (1947:221) calls &ttention to the use of kourtdios with pósis, but kourtdios also occurs with anér (Odyssey 19.266). 'The only clear difference in the use of these terms is that anér is often used in close proximity to guné, while pösis is typically used with dlokhos. This fact was

noticed already by Delbrück (1889:419-421). Álokhos and pósis occur together six times (Iliad 5.414, 6.240, 6.484, Odyssey 11.430, 23.181, 24.295); anér and guné five times (Odyssey 7.68, 6.184, 19.209, 23.1012169).” Anér and guné have certain features in common: (1) they are both the regular terms used in later Greek, and perhaps in Homer's daily speech, (2) they are the only terms used in address in Homer, and (3) both terms have the more general meaning ‘man’ or ‘woman’. These features may be sufficient to account for their constant association. But, as already seen, there is no clearcut difference in meaning visible between guné and dlokhos or between anér and pósis. If such a difference existed, it does not appear possible to discover it from the way the terms are used by Homer. 1.5.1. Grandparents. The only term for grandparents found in Homer is

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métropátór ‘mother’s father’ (once: Iliad 11.224). It is a regular genitival dependent noun-compound of a type which is very commonly used in later Greek for non-primary kinsmen, e.g. patrddelphos ‘father’s brother’. The other three compound words for grandparents occur later (matromdiér and patromdtér are found in Pindar, e.g. O. 6.84, P. 9.82, patropdtér in Lykophron), but they were presumably known to Homer. Métrométér is of course excluded from hexameter verse. These compound grandparent terms are not rare in later Greek, but they are confined to poetry for the most part. The regular Attic prose terms are

pdppos ‘grandfather’ and téthé ‘grandmother’. But the most usual Homeric expressions for grandparents are the descriptive

phrases patrós (emoio) patér ‘(my) father's father’ (Iliad 14.118, Odyssey 19.180), métrós patér ‘mother’s father’ (Odyssey 19.395, 24.334), métér . . . métrós ‘mother’s mother (Odyssey 19.416). The way these phrases are used suggests that they were a usual way of referring to grandparents in the traditional epic language, and not ad hoc creations of Homer: they participate in formulas which recur at fixed points in the line, such as line-initial patrós emoio palér, occurring twice. Neither páppos ‘grandfather’ nor téthé ‘grandmother’ is used by Homer: he always specifies the sex of the linking parent. This does not imply, however, that páppos and téhé were unknown to Homer, since in four of the six references to grandparents, the linking parent figures prominently in the context, and this would give sufficient reason for mentioning him specifically (Iliad 11.224, 14.118, Odyssey 19.180, 19.395). A series of terms for grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., is attested from post-Homeric sources: páppos ‘grandfather’, prépappos ‘great-grandfather’, ékpappos ‘great-great-grandfather’, pappeptpappos 'greatgreat-great-grandfather’, and írípappos ‘great-great-great-great-grandfather’. The similar Latin series has perhaps been borrowed from Greek, but Skt. prapitämaha ‘great-grandfather’ and OP apanydka ‘great-great-grandfather’ suggest that this method of referring to distant ascendants was a feature of PIE terminology and hence, by implication, known to Homer.” Prógonos, ‘ancestor’ in later Greek, occurs in Homer, but in the sense ‘earlyborn (lamb)' (Odyssey 9.221). 1.5.2.1. Grandchildren. Huiönds ‘grandson’ occurs four times in Homer (Iliad 2.666, 5.631, 13.207, Odyssey 24.515); all but the third of these are in the formula huiós huiónós te ‘son and grandson’ or its plural. The word is not found in Attic prose.’® It is clearly composed of huids ‘son’ plus the suffix -dnos (on this suffix, see Chantraine 1933: 207-208). The meaning of this rare suffix here is in doubt: the evidence is not sufficient to decide whether huiönds is (1) an endocentric formation, like grandson or French petit-fils, applicable to either son's son or daughter's son, or (2) an exocentric formation, like Attic Greek huidoás, applicable only to son's son. Schwyzer (1950:1.491) and Benveniste (1969: 168-169) favor the former. Schwyzer regards huiónós as a diminutive; Benveniste compares other words containing the suffix and concludes that it is an augmentative (cf. grandson). On the other hand, the suffix -ónos may also form exocentric derivatives (see Meid 1956:276). Note that the only other Homerie word which clearly contains this suffix is, indeed, a patronymic (Akrisióne, an epithet of Danae,

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the daughter of Akrisios, at Iliad 14.319). Huiönds refers to the son's son in all the Homeric passages (three out of four) where the exact relationship can be determined, but this is not a safe guide to the range of meaning of the term, since Homer refers to kinsmen traced through males much more often than those traced through females (cf. the use of anepsids ‘cousin’, discussed below). In addition to the single word huiönds, the epic language also employs various cases of the periphrasis ‘child’s child’: paidós paidt (Odyssey 19.404), patdón paides (Iliad 20.308), paída . . . thugatéros (Odyssey 19.400). Homer also uses the more general terms ékgonos and gónos ‘descendant’ (both common in later Greek). In Homer, these terms usually refer to sons or daughters, but ékgonos is applied to a great-grandson at Odyssey 15.225, gónoa to a great-grandson at Iliad 13.449. 1.5.2.2. népodes. The puzzling word népodes is probably an obsolete kinship term cognate with Latin nepos and meaning ‘grandchildren, descendants’. Népodes occurs only once in Homer, at Odyssey 4.404, where seals are described as népodes kalés halosidnés ‘népodes of beautiful halosidné’. Its occurrences in later authors such as Apollonios Rhodios (e.g. 4.1743) are surely Homeric reminiscences and do not imply that the word was in use in post-Homeric Greek. Indeed, it seems likely that the Homeric use itself results from the repetition of a formula that was no longer understood. The meaning and etymology of népodes (and of halostidné as well) were already a subject of controversy in antiquity, and the controversy has continued to the present day. The views of ancient authors and lexicographers on the meaning of népodes include ‘descendants’, ‘footless ones’, ‘swimming-footed ones’; references and discussion may be found in Frisk 1970:s.v. It would be pointless to list the numerous unconvincing hypotheses which have been advanced by modern scholars concerning the etymology and meaning of népodes. The only view that has gained any degree of acceptance is the one first proposed by Curtius (1879: 267): namely, that népodes is cognate with Latin nepotes ‘grandchildren’ but has been reshaped to fit the inflectional model of pois ‘foot’.”* Those who accept this hypothesis translate népodes as ‘offspring’ or ‘descendants’ and regard

népodes kalés halosüdnes as therefore equivalent to the epithet haliotrephés ‘sea-nurtured’, applied to seals at Odyssey 4.442. Jessen (1912) compares Odyssey 5.422, of whales, hoid te pollà tréphei klutós Amphitrité ‘the sort of things that glorious Amphitrite nurtures in abundance’. At Odyssey 4.404, therefore, halosüdné, as the name of an otherwise unidentified sea-goddess (corresponding to Amphitrite) will have little more meaning than simply ‘sea’, and népodes kalés halosüdnés will mean something like ‘offspring of the sea’.

1.6.1. Uncles and aunts. For ‘mother’s brother’, Homer uses métrüs (Iliad 2.662 and 16.717); for ‘father’s brother’, however, he uses not pátrós but patrokastgnétos (Iliad 21.469, Odyssey 6.330 and 13.342). His use of these terms, however, illustrates the inadequacy of our documentation and the danger of arguments based on the absence of terms from the poems, because Homer almost certainly was familiar with the term pdirös ‘father’s brother’. Pátrós has cognates in other Indo-European languages, while métrds lacks such cognates and is probably a Greek creation modeled on pdirös (Delbrück 1889: 486, Benveniste

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1969: 230-231). Pdtrös continued in use after Homer, and its absence from the Iliad and Odyssey must therefore be due to chance. In later Greek, métrós can have the more general sense ‘male relative on the mother's side’, in Pindar, for example (O. 9.63: see Delbrück 1889:486), the Gortyn code (e.g. 8.52: Guarducci 1950:165 translates "materni propinqui"), and Euripides (HF 43). This may have been its meaning in Homer as well, to judge from Odyssey 19.410, where reference is made to Odysseus’ métróion

... dóma ‘house pertaining to the métrós (or métrées)’. The house in question is that of Autolykos (Odysseus! mother's father) and his family, i.e. the house of Odysseus’ maternal kinsmen (on this passage, see Frisk 1970:s.v. métrés). Similarly, pátrós occurs after Homer in the sense *male relative on the father's side’ (references in Delbrück 1889:485). Homer uses no terms for aunts; patrokasígnétos suggests the existence of its feminine patrokasignété, but see the discussion of compounds in section 2.2. Homer does not use the terms theios ‘uncle’ and téthts ‘aunt’, but they were probably known to him. The similar terms in Slavic (see section 3.3) and the fact that the terms do not fit the -0s/-é pattern characteristic of Greek innovations (section 2.2) strongly suggest that theios and téthís are not post-Homeric creations. 1.6.2. Nephews and nieces. Homer never refers to nephews or nieces, either by single words or by genitival descriptive phrases. Later Greek uses the compounds adelphidéos (-oüs) ‘sibling’s son’, adelphidéé (-2) 'sibling's daughter’ and adelphópais ‘sibling’s child’. Adelphidéos is attested as early as Alkman and may well have been known to Homer. 1.7. Collaterals. The only term Homer uses for collaterals is anepsiós ‘cousin’ (five times: Iliad 9.464, 10.519, 15.422, 15.554, 16.573; never in the Odyssey); it continues in use in later prose and poetry. The feminine anepsid is first citable from Xenophon, no doubt by chance, since anepsiös itself is not a common word. In only two of the Homeric occurrences is it possible to determine the exact relationship involved, and in both cases the reference is to the father's brother's son (Iliad 15.422, 15.554). The same is true of the two uses in Pindar (N. 3.63, P. 4.127) and the single use of the word in Aischylos (Pr. 856). But it is most likely that this restriction is simply the result of the nature of Greek heroic genealogies, which primarily record descent through males. Herodotos first applies the word to historical persons, and he does not confine it to parallel cousins.?5 In Attic Greek, anepsids is not a general term for a wide variety of collaterals (like English cousin) but is limited to first cousins of the same generation as ego. This is clear from the careful distinction made between anepsiós and anepsiadoüs ‘son of an anepsiós!, especially in the Attic orators. The Athenian inheritance law provided for inheritance mékhri anepsidn patdén ‘up to the children of cousins', and the orators interpret this very strictly as ‘children of first cousins'7* The scholia and lexicographers, as well, define anepsioí in the narrow sense ‘same-generation first cousins’ (e.g. Hesychios: anepsiot: adelphón hutot ‘anepsiot: sons of siblings’). There is no evidence that anepsiös in Homer had any wider applicability than it did in later Greek; his use of it is perfectly con-

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(affine'a consanguineals): wife's father

wife's mother

husband's father

husband's mother

pentherós

(pentheré)

hekurós

hekuré

Iliad 3.172, 24.770

Iliad 22.451, 24.770

Iliad 6.170

CA

OF

wife's brother

wife's sister

husband's brother

husband's Sister

unknown

unknown

daér

gáloos

Iliad 6.344 and 5 other passages

Iliad 3.122 and 4 other passages

(consanguineal’s affines) : sister’s husband (ego male) gambrös Iliad 5.474 and 2 other passages

sister’s husband (ego female) (gambrós)

brother’s wife (ego male) nuós? Iliad 3.49 (?)

brother’s wife (ego female) (nuós?)

daughter's husband (ego male) gambrös Iliad 9.142 and 11 other passages

daughter's husband (ego female) (gambrós)

son's wife (ego male) nuós Iliad 24.166 and 2 other passages

son’s wife (ego female) (nuós)

Ficure 1.2: Homeric terms for two-step affines. The passages cited are only those where the reference of a term to a particular kin-type is certain.

sistent with the sense ‘same-generation first cousin'. This meaning is also supported by its etymology. Anepsids is usually etymologized as ''co-nephew" (e.g. Benveniste 1969:234); for the element a-, cf. dlokhos, dkoitis, etc., But “cograndchild” is surely to be preferred as the original meaning of anepsids, since PIE *nepot- probably included all grandchildren but not all types of nephews (on the term, see section 3.2). 1.8. Affines. Figure 1.2 lists the sixteen types of two-step affinal kin, together with the terms applied to them in the epic language. A term in parenthesis is not actually applied by Homer to the kin type in question, and a term accompanied by a question mark is only probable; the applicability of these terms will be defended below. This section is concerned only with the denotation of the terms in Homer: later uses and Indo-European cognates are considered only when they help to fix a word's denotation in Homer. On the historical development. of these terms, see sections 2.1 and 3.2. In addition to the terms in the table, one three-step affinal term occurs in Homer: eindter, glossed by the scholia as *husband's brother’s wife’ (e.g. the A scholion at Iliad 22.473; see Delbrück 1889:521). In none of its four Homeric occurrences is the referent absolutely certain (Iliad 6.378, 6.383, 22.473, 24.769),

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and the term is not found after Homer except in the late inscriptions cited below, section 2.1, note 2. There is no reason, however, to doubt the scholiast’s definition: note Helen’s words at Iliad 24.768-770: tis . . . daérón & galdin 2 einatérin ... € hekuré ‘one of my husband's brothers or (one) of my husband's sisters or (one) of my einatéres or my husband's mother’. The definition ‘husband’s brother’s wife’ agrees, moreover, with the meaning of cognate words in other Indo-European languages (e.g. Skt. ydtar). No specific terms are used by Homer for other three-step affines, such as the spouses of nephews and nieces, etc. There is some evidence, however, that gambrós and nuós could be applied to certain three-step affines (see next section). 1.8.1. CA types (consanguineal's affine). The types ‘daughter’s husband’ (gambrós) and 'son's wife’ (nuós) present few problems. In Homer, gambrós is never used of & female ego's daughter's husband, as pointed out by Delbrück (1889: 522). Omaha systems, and other types as well, often use different terms for certain kinsmen, depending on whether ego is male or female, but the daughter’s husband is typically not one of these kin types; PIE probably did not

distinguish between the daughter's husband of a male and of a female ego. Moreover, gambrös is already used of a female ego’s daughter's husband in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (84), and it seems safe to conclude that gambrós and nuós are applicable, in the epic language, to the daughter's husband and son's wife of both male and female ego. The reason Homer uses them only of male ego is no doubt the greater frequency with which he refers to males. Gambrés also refers to the sister's husband (in Homer, attested only for male ego, but of female ego already at Pindar, N. 5.37). Three post-Homeric passages suggest that the application of gambrós to the daughter's husband and the sister's husband is merely a special case of its general meaning ‘CA, male’. Pindar (J. 6.24) refers to Peleus as eudatmén gambrös then ‘blessed gambrós of the gods’, by reason of his marriage to the sea goddess Thetis. Euripides (fr. 781.27-31 Nauck) imitates that passage, using gambrós in the same way. Herodotos (7.189) reports that the Athenians, being advised by an oracle to invoke the aid of their gambrós, called upon Boreas, who had married an Áthenian woman. In each of these cases, a man becomes a gambrós of & group of related individuals by marrying one of them: i.e. by becoming a consanguineal’s affine to each of them.” Can nuós refer to the brother's wife (and possibly other CA types) as well as the son's wife? There are no unambiguous examples of this use, but this is perhaps due to the rarity of the term (it never occurs in Attic tragedy, for example). On the other hand, I have found no passage where any other single term is applied to the brother’s wife, and there is also a certain amount of positive evidence which suggests that nuós is not only applicable to the brother's wife but is a general term for female CA-type affines, parallel to gambrós. First, Apollonios Sophistes defines nuós as hé gegaméméné lois to gamésantos oiketois ‘the married woman, to her husband's kinsmen’: that is, ‘CA, female’. Note also Iliad 3.49, where Hektor reproaches Paris for bringing troubles on Troy by abducting Helen, on the grounds that she is nuón andrón aikhméetáon ‘the nuós of spearmen'. But the only Greek of whom Helen is the son's wife is

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Atreus, and he is presumably not in question here: the point of the reproach is that the spearmen are at Troy fighting for their nuós. Various attempts to explain the use of nuós here have been made by both ancient and modern scholars. LSJ attempt to maintain the meaning 'son's wife’, translating “daughter-bymarriage of the race of which her husband is a son," evidently on the model of huies Akhaión ‘sons of the Achaians’, etc. This interpretation is unsatisfactory, however: such phrases as huies Akhaidn are always plural; no individual is referred to as a huids (or koüros) of any ethnic group. Nor are any men called "sons of spearmen”, and Helen was a Greek in her own right. Most modern scholars agree that nuós cannot here mean specifically ‘daughter-in-law’ but has the sense ‘brother’s wife’, evidently with the plural andrön aikhmétáon used loosely for the singular, in reference to Menelaos’ brother Agamemnon."* The use of the plural is difficult, though not impossible to parallel (see Chantraine 1958:32-33). If nuós is a general term for female CA-type affines, however, the plural is no problem; cf. Mazon's translation (1949:71): “entrée déjà en jeune mariée dans une famille guerriere.” The Indo-European cognates of nuós (Skt. snusa, Lat. nurus, etc.) do not regularly refer to the brother's wife. On the other hand, Lat. nurus is applicable to the wife of a grandson; this is consistent with an originally broader meaning ‘CA, female’. Several Indo-European languages, moreover, merge the son's wife and brother's wife, though not using terms cognate with nuós: e.g. common Slavic *nevést(k)a (Friedrich 1966:13), Skt. vadhi ‘CA, female’ (originally ‘bride’: cf. nuds ‘bride’ in Doric Greek, e.g. Theokritos 18.15). In short, it is probable that gambrés and nués are parallel, denoting, respectively, male and female affines of the CA type. 1.8.2. AC types (affine’s consanguineal). Terms for the husband’s kinsmen are

clear enough: hekurós ‘husband’s father’, hekuré ‘husband’s mother’, daér ‘husband’s brother’, and gdloös ‘husband’s sister’. Terms for the wife's kinsmen are much less well-attested, however. This results from the content of the poems, since occasions rarely arise for such kinsmen to be referred to. The terms for the husband’s kinsmen are used only of members of Priam’s patrilocal family, and no corresponding matrilocal family exists to provide a context for wifelinked terms. Pentherós is apparently the term for the wife's father, though this meaning is required only in one passage (Iliad 6.170). Even here, the information on the relationship comes not from Homer himself but from the scholia. Nevertheless, there is no reason to seriously doubt the applicability of pentherós to the wife's father; it 1s the regular term for this kin type in later Greek, and survives in this sense even in modern Greek. Pentherd (Ionic pentheré) ‘wife’s mother’ does not occur in Homer (in fact, the earliest use of the term that I have found is at Demosthenes 45.70), but it most probably was known to Homer. Note that it is metrically inconvenient in hexameter. The wife's brother and the wife's sister are never referred to by kin terms in Homer, and the epic terms, if any, for these kinsmen cannot be certainly determined. It would not be safe to conclude that no terms were in use: note that

laér and gáloos would not be citable were it not for the family of Priam. A term

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hekuré

FiGunE

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III

unknown unknown pentherós pentheré Possible

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I + 1 +

galoös hekurös

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affinal

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for ‘wives’ sisters’ husbands’, variously spelled as aélioi, aílioi, atélioi, and ailtones, is cited by lexicographers and commentators (e.g. Hesychios; see Frisk 1970:s.v. a&lior). This three-step term suggests the possible existence of a twostep term based on the same stem but not found in the Homeric text. On the other hand, the Draconic homicide law seems to use pentherós in the general sense ‘AC, male’, including wife’s brother as well as wife’s father (for the text see Stroud 1968:5). According to this law, the prosecution of murder is entrusted to the murdered man’s close blood kin, to his gambrot and pentherot, and to the members of his phratry. Apparently, gambrot and pentherof are intended as an exhaustive listing of affines, CA and AC respectively, in lieu of the general term kédestés, which is not attested before the late fifth century (see Broadbent 1968:131). Compare the similar joining of gambrot and pentherot in a Delphian decree of ca. 400 B.C. (Schwyzer 323C45). Affinal terms changed considerably between Homer and fifth century Athens, however (see section 2.1), and there is no reason to suppose that the affınal terminology of these laws is identical with Homeric usage. Figure 1.8 summarizes the semantic dimensions of the two-step Homeric affinal terms. It must be emphasized that this table is an example of componential analysis only in its weaker form. No claim is made that these dimensions necessarily correspond to cognitive reality. 1.9. Step-kin. The only Homeric term for step-kin is métruié ‘step-mother’ (three occurrences: Iliad 5.389, 13.697=15.336). The term has Indo-European cognates and continues in common use later. The hostile relations between a step-mother and her step-son seem to be hinted at in Iliad 5.385-390; they are proverbial in Hesiod and later (e.g. Erga 825). 1.10. General terms for kin. This category includes (1.10.1) gnótós, probably 'kinsman', (1.10.2) péós, perhaps 'kinsman living outside ego’s household’, (1.10.3) &és, perhaps ‘kinsman living in ego's household’, and (1.10.4) a number of terms with an originally abstract meaning (‘birth’, ‘ancestry’, etc.) sometimes used to refer to kinsmen. In addition to the general terms discussed below, the word kheröstös occurs once in Homer (Iliad 5.158), apparently in the sense ‘distant kinsman who shares the property of a man dying without issue’. 1.10.1. gnótós. This word is used as a kin term seven times in Homer (in the Iliad only); the feminine gnoté occurs once (Iliad 15.350)? Occurrences in later

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literature (e.g. Apollonios Rhodios) and late inscriptions (e.g. MAMA 7.230.3-4) are clearly Homeric imitations. Gnótós is glossed by Hesychios and others as adelphós *brother'.? On the other hand, it has etymological connections with words having the more general sense ‘kinsman’ (see Pokorny 1959:374). This leads one to suspect that the lexicographers and commentators were misled by the fact that in those cases (two out of seven) where the exact relationship can be discovered, the gnótós is a brother.?! Unfortunately, the meanings ‘brother’ and 'kinsman' fit equally well in all of the Homeric passages where the word occurs, including those where the reference happens to be to & brother. It is perhaps noteworthy that gnótós occurs four times in contexts dealing with blood vengeance (Iliad 13.697, 14.485, 15.336, 17.35), once in reference to preparation of the dead for burial (Iliad 15.350), once in a context explicitly concerned with mutual assistance from kinsmen (Iliad 22.234). The gnótós was clearly conceived of primarily in terms of his social interaction with ego, but beyond that it is not possible to go. 1.10.2. péós. The occurrences of this word in ancient literature are as follows: (1) At Iliad 3.163, Priam invites Helen to look from the walls of Troy, óphra {dei próterón te pósin peoüs te philous te ‘to see your former husband and (your) péot and dear ones’. (2) At Odyssey 8.581-582, Alkinoos asks Odysseus: @ tts tot kai peós apéphthito Iliöthi pró esthlós eón, gambrós ἃ pentherós ... ‘did some péós of yours die before Ilion, a good man, a gambrós (i.e. son-in-law or sister’s husband) or pentherós (father-in-law)?’ (3) At Odyssey 10.441, Odysseus almost kills Eurylochos, kat pé& per eónti mála skhedén ‘even though he was a very close péds’. The scholia tell us that Eurylochos was the husband of Odysseus’ sister Ktimene (she is mentioned at Odyssey 15.363, though not as the wife of Eurylochos). (4) At Odyssey 23.120, Odysseus says that a murderer phetiger péoüs te prolipön kai patrída gaian ‘flees, leaving behind his péot and his native land’. (5) Hesiod (Erga 343-345) says: tón dé málista kalein, hós tis séthen engüthi nafei ei gár toi Καὶ khrém’ enkhórion állo génétai, geítones Ázóstoi ékion, zósanto dé péof. ‘in particular, call (to dinner) the person who lives near you; if some trouble arises at your place, neighbors come ungirt, péot gird themselves’: i.e. neighbors do not stop to make preparations (see Evelyn-White 1936: 29). (6) The form paótheís, evidently from the verb paóó, occurs at Alkaios fr. D 12.6 Lobel-Page. The context implies that paötheis means ‘having been made an affine’, and hence that pads (Aeolic for péós) means ‘affine’ (Page 1955:235236). Paós was not necessarily alive in spoken Greek at the time of Alkaios: it may be one of his many borrowings from Homeric vocabulary. (7) Péós occurs in Hellenistic authors and late inscriptions (Nikandros, Theokritos; the derivative péosüné ‘peös-hood’ in Apollonios Rhodios). These uses presumably are antiquarian revivals of a Homeric word, and they will not be considered as evidence in the discussion below.* (8) In Doric Greek, paós apparently is an abstract term ‘kindred’, perhaps

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‘descent group’. Hesychios, for example, cites as Laconian a word ραδίαϊ (Attic *peDtai), which he glosses as ‘kinsmen’. The suffix -iés is always exocentric and has the meaning '(someone or something) belonging to' (Schwyzer 1950: 1.500; cf. stratiótés, stasiótés, etc.). This requires that at the time the derivative paótas was formed, pads must have meant something like ‘kindred’. This meaning for paós in Doric is confirmed by Doric compound names based on the word (on these, see Ahrens 1843:143). Eupaidas, for example, is parallel to Attic Euphylos (literally ‘having a good tribe"). Most ancient and modern scholars interpret péós (outside Doric) as ‘affine’.*? This meaning seems to be required by passages (2) and (6); it is the most natural interpretation of (1) and (3); and it is at least possible in (5). It does not fit passage (4) at all, however. The only way of interpreting péós as 'affine' there is to assume that all the murderer's blood kinsmen accompanied him into exile, and this explanation is far from convincing. Gernet (1937b) maintains that péós means 'kinsman'. His chief argument is the proposed etymological connection with Latin paricida, evidently originally 'slayer of a kinsman', presumably not 'slayer of an affine’. This etymology (first proposed in Froehde 1884: 164) is far from certain, however. It is supported by Londres da Nóbrega (1950) but is rejected both by Ernout-Meillet (1959) and Frisk (1970). Even if the etymology is correct, the word's meaning might have changed before the time of Homer.* The meaning ‘kinsman’ fits passages (4) and (5) fairly well; Alkaios’ use (6) might be based on a misunderstanding of passage (2); and Gernet rejects the scholiast’s information about Eurylochos at passage (3). Passages (1) and (2) are more troublesome, however. Gernet is forced to conclude that Odyssey 8.582 is an interpolation, and he adopts a rather forced interpretation of passage (1): he would translate ‘to see your former husband and his kinsmen and dear ones’. A meaning for péós which gives fairly good sense in all the Homeric and Hesiodic passages is ‘kinsman living at a distance’, ‘kinsman outside ego’s household’. This seems to be the view expressed in a scholion at Odyssey 23.120, which glosses péous as tous pórrothen sungeneis ‘kinsmen living at a distance’ (though it is possible that the scholiast simply means ‘distant kinsmen’ in the English sense; see LSJ s.v. prósothen). At passage (1), the phtlous will presumably be the kinsmen formerly living with Helen, the péot those outside her household: cf. Benveniste 1969:345: "le nom de pAílos est étendu aux proches vivant au méme foyer que le maitre de maison". At passage (4), the murderer will leave behind all those not in his household.** Étes may originally have meant ‘kinsman living in ego's household’ (see next section), and péós would thus be complementary to éés. In view of the limited evidence, however, the sense ‘kinsman outside ego’s household' for péós is little more than a reasonable guess. 1.10.3. étés. This term clearly refers to a person with some sort of solidarity relationship to ego, but the precise nature of this relationship is not certain. The Homeric occurrences of éés (always in the plural, éaz) are: (1) Iliad 6.239-240: the Trojan women ask Hektor for news of their paídas

te kasignétous te élas te/kai pósias ‘children and kastgnétoi (either ‘brothers’ or ‘kinsmen’) and &ai and husbands’.

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(2) Iliad 6.262: Hekabe says to Hektor: kékmékas amünön soisin étéisi ‘you have become tired, defending your éta?'. (3) Iliad 7.294-295: Hektor calls on Aias to end their duel: hös sti t' eüphréneis pántas para néusin Akhaiots, soüs te málista étas kal hetaírous hof toi éasi, according to the usual interpretation, ‘that you may cause all the Greeks by the ships to rejoice, and especially (mdlista) your &ai and comrades whom you have (hot toi éasi, literally ‘who are to you’)’. (4) Iliad 9.464: after a quarrel with his father, Phoinix is prevented from leaving home, being surrounded by &ai kai anepsiot ‘étai and cousins’. (5) and (6) Iliad 16.456-674: Sarpedon’s body is to be conveyed to his home in Lykia, éntha he tarkhüsousi kastgnétot te étai te ‘where his kastgnétoi (‘brothers’ or ‘kinsmen’) and étai will perform funeral rites for him’. (7) Odyssey 4.3: Telemachos finds Menelaos holding a wedding feast for polloisin ééisin ‘many étav’. (8) Odyssey 4.16: the gettones (neighbors) and &ai of Menelaos feast (cf. the preceding passage). (9) Odyssey 15.273: Theoklymenos has killed a man who is émphulos (‘in his own tribe’) and he is pursued by polloi . . . kastgnétot te étai te ‘many brothers (kinsmen?) and éaz’ (presumably of the murdered man). The occurrences of &és in post-Homeric Greek are either Homeric reminiscences or are examples of a different sense of the word, namely ‘private citizen’, which is not uncommon in West Greek but is absent from Attic-Ionic prose.99 Ancient scholars generally regarded &2s in Homer as the equivalent of hetatros ‘friend, comrade’. This meaning, however, seems hardly consistent with passage (3), where &az and hetairoi are spoken of as two different things; Aristarchos was compelled to athetize the line on the grounds of dilogta ‘tautology’. Furthermore, as Andrewes (1961:135) points out, the rarely-mentioned &ai seem to be more specialized than the ubiquitous hetatrot. Stagakis (1968) has attempted to resurrect the ancient opinion that éés and hetairos are synonyms, both meaning ‘comrade’; his argument is ingenious but unsound. Stagakis’ view is based on passage (3). As he correctly points out, any Greek could be called a hetatros of Aias; the term often refers to co-members of the entire Greek army. He concludes that hetatrous here includes all the Greeks, and he therefore rejects the usual translation of the passage (given above) on the grounds that it is illogical: it does not make sense to say “the Greeks and especially your fellow-Greeks.” Accordingly, he takes as and hetatrous in apposition to Akhaioüs and translates (1968:396): “that you may comfort all (the) Achaeans by (the) ships (i.e. by your safe return to them) (some of) your éaz or hetairot who are verily yours." The fallacy here, however, is that hetairos can also have a narrower sense ‘close comrade’, especially ‘member of one's own regional contingent’, as at Iliad 1.179-183, where the hetaíroi of Agamemnon and those of Achilles are contrasted (cf. the use of English comrade: all the Greeks were Agamemnon’s comrades in a broad sense, but he could also speak of his own comrades as distinct from those of Achilles). Stagakis objects to this in-

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terpretation of Iliad 1.179-183 by citing additional passages where hetaíros refers to co-members of the entire Greek army, but he does not show that hetatros must have this sense: only that it can. A still more serious objection to Stagakis' argument is that his proposed translation is impossible for at least two reasons. First, it is inconsistent with the Homeric use of mdlista ‘especially’. Stagakis does not explicitly say how he interprets mdlista here, but to judge from his translation, he either regards it as otiose or links it, despite the word order, to the relative clause hot tor éasi, and gives it the sense ‘verily’. Neither of these suits the Homeric use of mdlista, however. In all 61 of its occurrences in the Iliad, it has the emphatic sense ‘especially, most of all, contrasting two items; the first five occurrences are typical of its contexts (Iliad 1.16, 1.175, 1.375, 2.21, 2.57). In a few places, the meaning ‘indeed, verily’ superficially seems possible (e.g. Iliad 2.589, 8.500, 17.286), but in all places, the meaning 'especially, most of all’ gives far better sense (see also Ebeling 1885). In passage (3), mdlista clearly contrasts the Greeks in general with Aias' &as and hetafrous, who will be especially pleased at his survival. Second, the words te... kat cause difficulty for Stagakis’ interpretation. He denies that the words mean ‘and’ here; in his view, they “function as an alternative." But he cites no passages where le. . . kat joins two nouns which have exactly the same referential meaning, nor does Ebeling (1885), and to my knowledge, there are no such passages. Homer clearly did not consider éés and hetaíros to be synonyms. Most modern scholars have tended, rather, to define &ai in terms of kinship, regarding it as a general term for kin: e.g. Buchholz (1883:37, with references to earlier views), Schrader (1905:21), who restricts it to more distant kin, and Bechtel (1914:143). Some attempts have been made to define éfaz more precisely. Glotz (1904:87-90) maintains that état refer to co-members of descent groups similar to the historical phratries, based on fictional (i.e. not traceable) common descent. According to Glotz, éta? and hetaíroi both refer to co-members of these descent groups, étai being associated with civilian contexts, hetaírot with military (including naval) contexts.5 But Andrewes (1961:134-135) demolishes Glotz’s claim that &ai and hetaíroi show a significant similarity of distribution. Moreover, helairoi do not necessarily have anything to do with kinship, real or fictitious, as has often been pointed out (Kakridis 1963: 52-59, Stagakis 1966, with literature). Hetaíroi can refer, in the Iliad, to members of the same contingent, or, in the Odyssey, to members of the same crew, but this use is clearly not based on any supposed ties of common descent, since helairos can refer to comembers of the entire Greek or Trojan army, as at Iliad 12.49-50 and many other passages (see Kakridis 1963:56-58). The term hetaíros refers to a common enterprise, not a common descent. Latte (1931:34-35) maintains that éaz refer to kinsmen by marriage. He argues chiefly from passage (1). The Trojan women, he reasons, are asking about all those related to them (both consanguineal and affinal kin); he interprets kasignöloi here as having its broader sense '(blood) kinsmen’ and concludes that the only possibility left for état is ‘kinsmen by marriage'. But this meaning does not fit the other passages very well, especially (3). Moreover, the logic of Homeric phrases containing fe or kat ‘and’ cannot be pressed too far. Note, for example, Odyssey 13.192: dlokhos . . . astot te phíloi te (Odysseus!) wife and

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townsmen and dear ones’, where the phíloi are presumably also astoí and the dlokhos is both astés and phtlos (cf. Iliad 3.163 and many other similar uses). All we can conclude about two items joined by ‘and’ in Homer is that they are not exact synonyms.

Miller (1953:47) defines &ai as ‘paternal relatives’ as opposed to kasignätoi ‘maternal relatives’. This view, however, is based on her demonstrably false theory of matrilineal kin groups in Homer (see Appendix); passages (1), (5), (6), and (9) might seem, at first glance, to support it, but kastgnétoi certainly does not mean ‘maternal relatives’ (see section 1.3). Trypanis (1963: 296) suggests that éfaz may refer to co-members of the extended family: i.e. of a group based on residence as well as kinship. The etymology of é&és tends to confirm Trypanis’ suggestion. The element *swe- probably had special reference to the extended family in PIE (see Mezger 1948: 98-99, Szemerényi 1956, with literature). Éts may thus be, etymologically, ‘member of the extended family’ (on the suffix -tés, see Schwyzer 1950:1.500). The idea that éta? are defined in terms of residence as well as kinship is also supported by passage (8), where éfa? are contrasted with gettones ‘neighbors’. This explanation of éés is consistent with the West Greek use of the word in the sense ‘citizen’: the change in meaning from ‘member of household’ to *member of community’ will reflect a change in the type of solidarity group considered most important, namely extended family or polis. On the other hand, it may well be that &és is a "gloss", a word whose precise original meaning was no longer remembered at the time when the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. Homer often seems to use &és as if it meant, to him, simply some sort of solidarity group the exact nature of which had been forgotten. Étai appear only in contexts of conventional solidarity: they are involved in blood feuds and family quarrels (passages 4, 9), funerals (5, 6), and defense and mutual concern (1, 2, 3), and they get invited to marriage banquets (7, 8), but they never participate directly in the action of the poems. Etai are especially likely to be offstage, either in stories of the past (4, 9) or in far-off Lykia (5, 6), and when present, they stay in the background. Note Iliad 24.793, referring to Hektor’s funeral: ostéa leuka légonto kastgnétot th’ hétarot te ‘(Hektor’s) brothers (kinsmen?) and companions gathered his white bones’. Hektor had &ai at Troy (passage 2), kastgnétoi and &ai are typically involved in funerals, and Homer had the convenient phrase kasígnétot te état te for describing such a scene. But here, the persons conducting the funeral are in the foreground: their actions are described in detail in the next lines. It would seem that &ai are too shadowy to appear in such a scene, and they are replaced in the formula by hétarot. Homer is suspiciously vague about just who is or is not an éés: in none of the passages does the context permit us to conclude that any particular person is an étés of anyone else. The vagueness of the passages where it appears is such that étés could refer to almost any sort of solidarity group (even the sense ‘fellow citizen! will make some sense in all passages). But none of the meanings suggested makes perfect sense in all passages. The way Homer uses éés suggests that the word retained for him only a general idea of solidarity somehow more specific than the general comradeship of a hetairos. 1.10.4. Abstract terms. This group of terms includes geneé, genéthle, génos,

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haima, and tékos (some of these also have other senses not directly related to kinship, e.g. ‘age’, ‘generation’, ‘birth’; hatma usually refers literally to blood).5? When they refer to kinship relations, three uses of the terms can bedistinguished: (1) abstract (‘kinship’, ‘ancestry’), e.g. Iliad 5.896: ek gar emeü génos esst ‘you are (sprung) from me by génos’; (2) collective (‘kindred; kinsmen, ancestors, descendants, considered as a whole’), e.g. Iliad 20.306: Pridmou genetn ékhthére Kroniön ‘Zeus hated the

geneé of Priam’; (3) individual (‘kinsman’, ‘descendant’), e.g. Iliad 19.124, where Here, speaking to Zeus, refers to Eurustheüs..... son génos ‘Eurystheus... your génos’. In most cases, the relationship referred to is a lineal one: ancestry or descent. À few passages, however, indicate that the terms also include collateral kinship,

e.g. Iliad 14.472-474: eídetai . . . kasígnétos Anténoros .. . ἃ pdis, auldi gar geneen dnkhista eöikei ‘he looks like the brother or son of Antenor, for he appears

very close to the man himself in geneé; cf. Odyssey 8.583. Note also Iliad 20.219241, where Aineias gives his genealogy, including a collateral line, and concludes with the words tavités toi geneés te kai hatmatos eükhomai einai ‘I am of that

geneé and haima’. 1.11. Terms used in address only. In the Homeric poems there occur a number of words which are used only in direct address. Some of these terms clearly have nothing to do with kinship, e.g. daimönie (see Brunius-Nilsson 1955). Others are clearly terms of address for particular kin types, e.g. pdppa ‘daddy’. Others resemble words which are kin terms in later Greek or in other Indo-European languages, but do not appear to be used as terms of kin address in Homer, e.g. dita, maia. This section will deal with words of the latter two types. The term páppa occurs only once in Homer: Nausikaa addresses her father Alkinoos as páppa phíle ‘dear daddy’ (Odyssey 6.57). It is not uncommon in later Greek, however, as a pet name for the father, in address and occasionally in reference.?? Páppa is one of a number of words, in both Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages, which are based on infantile syllables with labial articulation.?! Atta occurs eight times in Homer.” All six occurrences in the Odyssey are addressed to Eumaios by Telemachos (e.g. 16.31); the two occurrences in the Iliad are addressed to Phoinix by Achilleus (Iliad 9.607) and Menelaos (Iliad 17.561). Telemachos addresses a number of men who are older than he is (Mentes, Nestor, etc.) but never calls them dita. Apparently, dita is not applicable to any older man but is confined to those with whom the speaker is on intimate terms (in contrast to pdter, which is typically addressed to total strangers), or perhaps to those of lower social status.9 Chantraine (1947:244) suggests an original sense ‘foster father’. PIE *aita may indeed have been a term for the father (see section 3.4.1), but in Homer, diia does not retain any idea of kinship. Maia, like dita, appears not to be a term of address to kin in Homer. It is used twelve times (in the Odyssey only), always to female servants.” Though maia refers to the grandmother in Doric (for references, see Chantraine 1947: 242), there is no trace of a kin meaning in Homer. In addition to the words discussed above, there are a number of affectionate

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terms used in address to parents in post-Homeric Greek, e.g. apphüs ‘daddy’ (see Delbrück 1889:448-451, Chantraine 1947:241-245). Many of these, no doubt, were in use in Homeric times, but it is futile to speculate which of them were. 2.

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2.1. The Greek system considered synchronically. As pointed out in the introduction, it is impossible to carry out properly and completely the synchronic analysis of a kinship system which is as imperfectly attested as that of ancient Greek. Nevertheless, certain features of the Greek system can be examined synchronically, and their analysis may provide some insight into the general question of how kinship terminologies operate. Before examining the terminology in detail, two preliminary problems must be dealt with: first, the place of descriptive compounds in the system, and second, the difficulty of finding a reasonably complete set of terms attested for any given period and dialect of ancient Greek. In English, there is a fairly clearcut distinction between kinship terms (including composites such as father-in-law) and descriptive expressions (e.g. mother’s brother’s son). By means of the latter, any distinctions, no matter how fine, may be drawn between kinsmen, but analysis has been concerned in general with those distinctions which are actually operative in the former (see, in particular, Lamb 1965:51-53). In ancient Greek, however, matters are more complicated: the concept ''kinship term" is less well-defined. Greek has at least five varieties of expressions for kinsmen: (1) atomic terms, such as páppos ‘grandfather’, guné ‘wife’; (2) terms for corresponding male and female kinsmen which differ only in their endings (masculine -os, feminine -é or -a): e.g. adelphós ‘brother’, adelphé ‘sister’; the underlying element adelph- ‘sibling’ is seen in compounds (e.g. adelphópais ‘sibling’s child’); (3) terms containing prefixes or suffixes, most commonly the suffix -ide- ‘child of’, e.g. thugatridoüs (morphophonemically thugatr-idé-os) ‘daughter’s son’, thugatrid® (thugatr-idé-a) ‘daughter’s daughter'; cf. also pró-pappos ‘greatgrandfather’; (4) compounds, in which the first member stands in a genitive case relation to the second: e.g. patr-ddelphos ‘father’s brother’; (5) genitival phrases: e.g. patrós métér ‘father’s mother’. In many cases, a kin type can be referred to by terms from several of the above categories: e.g. the father's father can be called patrós patér, patropátór, or páppos. Which types of expression could reasonably be called “kinship terms"? The first three types probably could; the fifth type surely not. The fourth type resembles the fifth in that such phrases refer to kinsmen descriptively, by an implied genitive relation. On the other hand, these compounds are not formed as freely as the genitival phrases: they are subject to certain non-obvious restrictions which do not apply to the phrases. For example, guné *wife' and anér ‘husband’ appear as the first member of compounds but not the second: gunatkddelphos ‘wife’s brother’ exists, but not *adelphoginé ‘brother’s wife’. Further,

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only terms for primary kin (including pdis ‘child’) appear in these compounds. It would thus appear that there is no sharply defined set of expressions in ancient Greek which could be called “kinship terms." The discussion to follow will be concerned not with the analysis of a closed set of kinship terms but with an examination of the means available to the ancient Greeks for expressing kinship relations. Greek kinship terminology was constantly changing, and it is impossible to discover what the complete system was at any given point in time. Many terms are attested only late, while others are found in Homer and never again except in Homeric imitations.? It is obviously not legitimate to assemble terms from all stages of Greek and then to try to analyze this supposed system. On the other hand, the absence of a term from an author does not necessarily mean that he was unfamiliar with it: he may never have had occasion to refer to the kinsman in question, or he may have found a term metrically inconvenient. The situation is further complicated by the fact that affinal terms are best attested in early authors (especially Homer), while the consanguineal terms are best attested in later authors (especially the Attic orators of the fourth century B.C., many of whose speeches dealt with lawsuits involving inheritance and other family matters). The Homeric poems contain a fairly complete set of affinal terms (for one possible componential display of these terms, see section 1.8.2); Herodotos (5th c. B.C.) uses only two of the Homeric terms (gambrös ‘CA, male’ and pentherös ‘wife’s father’) but he uses them in accord with Homeric practice (Powell 1938:s.vv.). In tragedy, however, especially in Euripides, gambrós and pentherös seem to become general terms for any affine. Gambrós (in Homer, only of daughter's husband or sister's husband) refers in Sophokles to the wife's brother, and in Euripides to the husband's brother or even the wife's father.* Pentherós, used only of the wife's father in Homer and Herodotos, is applied to the sister's husband (Euripides, El. 1286). Note, in particular, Euripides, Hipp. 635-636, where gambrós and pentherós appear to be used interchangeably, merely for variety. Thukydides uses no affinal terms at all, and the Attic orators have largely replaced them by descriptive phrases: the only affinal term in the Demosthenic corpus, for example, is pentherá (only once, at 45.70, though in the original sense ‘wife’s mother’). The confusion observed in later tragedy, and the rarity of the affinal terms in prose, suggest that they were no longer in colloquial use at this period. In the case of the consanguineal terms, the situation is reversed, and the system is better attested in the later authors. There is no evidence, however, that Homer's terminology differed fundamentally from that of the orators. The most obvious apparent difference is the absence from Homer of the words in -:de-, which are common in the orators (e.g. adelphidoüs ‘nephew’, anepsiadoüs ‘cousin’s son’). On the other hand, Homer never refers to nephews or nieces (or to the children of cousins), even by descriptive phrases, and the absence of the suffix -ide- from Homer may well be due to chance; adelphidéos is found as early as Alkman (7th c. B.C.?) and is common in Herodotos. One minor change in consanguineal terminology between Homer and the orators can be documented,

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however. Homeric pátrós ‘father’s brother’ and métrós ‘mother’s brother’, still found in Herodotos, are replaced in the orators by the compounds patrádelphos and métrádelphos. The discussion to follow will be concerned with the system of consanguineal terms as it is attested in the orators. One of the most remarkable features of the Greek system of consanguineal terminology is the lack of symmetry between kinsmen in ascending generations and those in ego's and descending generations. The terms in use are listed below (omitted are phrases, compounds, and the poorly attested terms for ascendants beyond grandfather). In ascending generations, atomic terms are used:

páppos ‘grandfather’, téthé ‘grandmother’; patér ‘father’, meter ‘mother’; theios ‘uncle’, téthts ‘aunt’. In ego’s and descending generations, the following elements are combined to form the kin terms: adelph- ‘sibling’, anepsi- ‘first cousin’, hu3ós ‘son’, thugdtér ‘daughter’, -ide- ‘child of’, -os ‘male’, -€ female’. What does this system tell us about how the Greeks looked at kinsmen? Note, first, that to try to analyze the system in terms of class products (i.e. semantic dimensions) is to ignore what little information the terms provide about native cognition. An adelphidoüs, for example, is not regarded as a “male ablineal, first descending generation” or the like: the term means what it says, namely “male child of a sibling”. In this connection, it is instructive to compare the use of the -ide- suffix in the Greek system with the affixes used in the English kinship system, especially -in-law and step-. The English kinship system seems particularly suited to componential analysis, to judge from the amount of attention it has received from this standpoint.® It is not surprising, therefore, that the English affixes lend themselves to description in terms of dimensions. In Goodenough's analysis, for example, father-in-law is defined by the same dimensions which define father (degree of collateral and generational distance between ego and alter, lineality of relationship, generation seniority, sex of alter), with one significant difference: the presence of a marital tie between ego and alter (Goodenough 1965: 270—281). Stepfather, foster father, etc., are handled similarly, in terms of additional dimensions involving "structural equivalence of alter's kin type to a primary consanguineal kin type" (Goodenough 1965:278). Thus fathers-in-law, stepfathers, etc., are, at least by this analysis, kinds of fathers in English. But the Greek system works differently. An adelphidods is not a kind of sibling, but the son of a sibling; the suffix does not generate a class product but a relative product. A taxonomy of sorts is seemingly implied by the existence of the terms pdis ‘child’ and goneüs (Homeric tokeás) ‘parent’: these terms suggest an arrangement

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lineal kin

removed one generation

páis 'child'

N

huiös ‘gon’ Fiaure

thugáter ‘daughter’

removed more than one generation

goneüs ‘parent’

N

patér ‘father’

métér ‘mother’

2.1: Inappropriate partial taxonomy of Greek consanguineal terms.

like that of Figure 2.1 for this part of the kinship domain. But even this partial taxonomy fails; goneüs and lokeüs, though usually applied to parents, are not the equivalent of pater ‘father’ plus métér ‘mother’, since they can also have the wider sense ‘forebear, ancestor’ (on the Homeric word, see section 1.1.3). Note, further, that many of the apparent oddities of the Greek system result from the structure of the language, rather than features of social structure. For example, the asymmetrical terminology for kinsmen in ascending generations and those in ego’s and descending generations results from the fact that Greek has patronymic (or metronymic) suffixes, but no corresponding teknonymic suffix. The grandparents, uncles, and aunts require atomic terms, while the grandchildren, nephews, and nieces can be referred to by means of the patrometronymic suffix -ide-. This particular suffix is confined to kinship terms, but a variety of patronymic (and occasionally metronymic) suffixes are attested in names, e.g. Telamönios ‘son of Telamon’, Krontdes ‘son of Kronos’, Letötdes ‘son of Leto’, etc. (see Schwyzer 1950:1.509). Ultimately, such suffixes perhaps reflect social structure, such as the inheritance of status from the father, but in the kinship terminology, -ide- seems to be functioning independently of features of social structure: note that it is used indifferently as patronymic or metronymic. The observance or non-observance of the feature of bifurcation (sex of linking relative) is also largely determined by linguistic, rather than cultural factors. For example, son's son (huidoüs) is distinguished from daughter's son (thuga(ridoüs) but sister’s son is not distinguished from brother’s son (adelphidoüs); the reason is that the distinction between sister (adelphé) and brother (adelphós) is obscured in the composite term adelphidoás, while distinct stems exist for ‘son’ and ‘daughter’, and the distinetion between them is thus not obscured by the addition of the suffix. In short, the Greeks seem to have regarded their kinship system in terms of relative products, not class products; the ease with which English appears to lend itself to analysis in terms of class products has perhaps led to overoptimism with regard to this approach. Also, many features of the Greek system apparently resulted from the structure of the language rather than the structure of Greek society; the next section develops the latter point further. 2.2. The Greek system considered diachronically. In many cases, the changes which brought about Greek kinship terminology result from the grammatical structure of the language as a whole, rather than directly from any observable

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features of social structure.* In the last section, several features of Greek terminology were explained in terms of influence from linguistic structure. But the most striking and most widely attested change is a tendency to use terms differing only in their endings to refer to kinsmen who differ only in sex, the ending -os referring to male relatives, -é (or -a) to females? Not one such pair of terms exists in PIE; certain PIE terms share the same root, but even these do not exhibit a regular -os/-d alternation (e.g. *nepot- ‘grandson’, *nepty‘granddaughter’, *swekrü- ‘mother-in-law’, *swekuros ‘father-in-law’). But in Greek, at least fifteen such pairs are attested. Indeed, the only kinsmen, either consanguineal or affınal, for which such pairs are not attested are spouses and lineal ascendants (and, of course, the distant kin types referred to by phrases or compounds). The change was a continuing process: more and more such terms can be seen coming into use during classical, Hellenistic, and even Byzantine Greek, replacing older terms which did not fit this pattern. The opposition between masculines in -os and feminines in -d is a feature which already existed in late PIE, especially in pronouns, but only after the breakup of the PIE speech community did it become established as a regular feature of nouns, in Greek and in some other Indo-European languages.5 The Greek tendency to use pairs of terms in -os and -é for corresponding male and female kinsmen is clearly a special case of this general development in the Greek language as a whole. The following discussion documents the creation of these pairs in succeeding stages of Greek. The pairs are discussed roughly in chronological sequence, though the order is not as rigorous as might be desired, because of uncertainties in the age of some pairs; also, certain terms finally replaced those previously used only long after the creation of the new terms. The nature of the change, i.e. the fact that it is in effect a regularization, creates difficulties in discovering the date at which a pair of terms came into use: such regularizations may well have existed in substandard or even standard speech for & long time before turning up in literature. Indeed, two such regularizations (gambrá 'daughter-inlaw’ and Àuié ‘daughter’) apparently never became standard usage, though they are found in inscriptions and papyri. Even if terms like the two just mentioned are merely the grammatical errors of semi-literate writers, they clearly show the direction in which structural pressures were pushing the kinship terminology. In the following list, authors mentioned are those in which a term is first attested (data from LSJ, in most cases). (1) hekurós "husband's father’ (Homer); hekuré ‘husband’s mother’ (Homer): the PIE terms *swekuros, *swekrü- (cf. Skt. $va$ura, $vaárü) were apparently among the first to be brought into the -os/-é pattern.? The pair of terms is fully established in Homeric Greek. (2) huiönös ‘grandson’, perhaps only ‘son’s son’: see above, section 1.6.2.1 (Homer); huioné ‘granddaughter’ (Josephus, Ist c. A.D.): the age of this pair presents difficulties, in view of the late appearance of the feminine. LSJ cite only one occurrence of huiónós between Homer and the Ist century B.C., in the archaistic poem Theokritos 17 (see section 1.5.2.1), and lexicographers describe the term as less Attic than huidoüs (see LSJ, s.v. huionós). This suggests

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either the survival of a huiénés/-é pair in non-Attic dialects (perhaps Ionic: on Ionic influence in Josephus, see Schwyzer 1950:1.128) or the late revival of Homeric Auiónós and the creation of a feminine for it. The pair huiönös/-€ may thus be as old as Homer or as late as Josephus. (3) huidoüs (i.e. huidé-os) 'son's son’ (Xenophon, 4th c. B.C.); huidé (i.e. huidé-a) ‘son’s daughter’ (1st c. A.D.); (4) thugatridéos ‘daughter’s son’ (Herodotos, 5th c. B.C.) ; thugatridé ‘daughter’s daughter’ (Andokides, 5th c. B.C.); (5) adelphidéos 'nephew' (Alkman, 7th c. B.C.?); adelphid? ‘niece’ (Aristophanes, 5th c. B.C.); (6) anepsiadoüs ‘cousin’s son’ (Pherekrates, 5th c. B.C.); anepsiadà ‘cousin’s daughter! (Aristophanes, 5th c. B.C.): these four pairs are first citable after Homer, quite possibly by chance (see section 1.6.2). The late attestation of huidé is of little significance, since its existence is implied by the system of terms in -ide-. The masculines are generally citable from an earlier date than the feminines, but this merely reflects the more frequent references to males in Greek literature. (7) kastgnétos ‘brother’ (Homer); kasignété ‘sister’ (Homer); (8) adelpheós ‘brother’ (Homer; Attic adelphós); adelpheá ‘sister’ (Sappho, 6th c. B.C.): these terms replaced PIE *bhräter ‘brother’ and *swesör ‘sister’. The replacement, however, was apparently not complete at the time of the earliest Greek literature, since the lexicographer Hesychios reports a term éor, which he glosses as thugdtér, anepsiös ‘daughter, cousin’, together with its plural, éores, which he glosses as prosekontes, sungeneis ‘kinsmen’. The gloss “daughter, cousin” evidently results from the lexicographers’ notorious practice of glossing archaic words in terms of specific uses, and the meaning ‘kinsman’ is most likely the correct one. This term is apparently a reflex of PIE *swesór; the absence of the expected initial aspirate may be an Ionic dialect feature (see Frisk 1970:s.v. éor). The word does not occur in Homer, however. (9) anepsiós ‘male first cousin’ (Homer); anepsid ‘female first cousin’ (Xenophon, 4th c. B.C.); (10) pentherós 'wife's father' (Homer); pentherá 'wife's mother' (pseudoDemosthenes, 4th c. B.C.): in both of these pairs, the late attestation of the feminine is presumably due to chance. (11) koüros ‘son’ (Mycenaean Greek; Attic kóros); kouré ‘daughter’ (Homer; Attic kéré): even though attested early, these words never replaced huiös and thugdier as the regular words for ‘son’ and ‘daughter’. In modern Greek, köre ‘daughter’ is more common than thugatéra, but hutós remains the word for ‘son’ (Buck 1949: 105). (12) métruiós ‘step-father’ (Theopompos, 5th c. B.C.); métruié ‘step-mother’ (Homer): the masculine is patently modeled on the feminine form (see Schwyzer 1950:1.459), following the -os/-é pattern. (13) thetos ‘uncle’ (Euripides, 5th c. B.C.); theta ‘aunt’ (1st c. A.D.): here is a clear example of a formation in -os/-é replacing an older pair of terms. Téthis ‘aunt’ probably antedates Homer (section 1.6.1) and is common in the orators; theta later replaces it and has become the regular modern Greek word for ‘aunt’.

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(14) huiós ‘son’ (Mycenaean Greek); hwié ‘daughter’ (1st c. A.D.): LSJ (p. 2108) cite two examples of the feminine, from dialect inscriptions, but it apparently did not become standard usage. (15) gambrös ‘CA, male’ (Homer); gambrá ‘CA, female’ (2nd c. A.D.): the original feminine of gambrós was nuös, later replaced by nümphé (see below), and gambrá probably does not reflect standard usage, since modern Greek retains nüphe. Feminines in -é are not attested for most compounds (e.g. patrádelphos). This may be fortuitous. On the other hand, compound adjectives and nouns developed the -os/-€ pattern much later than simplexes: cf. d-lokhos ‘wife’ (see Schwyzer 1950:2.32). In Byzantine lexicographers and commentators, both forms of compounds come into regular use. The structural pressure toward -os masculines paired with -2 feminines also affected certain parts of the kinship system indirectly. The influence of this pressure is visible, for example, in the demise of nuós ‘CA, female’. This word is the only non-compound kinship term which still reflects the PIE state of affairs, in which -os nouns could refer to females. Given the structure of the Greek kinship system, such a term could not be expected to survive, and it is, indeed, replaced in Hellenistic times by nuémphé (originally ‘bride’, first ‘daughter-in-law’ in the Septuagint); the similar beginnings of the words no doubt facilitated the replacement. A number of other terms which did not fit the Greek pattern also rapidly went out of use, e.g. the Homeric affinal terms cited above, note 2. Pdtrös ‘father’s brother’ and mötrös ‘mother’s brother’, with no corresponding feminines, took on the meaning ‘relative on the father’s (mother’s) side’ after Homer (section 1.6.1) and subsequently became obsolete. 3. PIE

KiusuiP

TERMINOLOGY

3.0. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 list the kinship terms of Homeric Greek and those of PIE. The Greek terms include not only those actually attested in the Homeric poems but also those which probably existed at the time of Homer, even if not actually attested in the poems; the existence of the non-attested terms is defended in the previous chapter. The PIE terms largely reproduce the usual reconstructions, as presented by Friedrich (1966) and Benveniste (1969). They differ at two principal points, however: the use of *swesór for 'father's sister' as well as ‘sister’ and the use of *swekuros for ‘wife’s father’ and ‘wife’s brother’ as well as for ‘husband’s father’ (and similarly of *swekrü- for ‘wife’s mother’ as well as ‘husband’s mother’). The evidence for these departures from the usual reconstructions is presented in sections 3.2 and 3.3. It has long been recognized that some Indo-European languages exhibit features which are characteristic of Omaha kinship terminologies, and that these

features are not innovations but rather survivals of an original PIE Omaha system.! It is not surprising that PIE kin terminology should show Omaha features, in view of the evident importance of patrilineal descent groups in PIE society. Also, Omaha features are found in Caucasian languages, i.e. in a region perhaps not far from the Indo-European homeland. The basic principle which underlies Omaha kinship systems is a tendency to

KINSHIP

TERMINOLOGY

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OF

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GREEK

Greek

father mother brother sister

*petér, *atta *mät£r, *anna? *bhratér *swesór

patér métér adelpheós, kasignétos adelpheé, kasignété

son daughter

*gunus, *suyus *dhughatér

huiós, koüros (|péáis, tékos, thugátér, koár&J téknon

father's

patropátór *awos

páppos

mother'e

métropátór

father’s

patrométór *an-?

téthé

mother's father's brother

métrométór *pat patgwyos

pátrós, patrokasignätos theios

mother’s brother

grandfather

métrós métrokasígnétos

father's

= sister

patrokasignäts?

mother’s

= mother?

métrokasignété?

parallel = sibling; cross = grandparent or grandchild, by Omaha skewing?

male: anepsiós female: anepsié

téthis

cousin

brother's son

= son

>

sister’s son

d = grandson

brother’s daughter

= daughter?

w daughter

= granddaughter

adelphidéos

adelphidéé

son's son

. huideos *nepot-

huiónós

daughter's son

thugatridéos

Bon's daughter

. huidee *nepty-

daughter's daughter

. thugatrides

FicureE 3.1: PIE and Homeric consanguineal terms for male ego. The terms used for more distant kin types are unknown. Huiönds may have been applicable only to son’s son (see section 1.5.2.1).

KINSHIP

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Greek

husband

see section 3.4.2

anér, etc. (section 1.4.2)

wife

see section 3.4.2

guné, etc. (section 1.4.1)

husband’s father

41

hekurös *swekuros

wife's father

pentherós

husband's

hekuré

mother

*swekriwife’s mother

pentheré

husband’s

“1:

wife's brother husband's sister

“2.12 galow-

gáloós

wife 8

unknown

unknown

*yentr-

eindtér

*gen-

gambrós

brother

sister

-

daiwér

— wife's father?

2

daér

“ unknown

husband's

brother's wife sister’s

husband daughter's husband brother's . wife

unknown

son s

*snusos

nuös wife

Figure 3.2: PIE and Greek affinal terms. In the case of CA-types, terms are for male ego, but there is no clear evidence for difference in usage between male and female ego.

shift the brothers of females to an older generation (e.g. to equate mother’s brother with grandfather: cf. Latin avus, avunculus) and, conversely, to shift the sisters of males to a younger generation (e.g. to equate father’s sister with sister or to equate male ego’s sister’s son with grandson: cf. Latin nepos). The term “Omaha” is used because this principle is typified by the kinship terminology of the Omaha Indians; Omaha systems, however, are distributed widely throughout the world.? Omaha systems (and some other types, as well) also tend to merge linking relatives with their same-sex siblings: father’s brother’s son equals brother (i.e. father’s son), or father’s brother may even equal father. Strictly speaking, the term “Omaha system” is a misnomer, at least if it is taken to mean that all Omaha systems are alike, since languages vary enormously in the extent to which they put the basic Omaha principle into effect. One might

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speak more correctly of Omaha features. Loosely speaking, however, an Omaha terminology is one which shows some Omaha features. As a rule, Omaha features are more likely to involve distant kinsmen than those close to ego. Thus, of 27 Omaha terminologies examined (Figure 4.1), 21 equate mother's brother's son with mother's brother (i.e. mother's father's son), but only 5 equate mother's brother with mother's father, and none equate a female ego's brother with her father. . The most striking Omaha features of PIE terminology are the equation of mother's brother with mother's father and the equation of sister's son with grandson (section 3.2). Omaha features also involve affinal terminology, e.g. the equation of male ego's sister's husband with daughter's husband and probably of wife's brother with wife's father (also discussed in section 3.2). Also, it is not unlikely that PIE merged the father's sister with the sister (section 8.8). No completely satisfactory account exists of the process by which PIE kinship terminology developed into the terminologies which are attested in the daughter languages: i.e. of what the intermediate stages were in the loss of the Omaha features, and to what extent the various languages developed independently. One reason is that philologists who deal with the subject find themselves at a disadvantage when analyzing the data from an anthropological standpoint; conversely, anthropological linguists often find it difficult to evaluate the philological evidence. One matter, for example, which has caused some confusion is the inability to reconstruct PIE words for certain kin types. This need not indicate that the speakers of PIE lacked the concept for which a term cannot be reconstructed: several cases need to be distinguished. In some cases, PIE may indeed have lacked & specific way of referring to an item: no term for the father's sister can be reconstructed, possibly because this kinsman was merged with the sister. In many cases, however, an item cannot be reconstructed because of dialectal differences within PIE. A notorious example is the case form traditionally labeled dative plural, where one dialect used a form in *-m-, another a form in *-bh-; no one would claim for this reason that PIE lacked the category ‘dative plural’.‘ In other cases, the words used in the attested Indo-European languages appear to be cognate, but the exact phonemic shape of the proto-word cannot be reconstructed; typically, this situation points to borrowing between dialects before the final breakup of a speech community. The study of PIE kinship terminology has also been plagued with a number of a priori assumptions which are not borne out by data from other societies. In the nineteenth century, these assumptions involved so-called mother-right and group-marriage: investigators had preconceived notions of how society evolved (for a discussion of the anthropological limitations of the period, see Kluckhohn 1961:3-14). These assumptions have now been largely laid to rest, but others have replaced them.* For example, Indoeuropeanists (e.g. Risch 1944:118, Galton 1957:135) have often maintained that the apparent lack of PIE terms for the wife's parents and siblings results from PIE social structure: i.e., in a society where women entered the house of their husband's family, such kinsmen would be less often referred to than the corresponding kinsmen of the husband, and

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terms for them would not be necessary. But as Goody (1969:235-239) has pointed out, this assumption is simply not consistent with what we know of other terminologies and societies: patrilocal societies do have terms for the wife's kinsmen. Our inability to reconstruct PIE terms for the wife's father and brother probably results from the fact that they were merged with the husband's father. Another unfounded assumption is that PIE *awos ‘grandfather’ applied specifically to the maternal grandfather and not the paternal grandfather (Delbrück 1889:482, Risch 1944:118, Pokorny 1959:89). The words derived from *awos apply indifferently to paternal and maternal grandparents (e.g. Latin avus). The only evidence for restricting *awos to the maternal grandfather is that this word, or a derivative, also applies to the mother's brother and therefore, it might seem, had special reference to kinsmen on the mother's side. But again, an examination of other kinship terminologies shows that this conclusion is unwarranted, as Benveniste (1969:226) points out. Five of the languages in Figure 4.1 equate mother's brother with grandfather, and in none of them is the mother's brother equated specifically with the mother's father: all use a single term for paternal and maternal grandparents, as do Omaha systems generally. PIE *awos is applied to the mother's brother not because the term has anything to do with kinship on the mother's side, but because the mother's brother is equated with the grandfather by the Omaha rule which shifts a female’s brothers upward in generation. Benveniste (1969:223-229) maintains that the Omaha features of PIE ultimately result from prescriptive cross-cousin marriage, and as his diagrams show, this marriage practice will explain certain features of Omaha terminology. In fact, however, anthropologists have not found a very strong correlation between Omaha kinship terminology and cross-cousin marriage; if a causal relationship exists between them, it is extremely indirect (see Eyde and Postal 1961, Buchler and Selby 1968:247-250). Furthermore, there is little non-linguistic evidence for eross-cousin marriage among the speakers of PIE. The practice is found in ancient India, but the Indo-Iranian stock was actually among the first to lose its Omaha terminology, as will be seen, and in any case, the Indian cross-cousin marriage is probably borrowed from the substratum and not a survival from PIE customs.® Friedrich (1966:29) examines the evidence and concludes: ‘The Proto-Indo-European terminology . . . is not of the cross-cousin type. I am led to conclude that preferred or prescribed cross-cousin marriage was absent..." It is hard enough to establish a causal relationship between Omaha terminology and cross-cousin marriage in societies where the latter is well-attested, and our ignorance of PIE marriage customs makes it rash indeed to attribute the Omaha features of PIE terminology to influence from cross-cousin marriage." Several things suggest that PIE dialect geography may provide a fruitful approach to the study of PIE kinship terminology. First, an examination of other societies reveals that two dialects of a language which are very similar in phonology and vocabulary may nevertheless differ radically in their systems of kinship terminology. The American Indian languages of California, as collected by Gifford (1922), provide many examples of this phenomenon.® The discussion

44

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below suggests that the kinship terminologies of the attested Indo-European languages indeed reflect a difference in terminology between eastern and western dialects of PIE. Furthermore, some PIE kin terms present problems of reconstruction which suggest inter-dialect borrowing of kinship terms. Little attention has been given to the possibility that the dialects of PIE differed in their kinship systems, although Friedrich (1966:17) mentions “the possibility that during PIE times the adjacent Slavic and Indic ‘kinship idioms’ constituted—with respect to this feature at least [the use of a special term for the wife's brother]—a special variety of the overall PIE Omaha.” The discussion below will advance the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Greek and IndoIranian stocks (and probably of the Balto-Slavic as well) did not have an Omaha kinship system at all: i.e. that this eastern dialect area had diverged from the original PIE Omaha system before the final breakup of the PIE speech community. 3.1. The dialects of PIE. Scholars have long recognized that the differences among the Indo-European stocks did not result from an instantaneous division of the speakers of a unified PIE language. Rather, there was & period when the ancestors of the attested stocks were in contact but underwent progressive dialectal differentiation. A dialect continuum, not a discrete family tree, best describes the relations among the Indo-European stocks at this period. The relationships of the major Indo-European dialects were stated almost a century ago by Schmidt (1872), developed further by Meillet (1908), and definitively examined by Porzig (1954, with a full discussion of other important literature). Certain problems remain controversial: the position of certain stocks in the dialect continuum, notably Albanian and the Anatolian stocks, including Hittite; the exact relationship between the early stages of Italic and Celtic, and of Baltic and Slavic (i.e. at what period, if ever, were there undifferentiated Italo-Celtic and Balto-Slavic languages?); and the geographical milieu of the dialects, i.e. the original home of the Indo-Europeans and their subsequent wanderings (on the last, see Scherer 1965, Bosch-Gimpera 1961:21-96). But the general relationships among seven major stocks (Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Greek, Baltic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian) have not been seriously questioned, and it is these dialects which will be used below in the study of kinship terminology in the PIE dialects. As it happens, these dialects are also, for the most part, the ones where good documentation is available on kinship terminology from an early period. The placement of these seven dialects was originally established on the basis of phonological and morphological isoglosses, and it is confirmed by a lexicostatistic study of vocabulary (Swadesh 1953). Differing attempts have been made to locate these stocks more precisely with respect to each other, but their approximate positions in the continuum seem certain. Meillet, for example, arranges the dialects schematically in a circle (Figure 3.3). Other scholars differ Germanic

Baltic

and

Celtic

Indo-Iranian

Italic FiGunE

Slavic

Greek

3.3: PIE dialects, according to Meillet

(1908).

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in their arrangements of these dialects, but the differences are in the nature of adjustments (e.g. moving a dialect toward or away from the center) and not major rearrangements (for a discussion of various arrangements, see Porzig 1954:37—52). These differences result from variations in the relative weight given to particular isoglosses. Kroeber (1960) and others have examined the isoglosses statistically, and Kroeber's conclusions differ slightly from the general opinion, but even here, the difference consists chiefly in moving Celtic away from Germanic to a peripheral position. None of these differences are serious enough to affect the arguments presented here. The arrangement used in the diagrams to follow is a compromise between the mathematical precision of Kroeber's diagrams, the linguistic intuition of Meillet, and the limitations of typography. In the diagrams below, the joining of Baltic and Slavic and the separation of Italic and Celtic do not imply & judgment on whether these stocks are descended from common Balto-Slavic and Italo-Celtic languages. Rather, Balto-Slavic is treated as a unit because at the time which interests us (i.e. the period when PIE was losing its Omaha features) these stocks were at least in close contact, if they were differentiated at all; Italic and Celtic are separated because the kinship system changed later in this area, at a time when these stocks were no longer in close contact, whatever their original relationship. Schematic maps of the PIE dialects do not necessarily correspond to geographic reality. Tribal movements and the configuration of communication routes, to mention only two factors, have no doubt distorted the mapping, and the mathematically precise distances of Kroeber’s maps are intended as linguistic, not geographic distances. On the other hand, the very fact that these distances can be mapped in two dimensions suggests that the dialects formed a geographically stable speech community; note that certain dialects (e.g. Armenian) will not fit onto the two-dimensional map, perhaps because the speakers of these dialects did move during the period when dialects were being differentiated. 3.2. The disappearance of Omaha skewing features in the PIE dialects. Evidence suggests that an eastern dialect area of PIE (which developed into the Greek, Indo-Iranian, and Balto-Slavic stocks) had lost many Omaha features at a time when these features were still present in the western area. This evidence is cumulative: none of the examples cited below is sufficient in itself to prove the hypothesis, but taken as a whole, the evidence strongly indicates that the differences seen in the attested Indo-European kinship terminologies reflect a dialectal difference in the proto-language. I will deal first with those Omaha features which involve skewing of generations, 1.6. the shifting of kinsmen to higher or lower generations by the Omaha principle (e.g. the equation of mother's brother with grandfather.) Figures 3.4 and 3.5 show the distribution of two Omaha features: (1) mother's brother equals grandfather and (2) sister's son (of male ego) equals grandson. Celtic

Germanic . Italic

FıGurB

Balto-Slavio Greek

Indo-Iranian

3.4: Stocks where mother’s brother equals grandfather (*awos).

46

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Celtic

Germanic |

Ficure

TERMINOLOGY

Italic

OF

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GREEK

Balto-Slavic Greek

3.5: Stocks where sister’s son equals grandson

Indo-Iranian (*nepot-).

The diagrams refer to the equivalences which must have existed at an early period in the stocks, and not necessarily to equivalences found in attested languages.? Reflexes of *nepot- in the various stocks are actually used for both nephew and grandson in documents: Latin nepos ‘sister’s son, grandson’, OHG nevo ‘grandson, nephew’, Lith. nepuotis ‘grandson, nephew’.!® In the case of *awos, however, the situation is more complicated. For mother’s brother, Celtic, Italic and Germanic use terms which are derived from *awos by a suffix, e.g. Welsh ewythr, Latin avunculus, OHG oheim (the first has been extended to the father’s brother as well, and the last two are eventually so extended); since each stock forms these derivatives differently (and they sometimes differ within a stock), a reflex of *awos must have been applicable to the mother’s brother without the use of a derivative suffix in the earliest period of these stocks.!! For grandfather, a direct reflex of *awos is attested only in Italie (Latin avus), but Gothic awo 'grandmother' indirectly attests the applicability of *awos or a derivative to the grandfather in early Germanic.” In Celtic, the evidence is still more indirect but still seems reliable: a reflex of *awos refers in Celtic not to the grandfather but to the grandson, by reciprocity (e.g. Old Irish aue). The use of a common term reciprocally for grandparent and grandchild is not an uncommon feature in kinship terminologies, and the Celtic term is apparently an example of this phenomenon (Friedrich 1966:25, Benveniste 1969:234). As Figures 3.4 and 3.5 show, these Omaha features are reflected in the western area only. Which group of dialects is closer to the original state of affairs, and which has innovated? Figure 3.5 might suggest at first glance that the Omaha system is actually a recent development, i.e. an innovation of the western dialect area, to judge from the isolated position of Celtic, Greek, and Indo-Iranian as possible relic areas. But a closer look reveals that Celtic, Greek, and Indo-Iranian are surely the innovators in the case of sister's son/grandson. In Celtic, the *nepot- stem (e.g. Old Irish niae) has become fixed in the meaning 'sister's son’ (see Delbrück 1889:480); in Indo-Iranian, however, and probably in Greek, it has the meaning ‘offspring’ or ‘grandson’ (e.g. Sanskrit napät, Avestan napät, Greek népodes; on Greek anepsids ‘co-grandchild’, i.e. ‘first cousin’, see above, section 1.7). The Celtic and Greek/Indo-Iranian developments are two separate innovations, evidently diverging from an original system in which the term had both meanings. Other evidence confirms that Greek and Indo-Iranian (and Balto-Slavic, in the case of *awos) are the innovators. Greek and Indo-Iranian, for example, differ in the terms they use for ‘nephew’ in place of *nepot- (Greek adelphidoás ‘nephew’, Sanskrit bhratriya ‘brother’s son’, svasriya ‘sister’s son’). Likewise, Greek, IndoIranian, and Balto-Slavic differ in the terms they use for ‘grandparent’ and *mother's brother' in place of *awos (for grandfather: Greek páppos or descriptive

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compounds like patropátor ‘father’s father’, Sanskrit pitämaha, OCS dédi; for mother’s brother: Greek métrds, Sanskrit mätula, OCS ujt). Again, the variety of terms indicates innovation. The question now arises: did these eastern stocks in all cases innovate independently, after the breakup of the PIE speech community, or are the similar developments of their kinship systems due at least in part to influence during the period when the ancestors of these stocks were in contact? In other words, did the dialects of PIE differ in their systems of kinship terminology, and if so, how? The new terms (cited above) which are used by Greek, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian, after the loss of Omaha features, usually do not correspond exactly with each other, and this would seem to suggest independent development. On the other hand, features of terminology can be borrowed without the kinship terms themselves, as material from other societies abundantly shows (see section 0.2). Moreover, many of the terms, even though not directly cognate, are formed in similar ways, e.g. Sanskrit bhrätriya, Greek adelphidots, both from the terms for ‘brother’ with a patronymic suffix, and Sanskrit mätula, Greek métrés, derived from the terms for ‘mother’; more and better examples will be encountered in the discussion below.!?^ The similar terminology for aunts in Greek and BaltoSlavic (section 3.3) also suggests diffusion. But the strongest argument in favor of a dichotomy between eastern and western kinship systems is simply the geographical distribution of features, as seen in Figures 3.4 and 3.5 and in the diagrams below. Again and again, contiguous groups of PIE dialects are found to share features of kinship terminology; typically, the distribution of features is along east-west lines, with the western area preserving Omaha features while the eastern area innovates. Affinal terminology, for example, is handled differently in the East and in the West; the distribution of features corresponds to that seen in the case of *awos and *nepot-. One of the problems in PIE kinship terminology is the inability to reconstruct terms for the wife’s kinsmen (e.g. wife’s father, wife’s brother). This inability to reconstruct terms is probably illusory, however. Some evidence indicates that the original PIE system merged the wife’s father and the wife’s brother with the husband’s father (*swekuros), while using a separate term for the husband's brother (*dazwér); an arrangement of this sort is attested for other Omaha systems, e.g. Nyoro (Beattie 1958). Again, the original system was maintained longer in the West. Note first that only the eastern stocks distinguish between the husband’s father and the wife's father (Figure 3.6).'* Since Omaha systems typically do not distinguish between these kinsmen, the distinction looks like another innovation of the eastern dialect area. The terms used for the wife's father in the eastern Celtic

Germanic Itali talic

Balto-Slavic Indo-Iranian Greek

FiaureE 3.6: Stocks where wife's father equals husband's father (*swekuros).

48

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Celtic

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Germanic

πῃ : . | Italic

OF

HOMERIC

GREEK

u "Balto-Slavie Γ mE

1 |

SL Greek : .

Indo-Iranian | o-Iranian 1

Figure 3.7: Terminology for the wife's brother. Solid line: wife's brother merged with husband's brother. Broken line: reflex of *syV'r- used for ‘wife’s brother’. Dotted line: no non-descriptive term attested.

stocks appear to be separate innovations (Greek pentherós, OCS tstt; the term, if any, for *wife's father’ in early Sanskrit is not known: see Delbrück 1889:517). Did the original PIE terminology merge the wife's brother with the father-inlaw (*swekuros)? The evidence here is less clear, but this may well have been the case. The equivalence of wife's brother and wife's father is predicted by the Omaha principle which equates a linking female's brother with her father. The absence of this equivalence seems to be an areal feature of the California languages examined, but of the 18 non-California Omaha languages examined (Figure 4.1, in next chapter), at least eight equate these two kinsmen (for two languages, information on this equivalence is unavailable). Note further that there is & strong correlation with the reciprocal equivalence (male ego's sister's husband equals daughter's husband). At least seven non-California languages equate male ego's sister's husband with daughter's husband; of these seven, five also equate wife's brother and wife's father (one does not; for one, information is lacking).!5 Since the equivalence of male ego's sister's husband and daughter's husband is & general PIE feature (see below), it would not be surprising also to find the reciprocal equivalence of wife's brother and wife's father.!5 Moreover, in contrast with the terminology for husband's brother, where a reflex of *daiwer is almost universally attested, the terms for the wife's brother differ widely (Figure 3.7)." The various ways of dealing with this kin type suggest either that no nondescriptive term was used in PIE, or that the wife's brother was equated with some other kinsman, presumably the father-in-law, and the situation found in other Omaha languages indicates that the latter is far more likely. Further evidence is provided by OHG swägur, Lith. svogeris, and Sanskrit $và$ura (all ‘brother-in-law’).1 These terms ultimately go back to PIE *swékuros, apparently ‘pertaining to the *swekuros'. *Swékuros may originally have been restricted to the wife's brother, since a reflex of *daiwer has survived in the sense ‘husband’s brother’ in Germanic (OE täcor). If so, the use of a derivative of *swekuros in the sense ‘wife’s brother’ is significant: note that in the terms for grandfather and mother's brother, the Indo-European languages used derivatives of the original terms to differentiate between kin types which had been merged by the Omaha principle, and the same tendency may have led to the use of *swékuros for the wife's brother. There is a structural anomaly in a system which differentiates the wife's brother from the husband's brother but merges the wife's father and husband's father: it violates the principle of “uniform descent” (Tax 1937a). The various stocks have taken steps to remedy this structural anomaly. The western languages (Celtic, Germanic, and eventually Romance) merged husband's brother

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49

and wife's brother on the analogy of the single term for the father-in-law; the eastern languages (Slavic, Greek, perhaps Sanskrit) differentiated the husband's father and wife's father on the analogy of the different terms used for the husband's brother and wife's brother. Certain other features of kinship terminology seen in the attested Indo-European languages do not reflect the direct operation of Omaha principles but are what might be called “debris” left over from an earlier system which followed these principles more strictly. For example, the basic Omaha principle calls for the equivalence of a male ego's sister's husband and his daughter's husband (by the rule equating the sister and daughter of & male); as Lounsbury (1964b) has pointed out, the effects of this principle are visible in the Indo-European languages, since a single term for these two kin types exists in most stocks (e.g. Greek gambrós, Latin gener, OE adum, Sanskrit jámátr).!* But these terms refer not only to a male ego’s sister’s husband but also to a female ego's sister's husband (on the Greek term, see above, section 1.8.1), and the latter is not predicted by the Omaha rules. Since the Omaha principle will not generate the equivalence of female ego's sister's husband and daughter's husband, this equivalence must have arisen by analogy, from the equivalence of these types for male egos. The principle involved is evidently the tendency for a brother and sister to call the same kinsman by the same term: the converse of Radcliffe-Brown's principle of the “equivalence of siblings" (Tax 1937a:21). The analogical extension of gambrós and its cognates to a female ego's sister's husband constituted a partial breakdown of the Omaha system, since after the extension, the Omaha principle was no longer sufficient to account for the segmentation of that part of the kinship domain. This phenomenon is not confined to PIE: an interesting parallel occurs in two languages in Northern California. In Chukchansi, the term napatim refers to daughter's husband and male ego's sister's husband. In the contiguous and closely related Yawelmani language, napatim has been extended to female ego's sister's husband as well (for the data, see Gifford 1922:80, 84). Chukchansi has Omaha consanguineal terminology, while Yawelmani does not (it has apparently been influenced by adjacent non-Omaha languages). This extension of meaning is exactly parallel to the behavior of Greek gambrós and its cognates. The use of the same term for the son's wife and the brother's wife is another example of Omaha *'debris" in the Indo-European languages. The equivalence of these kin types is not predicted at all from the Omaha principle but results from a somewhat stronger analogical extension than that observed in the case of male and female ego’s sister's husband, discussed above. The analogie equation is: daughter's husband (e.g. Greek gambrös) is to son's wife (nuós) as sister's husband (gambrós) is to brother's wife (therefore, nuós). In Greek, gambrós and nuós have been extended still further, and they eventually can refer, probably, to any male or female CA-type affine, respectively. Figure 3.8 shows the distribution of the equivalence of son's wife and brother's wife in the Indo-European stocks (those languages where a single term is used for all female affines, e.g. Old Irish, are not regarded as displaying this specific equivalence). Note that this equivalence is found in those stocks which diverged

50

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Celtic

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Germanic Italio

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HOMERIC

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Balto-Slavic Greek

Indo-Iranian

FicureE 3.8: Stocks where son's wife equals brother's wife.

early from the Omaha pattern. Each of these stocks uses a different term for this relationship, and this suggests independent innovation: Greek nuós, Russian nevéstka, Sanskrit vadhü (the last usually refers to son's wife but is applied to brother's wife at Mahabharata 1.204.16 Poona ed., for example).?? On the other hand, data from non-Indo-European languages show that the range of applicability of a term can be borrowed without the term itself; thus we may be dealing with mutual influence. To summarize: the characteristic Omaha skewing of generations was apparently maintained in western PIE after it had disappeared in the East. A division along east-west lines is visible in the avuncular terminology (Figure 3.4), in the nepotic terminology (Figure 3.5), and in several features of affinal terminology (Figures 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8). 3.3. The father’s sister in PIE. The Omaha principle predicts the equivalence of a man's sister with his daughter, e.g. of father's sister with sister (i.e. father's daughter)?! Did PIE possess this Omaha feature? Benveniste (1969:214-215), in his discussion of *swesör ‘sister’, ignores the possibility that this term might have applied to the father's sister as well. Friedrich (1966:9) explicitly rejects it. Admittedly, no attested Indo-European language does equate the father's sister with the sister. On the other hand, no language retains full Omaha cousin terminology either: these features were apparently among the first to disappear. But the terminology used for the father's sister in the attested languages implies that PIE may, in fact, have equated the father's sister with the sister (i.e. that PIE was Omaha Type IV in Lounsbury's terminology). The terms used for the father's sister appear to be independent innovations in all Indo-European stocks (with the possible exception of Greek and Balto-Slavic, discussed below). No PIE term for 'father's sister’ can be reconstructed, and the attested languages refer to her in widely varying ways: (1) with descriptive phrases, e.g. Olr. siur athar ‘sister of the father’; (2) with descriptive compounds, e.g. Skt. pitrsvasr; (3) with terms derived from the word for ‘father’, e.g. Avestan tuiryá; (4) with specific, non-derivative terms, e.g. Lat. amita, OHG base, probably derived from infantile syllables; and (5) by merging her with the maternal aunt, e.g. Greek töthis, later theta, OCS teta, also etymologized from infantile syllables. It is theoretically possible that PIE simply had no term: i.e. that the father's sister was not considered a relative. There is no parallel for such a situation in kinship terminologies attested in actual societies, however. There seem to be only four reasonable possibilities: (1) a descriptive compound or phrase, as in Celtic and Sanskrit, (2) a common term for mother's sister and father's sister, as in Greek and Balto-Slavic, (3) a specific term for the father’s sister, lost from all stocks except (at most) one, and (4) the term *swesör 'sister', used for the father's sister under the Omaha principle. Of these, the last seems most likely.”

KINSHIP

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δ]

Note first that only in Sanskrit is a compound word the regular way of referring to the father’s sister.? The Sanskrit word reflects the high frequency of compounding in that language, rather than the survival of an original compound term for the father's sister; indeed, this compound is not even common IndoIranian. The possibility that a phrase was used (as in Old Irish) cannot be ruled out, but seems unlikely, since PIE probably had single terms for all other twoStep consanguineals (see Figure 3.1). The merger of paternal and maternal aunts is seen only in Greek and Balto-Slavic at an early period; many languages eventually merged these types (e.g. American English), but this is a later development. PIE certainly distinguished the paternal and maternal uncles (section 3.4.1); this marks Greek and Balto-Slavic as the innovators in merging the aunts. Note that the Greek and Balto-Slavic terms cannot be derived from a single proto-word; both the word and the feature of merging the aunts may have spread by diffusion between these two stocks. The choice thus lies between a special PIE term for the father'ssister and the use of a common term for father's sister and sister; the latter more easily explains the terms found in the various Indo-European stocks. As each stock abandoned the Omaha rule equating father's sister and sister, each stock found it necessary to create a new word for 'father's sister'. If a specific PIE term for the father's sister had existed, it is difficult to see why it should have disappeared so completely: the affinal area underwent profound changes in structure while retaining most of the old terms.^ The word *swesör has been etymologized as ‘own woman’ or ‘woman in the extended family’.?5 If correct, this etymology would support the hypothesis that the term had a wider meaning than simply 'sister'. But the etymology has not met with general support, and it would be unwise to place reliance on it (see Szemerényi 1966). Friedrich (1966: 23) attributes the lack of a PIE term for the father’s sister (or more precisely, our inability to reconstruct one) to the fact that "distant or at least intercommunal patrilocal residence removed such a relative from the speaker’s immediate ken." But the mother’s brother and daughter's husband, to cite only two examples, would also be outside the patrilocal household, and the terms for these kinsmen in the daughter languages do not present the same bewildering variety seen in the terms for ‘father’s sister’. The variety of terminology for the father's sister probably results, rather, from the abandonment of the Omaha principle equating father's sister with sister and the necessity of creating new terms for the former. 3.4. The dialectal distribution of features other than skewing of generations. Section 3.2 examined the distribution of those features which involve skewing of generations, e.g. the shifting of the mother's brother to the grandparent generation. A division between the eastern and western dialects of PIE is also visible in the terminology for mother's sister (section 3.4.1) and for spouse (3.4.2) and, less convincingly, that for child (3.4.3). The cousin terminology is also describable in dialectal terms, though the isogloss here is somewhat different (section 3.4.4). 3.4.1. Parallel aunts and uncles. One feature which Omaha kinship terminologies share with certain other types is the merger of same-sex siblings, e.g. of father's brother with father and hence of father's brother's son with brother (i.e.

52

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Germanic . Italic

FicunE

TERMINOLOGY

OF

HOMERIC

GREEK

Balto-Slavic Groek

Indo-Iranian

3.9: Stocks using a derivative of *matér ‘mother’ for ‘mother’s sister’.

father's son). This principle is reflected in isolated instances in the daughter languages, especially in the cousin terminology discussed in section 3.4.4, below. Did PIE also merge the father's brother and the mother's sister with the father and mother, respectively? This may well have been the case at an early stage of PIE. Two terms for the father can be reconstructed for PIE: the usual *potér, and a term *atta, widely attested but used as the regular word for ‘father’ only in Hittite and Slavic (in Greek, for example, diia is an affectionate term of address to older men: see section 1.11)?^ Languages which merge the father's brother with the father often possess, in addition, a specific term for the actual father, especially in address, and *atla may possibly have been such a term. Likewise, a term *anna ‘mother’ can be reconstructed, and this term may have been used specifically to refer to the actual mother, with *mater including both mother and mother's sister. In any case, it is interesting to observe that the terminology for 'father's brother’ in the Indo-European stocks has developed along lines different from that for ‘mother’s sister’. A PIE term for ‘father’s brother’ can be confidently reconstructed (*patrwyos); it is attested in all stocks except Celtic, where the term for ‘mother’s brother’ was extended to both uncles before our earliest documents (data in Buck 1949: 113-114). No language refers to the father's brother as "father". Note, however, that the term for father’s brother is derived from *potér: nowhere does a derivative of *atta appear, and this is at least consistent with the assumption that *atta was a term for the actual father. In the case of the mother's sister, matters are different. Only the western dialects use a derivative (other than a compound) of *mäter: Welsh modryb, OE mödrige, Latin matertera (Figure 3.9). In the East, the mother's sister is either merged with the father's sister (Greek téhts, OCS teta) or referred to by a compound term (Sanskrit mälrsvasr). The derivatives used in the West are variously formed, and no common term can be reconstructed. The consistent treatment of the father's brother in the various stocks, and the inconsistency observed in the case of the mother's sister, suggest that the differentiation of the father's brother from the father took place earlier than the differentiation of the mother's sister from the mother. The detailed history of the terms cannot be recovered with certainty, however. 3.4.2 Spouse. No specific PIE terms for ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ can be reconstructed (see Benveniste 1969:246). Many languages have more than one term for each; the terms are in general derived from words for ‘man’, ‘woman’ or ‘master’, ‘mistress’ (Latin maritus and uxor are the chief exceptions). Terms for ‘man’ or ‘woman’ are attested in the sense ‘husband’, ‘wife’ in all of the stocks considered here. Use of the terms *potis ‘master’ and *potni- ‘mistress’ in this sense, however, is confined to the eastern dialect area: see l'igure 3.10 (data in Delbrück 1889: 408-435).?

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53

Germanic . Italic

Greek

>. _

Indo-Iranian >________ Jd

Figure 3.10: *Potis ‘master’ used for ‘husband’ (solid line): *potni- ‘mistress’ used for *wife' (broken line).

Celtic

Germanic

Balto-Slavic

Italic

Indo-Iranian Greek

Fısure

24E

Celtic

/

3.11: Stocks where *sunus

Q0. Germanio

(*suyus) ‘son’ is not attested.

PELLT— | Balto-Slavie

/

1 |

7

/ /

/ Indo-Iranian Greek

/

Figure 3.12: Stocka where sibling terms are applicable to at least parallel cousins (solid line); other stocks which show traces of Omaha cousin terminology (broken line).

3.4.3. Child. A term *sunus (e.g. Gothic sunus ‘son’) or *suyus (e.g. Greek huiás ‘son’) is attested in most stocks. Two western stocks, however, have replaced this term (Figure 3.11): Old Irish shows mace, originally ‘boy’, Latin employs filius (originally ‘suckling’?). An identical distribution is seen in the terms for ‘daughter’ (PIE *dhughatér; cf. Greek thugdtér), where the original term is absent only from Celtic and Italic (e.g. Welsh merch, originally ‘girl’, Latin filia). This distribution may reflect a dialectal difference in PIE (though note that the western dialects would here be the innovators). It is probably more convincing, however, to regard it as parallel but independent development in Celtic and Italic: puéra eventually replaces hunu as the regular term for ‘son’ in Avestan, and likewise Modern Greek kóré has become the more common term for ‘daughter’ (kóré originally meant ‘girl’, but is attested in the sense ‘daughter’ already in ancient Greek: section 1.2).% 3.4.4. Cousin. In a fully-developed Omaha system, parallel cousins are referred to by sibling terms, and cross cousins are shifted up and down by the skewing rules (e.g. father’s sister’s son equals grandson, mother’s brother’s son equals grandfather). Figure 3.12 shows the stocks which retain traces of Omaha cousin terminology. In early Latin, the term frater ‘brother’ is applicable also to cousins (e.g. frater patruelis ‘father’s brother’s son’); likewise, Russian dvojurodnyj brat ‘cousin’ is literally ‘second-line brother’; Lithuanian pusbrolis ‘cousin’ is literally ‘halfbrother’. Greek and Germanic also show traces of an earlier Omaha cousin terminology. In Greek, phrdtér (from PIE *bhrätr ‘brother’) is applicable to any co-member of one’s phratry. Also, the Greek word kdsior, related to Homeric kastgnétos

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‘brother’, is glossed by Hesychios as hoi ek tés autés agélés adelphot te kai anepsiot ‘brothers and cousins from the same agela (descent group)’ (see Benveniste 1969: 221). In Germanic, OHG neve (from PIE *nepot- ‘grandson, sister’s son’) is applicable to the father’s sister’s son, as predicted by the Omaha rules.?? Figure 3.12 is to some extent misleading in that it implies a gradually contracting area where Omaha cousin terminology was retained. Actually, there is no reason to suppose that the stocks lost these features at the same rate; therefore, the fact that a stock shows traces of Omaha cousin terminology does not necessarily imply that it lost such terminology later than a stock which does not show such traces. Nevertheless, Balto-Slavic and Latin appear to form a relic area in terms of this feature. 3.5. Summary. In the preceding sections, I have attempted to examine all of the kinship features whose distribution may reflect dialectal differences in PIE. The following is a summary of the situation, arranged by kin-types. (1) grandfather/mother’s brother (*awos): The Omaha equation of these two kin types is preserved in the western area, lost in the East (Figure 3.4). The term *awos is not preserved at all in the East, unless it underlies Greek aia ‘earth’ (a questionable etymology rejected by Frisk 1970, with literature). (2) grandmother (*an-): The problems associated with this term preclude any reliable conclusions about its distribution. It is difficult to separate the reflexes of this term from those of *anna ‘mother’, if these are, in fact, two different protowords: reflexes of one or the other have been seen in Germanic, Italic, Greek, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian, as well asin Armenian and Hittite, though some of these etymologies are questionable.*° (3) father (*patér, *atta): Most stocks show a reflex of *potér as the word for the father, though *at/a is also generally distributed, attested in some sense in Celtic, Italic, Greek, and Balto-Slavic (and in Hittite); again, the etymological difficulties prevent any conclusions on the distribution of the term (for the data, see Benveniste 1969: 209, Delbrück 1889: 449—450). (4) father’s brother (*patrwyos): The term *patrwyos is generally distributed throughout the PIE dialects (section 3.4.1). (5) father’s sister (= *swesör ‘sister’; section 3.3): Two areas can be distinguished here, with a division along east-west lines: Italic and Germanic have specific terms for this kinsman, while Greek and Balto-Slavic merge the aunts. (6) mother’s sister: A derivative from *matér ‘mother’ is used in the West; the eastern dialect area has innovated (Figure 3.9). (7) siblings and cousins (*bhräter, *swesör, etc.): The Omaha cousin terminology has left traces in a number of stocks (Figure 3.12), most fully in Italic and Balto-Slavic. The distribution of these survivals, however, does not correspond to the east-west division seen elsewhere. (8) son and daughter (*sunus, *suyus, *dhughatér): The original PIE terms for these types were replaced in Celtic and Italic, and eventually in Indo-Iranian and Greek (section 3.4.3); this may be a case of independent loss, rather than a dialectal difference in PIE. (9) sister's child/grandchild (*nepot-, *nepty-): Sister’s son and grandson are equivalent in the western area, different in the East (Figure 3.5). The equiva-

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lence of sister's daughter and granddaughter has a similar distribution (for the data, see Buck 1949:115). The Omaha principle predicts this equivalence only for a male ego, but this distinction is nowhere observable in the data, and leveling may have occurred similar to that seen in the case of ‘sister’s husband'. On the other hand, this leveling may be only apparent, reflecting the failure of lexicographers to look for & distinction between male and female egos: better information is needed. (10) brother's child: Omaha rules equate these types with ‘child’ for a male ego (by the merger of same-sex siblings), and with ‘sibling’ for a female ego (by the generation-skewing principle). Once again, no distinction between the usage of a male and female ego is discoverable in the data. The only possible trace I have found of the original merging rule is the Slavic use of the expression "little son' for the brother's son (e.g. Serbo-Croatian sinovac: see Buck 1949:116). Note that Slavic is also one of the two stocks which preserve the merging rule in cousin terminology (Figure 3.12). (11) husband, wife: Use of the terms "potis ‘master’ and *potni- ‘mistress’ in this sense is an eastern feature (Figure 3.10). (12) sister’s husband (- daughter's husband, *gen-): The equivalence of sister's husband and daughter's husband is generally distributed throughout PIE (section 3.2). (13) son's wife, brother's wife (*snusos): The equivalence of these two types is characteristic of the eastern area (Figure 3.8). (14) father-in-law, mother-in-law (*swekuros, *swekrü-): The distinction of the husband's parents from the wife's parents is attested only in the East (Figure 8.6). (15) wife's siblings, husband's siblings, etc.: À term for the wife's brother can be reconstructed only for the eastern area; in the West, this kin type may have been merged with the wife's father (section 3.2 and Figure 3.7). À specific term for ‘husband’s brother’ (*dazwér) is attested in all stocks except Celtic. A term for ‘husband’s sister’ (*galöw-) is absent from Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian, but in the last, the PIE term has apparently been replaced by word-taboo. A term for the husband's brother’s wife (*yentr-) is preserved in Indo-Iranian, BaltoSlavic, Greek, and Italic, but not in Germanic or Celtic. This may be another example of east-west dialectal division, but independent loss in Celtic and Germanic is not unlikely ; Celtic has replaced all the PIE affinal terms. Two sorts of conclusions can be drawn from the material presented above: specific conclusions about the PIE kinship system, and conclusions about the development of kinship systems in general. The conclusion most strongly supported by the evidence is that there is a division along east-west lines in PIE kinship terminology. This division is visible in terms (1), (5), (6), (9), (11), (13), (14), and (15) above. Most of these involve the Omaha skewing principle; clearly this was largely inoperative in the eastern part of the PIE speech community. This does not mean that the eastern and western systems were monolithic wholes. Indeed, a gradation can be observed, with Balto-Slavic agreeing with the East in its avuncular terminology and with the West in the reciprocal nepotic terminology. No doubt other differences existed

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within each area, but the precise details are difficult to reconstruct. In the case of the merging rule, the evidence for dialectal differences is less clear, though items (7) and (10) point to the survival of the merging rule longest in the Balto-Slavic dialect and adjacent areas. Some evidence from other societies suggests that the Omaha merging rule tends to arise later than the skewing rule in the buildup of an Omaha system, to judge from its lower logical priority in a set of ordered rules (see Bright and Minnick 1966: 387). In the case of PIE, we are faced with the breakdown, not the buildup of an Omaha system, but it is interesting to observe that the merging rule seems to have been lost earlier than the skewing rule: fewer traces of it survive, and in the case of ‘father’s brother’, the loss of this rule is general in all PIE dialects. On the other hand, it is misleading to speak of the loss of the merging rule and the loss of the skewing rule as consecutive events in the change of the PIE kinship system: these are different and apparently independent changes, centered in different dialect areas. Note that Balto-Slavic preserves the merging rule most fully, while sharing in the eastern innovations which brought about the loss of the skewing rule. The Indo-European evidence also suggests that it is not legitimate even to speak rigorously of the loss of a rule. Rather, changes in kinship terminology seem to proceed by individual terms, showing processes of the sort which can be observed in non-kinship domains, e.g. analogy. What the analyst sees as the loss of a rule is the end product of a number of individual changes which eliminate, more or less completely, the kinship features once describable in terms of the rule. This point is developed further in the next section. 4. CONCLUSIONS

Section 3.5 presents specific conclusions about the breakup of the PIE kinship system. The PIE and Greek material also provides information on how kinship systems in general—especialy Omaha systems—operate, and on how they change.! Let us first consider the implications for the formal rules which Lounsbury (1964a, 1964b, 1965) proposes for describing the Omaha skewing of generations. Lounsbury states the rules in general form; for example, the corollary of the Type III skewing rule is: 90

B-...9

F?

(1)

But as Coult (1967:29) has pointed out, this generality is to some extent only apparent, since the kin types which can fill the slots '* 9" and ‘‘o””’ are very limited. In rule (1), the only kin types which can be substituted for 9 are M and W, since the expressions ZB and DB never occur as input to the rule. Lounsbury himself points out that the rules which operate in the consanguineal domain often differ from those operative in the affinal domain, and the data examined below confirm this. Thus rule (1) could be restated, without significant loss of generality, as two rules:

MB — MF WB WF.

(2) (3)

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Instead of stating, for example, that rule (1) is operative in the consanguineal but not in the affinal domain, we may simply state that rule (2) is operative. If Lounsbury’s skewing rules are restated in specific form (with ellipses removed by substituting all possible kin types for them), twenty equivalences are generated. They are listed in the left-hand column of Figure 4.1. Lounsbury's Omaha Type I rules generate only equivalences 4-10; Type II, equivalences 1-10; Type III, equivalences 4-20; Type IV, all twenty. The equivalences are to be underStood as operative wherever they occur in a kinship expression: FZS = ZS implies FZSS = ZSS, etc. (this is not true, however, in Wailaki: column 9; see below). There is à certain amount of redundancy in the rules (e.g. the first rule, FZ — Z, implies the fourth, FZS = ZS); this reflects redundancy present in Lounsbury’s rules and necessary, in his analysis, to account for the varieties of Omaha systems observed. Columns 1-9 of the table display the Omaha equivalences found in a number of American Indian languages in Northern California. These languages were spoken in an area over which linguistic features, including features of kinship terminology, diffused widely through a large group of languages. The remaining columns illustrate the equivalences found in a number of languages outside California; these languages have developed independently of each other, for the most part, though some closely related dialects are included. The significance of the table is that the differences among the languages do not necessarily coincide with the presence or absence of Lounsbury's various rules. Each of the three major horizontal divisions of the table corresponds to one of Lounsbury’s rules together with its corollary; clearly,these divisions are not changing as wholes. Rather, the languages show & bewildering variety of configurations. Lounsbury has explicitly considered the possibility that rules may operate independently in the consanguineal and affinal domains; if the domains are separated (broken lines in the table), the features coincide with his rules somewhat better, and if the equivalences are subdivided still further by separating the rules from their corollaries (dotted lines), the fit is further improved, but it is still far from perfect. Apparently, Lounsbury's rules change independently from their corollaries, to some degree.? The rules operative in the consanguineal domain are independent of those in the affinal domain to an even greater degree. Lounsbury (1965:158) suggests that there may be 49 possible sub-types of Crow (and Omaha) systems, resulting from the independent operation of the various rules in consanguineal and affinal domains, but the independence of the rules and corollaries suggests that there are, rather, several hundred sub-types. Even these do not fully account for the variety of configurations in the table: note the distribution of the equivalences HZS = DS, HZD = DD, and HZH = DH. This distribution seemingly calls for a further division, into sub-sub-types, since the rules apparently operate independently in AC and CA domains, and even in the ACC and ACA domains. But as the domains of the rules are subdivided more and more narrowly, we find ourselves confronted less and less with general rules and more and more with the specifie equivalences listed in the table. It may well be that the variety of

123456789

1m

2.fBS-fB 3.fBD-fZ

&

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

eel.τ τ TTL +------4-------

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

mt

+ ----+-------

-----+-+-+-+--+ + ----|-+-+---+= +

4,FZS=ZS

+++++---- +

1

5.FZD-ZD

+++++----

11

6.MBS=MB 7 .MBD=

++++++--- + - + + + —— + + ++ 224+ ++ + τ ++++++--- - ++ + - +++ +2 2 +++- +

8.FZHZZH

++++++++-

--

-

4d

++ ++ c4: c4: x4 4 — +++++4++++2-—

-

-

+ +

9.WBS-WB 1O.WBD=-WZ

+

d

18

+

+

+

1+

+

d

+

+

1+

++

——

(1.mZSmD8S + - - - - - - -— -

-

4

-

-

=

=

13.MB=MF

=

_

--

--

=

--

l.mZHzmDH—-€—-4---—-—-

4

-

-

15.HZS=DS

4

=...

-

+

16,.HZD=DD

+—+4+4—-—-—-———

-

+

—

17.HZH=DH

—54*4—-——4*—-—+

[8 ΒΞ ΒΒ

- -- - - -- - - -

+

-

---.

I9.

+-

-—

_

-

+

—

+

I2.12D=nDD + - - -— - -— - - - -

MBWzZMM

20.WBW=WM

oo... KX K

--

1

+

--

—

--

—

-

dm

τὰ

|=

END 0 —

-6++r—- 1 --- + Figure

4U-

“-

+

+

-

+

+

+++

+++

++

+ —

4

++

=

3

+

+

+

+ +

—-

=

+

+ 4

+ +

-

+

+

=

=

^

—

=

+

-

-

-

++

_

+

=

—

—

+

-—

-

+

+

+

-

—-

+

+

+

—

-

=

=.

+

+

+

-

-

=.

+

+

+

=

=.

=

---

+

+

-

+

++--

m

-—

—

-

-

+4

4 +

+

--..-.-+---++-++-

+

+ +

+

4.1: Distribution of Omaha features in selected languages.

+

+

+

-

+

-

2

+

+

+

-

«παν

^

—

+

-—

-

um

m

=

-

-

=

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SO

-1

CO

Qv

ὦ"

ἢ

=

CQ» Qv i

&

tà

Ezplanation of Figure 4.1. A plus sign indicates that a common term exists for the two kin types in question; a minus sign that no common term exists. Alternate terms exist in & few cases; an equivalence was considered present if any term equated the kin types. A blank indicates that the data available for a society are not sufficient to determine whether a particular equivalence is present. The blank spaces generally result from the investigator's failure to give terms for certain three-step affines (in some cases, terms are not given even for some two-step affines; the Tokelau data include no affinal terms at all). The absence of a term from the data may indicate that none is in use, or the investigator may simply have failed to elicit the term: the terminologies were collected by researchers of widely varying skill, many of whom had little interest in kinship terminology. Gifford makes a point of looking for three-step affinal terms; in the case of other workers, however, I concluded that no term was in use only if the investigator explicitly so states. No attempt whatever has been made to complete the data by filling out reciprocals. Indeed, one purpose of the table is to illustrate the frequency of reciprocity failure (i.e. the independence of the rules and their corollaries). In column 23 (Soga), the equivalences HZS = DS, HZD = DD, and HZH = DH are not explicitly stated in the data, but are implied by the attested equivalence HZ =D. Numbers in the table refer to conditional equivalences, as follows (also, some equivalences apply only to older or younger siblings): 1. for male ego only . only if older than ego . only elder sister's husband, only of female ego, and only if he is older than ego . only younger sister’s child (or husband), and only of male ego . only if husband's sister married after ego . only if wife's brother married before ego The languages in the table and the sources of data are: . Southeastern Wintun (Gifford 1922: 94-97) . Central Pomo (Gifford 1922: 107-109) . Southeastern Pomo (Gifford 1922: 104-106) . Chukchansi (Gifford 1922: 84-85) . Southern Miwok (Gifford 1922: 86-88) . Plains Miwok (Gifford 1922: 90-91) . Southern Pomo (Gifford 1922: 113-115) . Karok (Gifford 1922: 31-33) . Wailaki (Gifford 1922: 23-25) 10. Acholi (Seligman 1950: 117) 11. Angami (Hutton 1921: 132-135) 12. Arapesh (Mead 1947: 185-187) 13. Bari (Seligman 1950: 258-260) 14. Fox (Tax 1937b) 15. Kitara (Roscoe 1923: 18-20) 16. Lango (Driberg 1923: 176-179) 17. Lenge (Earthy 1933: 12-19) 18. Nandi (Hollis 1909: 92-93) 19. Nyoro (Beattie 1957, 1958) 20. Omaha (Dorsey 1884: 252-255) 21. Rengma (East) (Mills 1937: 128-136) 22. Rengma (West) (Mills 1937: 128-136) 23. Soga (Roscoe 1924: 134) 24. Thonga (Djonga) (Junod 1927: 496-503) 25. Thonga (Ronga) (Junod 1927: 496-503) 26. Tokelau (MacGregor 1937: 45-46) 27. Tzeltzal (de Sousberghe and Uribe 1962)

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terminologies results not from the addition or subtraction of Omaha rules as such, but rather from the addition or loss, often by borrowing, of specific equivalences. Note, in this connection, that Wailaki (column 9) has borrowed the equivalence FZ = Z and its reciprocals, but without the more distant equivalences (e.g. FZS = ZS) which logically follow in an Omaha system. It is not surprising to find individual terms and equivalences borrowed, since kinship terms are, after all, linguistic elements, subject to borrowing of the same sort seen in other semantic areas, including the borrowing of the range of meaning of a term without the term itself (see section 0.2). Lounsbury's rules are not sufficient, in themselves, to account for the varieties of observed Omaha terminologies. Indeed, it is doubtful whether Omaha systems can be fully accounted for in terms of logical rules which operate on genealogical kin types. Formal rules of the type Lounsbury suggests may underlie native cognition in some way, but the neat systems implied by his rules have apparently been distorted by a variety of influences which are not easy to examine (see Schneider 1968, 1969; cf. also Schneider and Roberts 1956). The Indo-European languages show the same independence of rules and corollaries observed in the data of Figure 4.1. The data for equivalences in PIE are not complete, especially in such areas as the spouses of uncles and aunts, but some changes can nevertheless be observed which are analogous to the differences among the languages of Figure 4.1. For example, the different distribution of the equivalences MB = MF (rule) and mZS = mDS (corollary) shows the independence of the rules and corollaries (Figures 3.4 and 3.5). Similarly, the eastern dialect area of PIE lost the Type III corollary in the affinal area, while retaining the Type III rule there (section 3.2). The Indo-European material also sheds light on possible causes of change in kinship terminology. Under what conditions is it justifiable to speak of causes at all? To flatly attribute a change to some particular cause is necessarily a simplification, since kinship terminologies result from a complex interaction of influences, many of which are not readily accessible to the investigator. But one is perhaps justified in speaking of causes when two conditions are met: (1) a feature (of social structure, linguistic structure, etc.) is demonstrably present, and (2) this feature seems a priori likely to cause the observed phenomenon. Perhaps an ideal example is found in the Proto-Central-Algonquian kinship terminology, where cross-cousin marriage apparently brought about the terminology “little (1.6. potential) sibling-in-law" for cross cousins (see section 0.1). A somewhat less clear case of causation is the apparent influence of patrilineal descent in bringing about Omaha kinship systems. A strong correlation between patrilineal descent and Omaha terminology has often been observed, however, and Coult (1967) has demonstrated how patrilineal lineage solidarity could interact with other influences in bringing about an Omaha system of terminology. Less reliable would be a hypothesis which attributed the loss of PIE Omaha terminology to increased size of the society. Lévi-Strauss (1969:xli), for example, has pointed out the association of Omaha and Crow systems with small societies, and the loss of the PIE Omaha features may have occurred at the same time as an increase in population; but to call this causation would probably not be justified, since it is difficult

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to see the precise mechanism by which population growth might bring about the disappearance of Omaha terminology. Finally, the speakers of eastern IndoEuropean languages in some cases reached a flourishing level of civilization (admittedly, a poorly-defined concept) earlier than those in the West, and one might surmise that this fact is somehow related to the early loss of Omaha features in the eastern dialect of PIE, but this is no more than speculation. The PIE and Greek kinship terminologies have clearly been influenced by linguistic changes as well as by changes in social structure. Social structure was no doubt also a factor in the development of Greek kinship terminology (see chapter 3, note 6); the determinants of kinship terminology are varied and multiple (ef. Murdock 1949:113-183). I have concentrated attention on linguistic influences because they can be more easily examined, given the nature of the PIE and Greek material. Three types of linguistic causes can be distinguished: (1) the operation of linguistic processes such as analogy, (2) lexical borrowing, i.e. the borrowing of individual words or equivalences which are not consistent with the pre-existing kinship system, and (3) the influence of the overall structure of the language on the kinship terminology. The first cause, e.g. analogical change, is merely a special case of the analogical processes which are constantly operative in all parts of a language. The analogical equations which extended the range of certain Omaha equivalences in the PIE affinal domain were examined in section 3.2; cf. also such changes as the creation of Greek mätrös ‘mother’s brother’ on the model of pátrós ‘father’s brother’ (section 1.6.1). The second cause, disruptive borrowing, presumably underlies the spread of non-Omaha features in the eastern dialects of PIE, though our information is not sufficient to trace the exact sequence and direction of the borrowings. The third cause, typological features of a language, may be seen at work in numerous places in the Indo-European languages. For example, the frequency of compounding in Greek and Sanskrit has greatly influenced the kinship terminology of these languages. The existence in Greek of a patro-metronymic suffix (-ide-) is responsible for many of the peculiarities of the Greek kinship system (section 2.1). Also, the rise of correlative masculines in -os and feminines in -é in Greek is widely reflected in the kinship terminology (section 2.2). À complete kinship analysis must take account not only of the social structure of & society but also of the linguistic structure of its language, especially when a system employs composite terms, as do Greek and Sanskrit. APPENDIX

Supposed matrilineal descent groups in Homer. A startling hypothesis on Homeric kinship and marriage has been proposed by Miller (1953), who claims that the Homeric poems reflect a system of three matrilineal descent groups with cyclic marriage rules: a man of group A marries a woman of group B, a man of group B a woman of group C, and a man of group C a woman of group A. Children inherit their mother's group affiliation.! The evidence which she presents, however, is not only insufficient but often based on false assumptions; her conclusions may safely be regarded as unsound. Miller’s evidence consists of (1) a supposed division of Greek kinship terms into

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three groups, denoting (a) father's mother, (b) mother's mother, and (c) wife, together with their respective children (the three groups correspond to ego's relatives in each of the supposed marriage groups), and (2) an attempt to explain genealogies on the assumption that persons bearing the same name were members of the same marriage group. But her threefold division of kinship terms is based on speculations which are in many cases false: she assumes, for example, without giving evidence, that &ös and hetairos are terms for kinsmen on the father’s side (on the terms, see above, section 1.10.3), and that oaristös (cf. dar ‘wife’) is a term for ‘son’ and indicates that “the primary relation of the son is to his mother." ? The evidence from genealogies is equally questionable. The assumption that names would be assigned on the basis of descent group membership seems not unreasonable, though unproved, but Miller's genealogy of Odysseus( the only one presented in evidence) is not convincing, because of the enormous number of variants in the sources. The information provided in the Odyssey alone is not sufficient to turn up a single case of homonymous persons in the genealogy, and the later sources which she relies on contradict each other and themselves. To take one example, there are at least four variants of the ancestry of Arkeisios, and only one of them makes Kephalos the paternal grandfather of Arkeisios, as is required in order to make Miller's computations work out correctly.? By choosing the appropriate variants almost any hypothesis could be proved.* À somewhat more rigorous, though equally unsound version of the theory i8 presented by Broadbent (1968), whom I take to be Miss Miller writing under her married name. According to this later version, Greek genealogists adjusted the traditional genealogies to fit a system of three-section marriage rules. Broadbent makes some attempt to sort out the various genealogical sources, but even in this presentation, the most impressive example of a three-section genealogy (p. 329) i8 based on selections from a variety of sources, and hence invalid. She presents only four three-section genealogies which are derived from a single genealogist, and none of these is convincing. One (p. 321) is based largely on speculative reconstruction of what the historian Hellanikos might have said. Another (p. 313) contains at least two counterexamples.° A third (p. 320) does contain three pairs of homonymous persons in the same descent group, but two of these pairs occur because a great-grandson has the same name as his great-grandfather. The fourth (p. 299) results in a rather unconvincing picture of a twelve-section society produced by three descent groups intersecting four. The ideal evidence to prove the existence of these marriage groups would be genealogies involving intermarriage, with men marrying women of the proper marriage group. Only one of the three-section genealogies involves intermarriage, however (p. 321), and it is the one based on a mixture of sources; the others rely on homonymy. Broadbent attributes some genealogies to a more realistic twosection system, but even these are far from convincing, since coincidence could easily have produced the illusion of à two-section matrilineal system, in view of the common Greek practice of naming grandsons after their paternal grandfathers, and especially since her rules on what constitutes homonymy are rather loose. As she points out (p. 304), some genealogies could be interpreted on either a three-section or a two-section model.

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But probably the most serious objection to her presentation is that the few examples she presents in evidence are outweighed by the numerous counterexamples which she does not present. To take one example (Miller 1953:50): she omits the genealogy of Telemachos’ wife Polykaste, who was Tyro's son's son's daughter (this information from Homer himself: Odyssey 3.465, 11.254); Tyro, as wife (Odyssey 11.237) of Kretheus, the brother of Deion, must be in group B in her table. This makes Polykaste group A, which is not the correct group for her to marry Telemachos.

NOTES INTRODUCTION

! There have been some attempts to trace the changes from PIE to the daughter languages. Friedrich (1963), for example, deals with the development of Slavic terminology. 3 Mycenaean Greek terms are attested only for a few primary kin types, and they do not appear to differ significantly from those in use later: tju (=later Greek huitís ‘son’), tjo, possibly ‘son’, pate (=patér ‘father’), mate (=mé@ér ‘mother’), tukate (=thugdlér ‘daughter’), kowo (=kotros), usually ‘boy’, sometimes apparently ‘son’ (cf. the Homeric use of koüros discussed below, section 1.2). On these terms, see Chadwick and Baumbach 1963. On Mycenaean damate (cf. Homeric dámartes ‘ wives’), see section 1.4.1, note 56. * This is not a new approach. In the early part of the century, some anthropologists emphasized linguistic causes almost to the point of entirely denying the influence of social structure: see Kroeber 1909:82-83, Michelson 1916, 1917, Hallowell 1928. Since then, however, anthropologists have reacted in the opposite direction, largely ignoring linguistic factors. ‘A parallel sibling-in-law is one of opposite sex from ego (man’s sister-in-law, woman's brother-in-law) ; a cross sibling-in-law is of the same sex as ego. The languages involved include Tolowa, Lassik, Sinkyone, Wailaki, Karok, and Shasta, among others. The sibling-inlaw terms show a wide variety of configurations, but seem to share a semantic dimension involving the cross-parallel distinction. 5 The term ‘‘transformational’’ is somewhat misleading, since it implies that the method is directly related to transformational grammar. Actually, it is transformational only in the sense that it specifies rules which transform one kin type into another. The proper place for such rules in the grammar of a language is not perfectly clear; Langacker (1969:847-848) discusses this question explicitly and concludes that the rules probably should not in fact be treated as grammatical transformations. * The revival of interest in componential analysis seems to have been largely inspired by Goodenough 1956; a large number of componential analyses have appeared. For a discussion of earlier work in this area, see Colby 1966. Transformational analysis has been pursued most vigorously by Floyd Lounsbury in several articles, notably Lounsbury 19648, 1964b, 1965. Coult (1967) has suggested that the method was originally developed by Tax (19372) and only reintroduced by Lounsbury in a different form. For &n example of transformational analysis applied to a system other than Crow or Omaha, see Aoki 1966. CHAPTER

1

1 E.g. Iliad 1.396: patrós eni megároisin ákousa ‘I have heard in the halls of (my) father (Peleus)', Odyssey 1.94: nóston peusómenon pairds phtlou ‘to seek news about the return of your father (Odysseus)'. 1 Iliad 9.481: m’ ephilés’ hós ef te paldr hón patda philésé ‘he loved me as a father loves his son’. Iliad 23.222: hós dé pat?r hott paidós odüretai ostéa katon ‘as a father grieves for his son, burning his bones’. Iliad 24.770: hekurös dé paldr hós épios aiet ‘my husband's father was always gentle as a father’; cf. Odyssey 2.47, 2.234, 5.12, 15.152. Odyssey 1.308: phtla phronéón agoreüeis, hós te paldr höi paidi ‘you speak with kindly intent, as a father to his son’, cf. Odyssey 16.17, 17.111. Odyssey 17.397: paldr hóa ködeai hufos ‘you take care of me as a father takes care of a son’. 2 Similarly, at Iliad 5.662 Zeus is called patér with respect to his son Sarpedon, but this may just be a case of palér as an epithet for Zeus. Iliad 11.751 and 5.662 are the only two places where Homer refers to the patér of someone who has both divine and human fatbers. * See Aristotle, Pol. 1259» 10-14, EN 1160b24-27; in modern times, Calhoun 1935, Nilsson 1938, Chantraine 1947:234. An older view held that Zeus was originally viewed as progenitor: see Roscher 1909:1680-81, Sikes 1914:25-26. s E.g. Iliad 15.236-16.676: oud’ ἄτα patrds anékodistésen Apöllön ‘nor did Apollo fail to heed (his?) father’; likewise, Iliad 5.662, 5.734=8.385, 19.355, 21.475, Odvssey 8.289, etc. 64

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* Zeüs: lliad 4.235 and about 70 other passages, in various grammatical cases (sometimes separated, as at Iliad 1.578). Krontdés: lliad 21.508, 22.60, separated at Iliad 8.31, Odyssey

1.45-1.81«24.473. Andrón te iheön te: Iliad 1.544 and 14 other places. Without these qualifiers: Iliad 1.534, 8.69=22.209, 8.245-17.648, 11.80, 14.352, 16.250, 21.520 (patri kelainephet * the dark-clouded father’), 24.461, Odyssey 12.65. There are also a number of places where patér could simply mean ‘father’ (see note 5). ? This could also be the sense of patér at Odyssey 24.216, where Odysseus refers to patrós . . . hémetérovo ‘our father’ (Laertes) in the presence of Telemachos and others who are not the sons of Laertes but are nevertheless members of the Ithakan royal household. More likely, however, héméteros equals emós ‘my’ there (Schwyzer 1950:2.203, Floyd 1969). * The occurrences in this non-kin sense are: in the Iliad, 24.362 (Hermes, as youth, to Priam); in the Odyssey (all to Odysseus, as beggar), 7.28 (Athena, as maiden), 7.48 (the same), 8.145 (Laodamas), 8.408 (Euryalos), 17.553 (Eumaios), 18.122 (Amphinomos), 20.199 (Philoitios). All but the first of these are accompanied by zefne ‘stranger’. Páter may also be addressed to the speaker’s actual father. It is so used only in the last nine books of the Odyssey, but this distribution no doubt results from the content of these books rather than.a change in linguistic usage, as the patér is usually Odysseus, addressed by Telemachos (twice Laertes, addressed by Odysseus). In addition, Zeus is addressed as páter by his children eight times (e.g. Iliad 5.421). The remaining occurrences of the vocative are.all elearly used of Zeus in sense (2), by mortals 33 times (e.g. Iliad 2.371), by gods 6 times (e.g. Iliad 1.503). * That it is this role and not directly that of head of household which is metaphorically applied to the addressee is implied by the parallel use of tékos and téknon. Note also the parallel use of mter ‘mother’ at Aischylos, Pers. 215; on this use of méter, and on postHomeric examples of páter, see Wendel 1029:96. . V The only exception is Odyssey 17.553, and even there, the addressee is virtually a stranger. There is no such restriction in later Greek (for references, see Wendel 1929:96), and in Homer it is probably the result of competition from the noun-epithet formulas with which young men typically address older men whose names they know. 1 LSJ do not cite this meaning for the singular, but it occurs in the Septuagint (Arndt and Gingrich 1952) and patér may have this sense at Phoronis fr. 1 Kinkel. 12 Numerous Vedic references in Grassmann 1873 s.v. pitf; see also Ghurye 1962:52-67, with literature. 13 Cf. Schulze 19348:323. Wilamowitz (1922:479-480) suggests a wider meaning for patéres (“Männer meines väterlichen Geschlechtes’’) at Pindar, P. 5.76, but this is his only example, and the wider meaning is far from certain there (Floyd 1965:51). The Tritopatreis, evidently ancestor deities of patrilineal descent groups, are significant in this connection (Hemberg 1954). ^ LSJ give no prose citations for either. Note that no Greek god other than Zeus is called patér (though the term is later applied to the Hebrew and eventually tbe Christian God, evidently as a Hebraism). 16 Iton, Iliad 2.696; Phthia, Iliad 9.479; Thrace, Iliad 11.222; Pylos, Odyssey 15.226. 16 Similar expressions occur at Iliad 5.896, 16.203, 20.128, Odyssey 3.95-4.325, 6.25, 7.198, 21.172. 1 LSJ cite examples of métér ‘source’ from later authors (e.g. Pindar, O. 8.1); neither they nor Ebeling (1885) cite this Iliad passage as a use of métér in a sense other than simply ‘mother’. # Also with the metrically equivalent Hebe (Iliad 4.2), Enyo (Iliad 5.692), Kirke (e.g. Odyssey 8.448), námphe (i.e. Kalypso: Odyssey 5.149, cf. Odyssey 1.14); once in line-initial potni’ Athénaté (Iliad 6.305). On the metrical anomaly in pótnia Héré, see Chantraine 1958:92. 9 Pótnia is applied to a wide variety of mothers: Thetis (e.g. Iliad 1.357), Andromache's mother (Iliad 6.413), Andromache (Iliad 6.471), Marpessa (Iliad 9.561), Althaia (Iliad 9.584), Sokos’ mother (Iliad 11.452), Hippodameia’s mother (Iliad 13.430), Briseis’ mother (Iliad 19.291), Hekabe (e.g. Iliad 22.239), Arete (Odyssey 6.30), Antikleia (e.g. Odyssey

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11.180), Neaira (Odyssey 12.134), Eumaios' mother (e.g. Odyssey 15.385), Iros' mother (Odyssey 18.5), Penelope (Odyssey 21.115), and Leodes' mother (Odyssey 21.172). 20 Wilamowitz 1884:169, Scotland 1885:394-395, Burrows 1907:217-219, Bérard 1924:429439, Bolling 1925:236, Bethe 1029:124, Murray 1934:125-126, Thomson 1954:420. Bérard tries to find late forms in the passage. Murray adds the suggestion that Arete was honored so highly by Alkinoos (verse 67) because she was his sister as well as his wife. Shewan (1925) adequately disposes of Burrows’ claim that ákouros (verse 64) must mean 'childless', not merely ‘without male issue’. 31 Schulze (1934a:321-325) uses this fact, together with Slavic and Lithuanian parallels, to Support the contention of Schrader and Nehring (1923:245-256) and Delbrück (1889:452) that there was no PIE term for ‘parents’ (see also Scherer 1956:164-165, Benveniste 1969: 209-210). Tokeüs, like post-Homeric goneüs ‘ancestor’, and like the corresponding Slavic and Lithuanian words, is used in the plural because it refers to a line of ancestors, and not to the two parents. 1! As Alkinoos' sister, Arete would be the daughter of Nausithoos (see Odyssey 8.565). Various Suggestions, more ingenious than tempting, for emending this tampering are given by Fick (1883:59), van Leeuwen and da Costa (1897), Bérard (1924:436), and Scotland (1885:394). 2. The Hesiodic genealogy of Agamemnon, for example, adds Pleisthenes between Agamemnon &nd Atreus, just as this Homeric genealogy adds Rhexenor between Nausithoos and Arete (Eoiai fr. 69 Evelyn-White). 1! Some ancient scholars may have objected to this interpretation, however. Bérard (1924 :432-433) points out that the scholiasts defend the necessity of lines 56-66; he concludes that their authenticity had been questioned in antiquity. *5 On Arete as an epikleros, see Thomson 1954:420. Thomson, however, accepts the expurgation theory, claiming that an original marriage of siblings was revised to fit the eptkleros model. ? Ridgeway (1931:124), while rejecting the idea of expurgation, claims that ‘the marriage of Arete to her paternal uncle Alcinous points to the existence of female kinship among the Phaeacians.’’ This seems no more tenable than a claim that the Athenian laws on the eptkleros indicated that kinship was reckoned primarily or exclusively through females at Athens. Quite the contrary: the laws are designed to safeguard the patrilineal succession. 7 In addition to the words discussed here, Homer uses thálos ‘branch’ metaphorically for ‘child’ at Iliad 22.87. Ozos ‘branch’ is also used in this way several times, always with the genitive Aréos ‘of Ares’, often in reference to heroes not recorded as related to Ares (e.g. Iliad 2.842). Goné occurs twice (Iliad 24.539, Odyssey 4.755) in the sense ‘children, collectively’. On other general terms sometimes applied to children, see section 1.10.4. On génos and ékgonos ‘descendant’, usually applied to offspring, see section 1.6.2.1. On népodes, probably ‘descendant’, see section 1.5.2.2. 3 The phrase hufes .1khatén ‘sons of the Achaeans’ is a frequent formula for the Greeks. It is not clear what meaning Homer felt hufes to have here. Conceivably, the phrase is modeled on koßroi Akhat6n, which probably had the original sense ‘fighting men of the Achaeans’ but could have been understood as ‘sons of the Achaeans’ (see below). » LSJ imply that this restriction is absolute, but there are a few exceptions. Koüre haltoio gérontos ‘daughter of the old man of the sea’ (Odyssey 24.58) is only an apparent exception, since halíoio gérontos is a naming formula equivalent to a proper name. Koflrai aristéón ‘daughters of chiefs’ (Iliad 9.396), however, seems a clear violation of the rule. Also, at Iliad 6.247, kouráón (without a genitive) seems to mean ‘daughters (of Priam)’ in contrast to his sons (pafdes) mentioned a few lines earlier, though it could be taken as ‘brides, young wives’ (so LSJ). In the phrase κούτξ Briséts (e.g. Iliad 9.106), the patronymic may have replaced the usual genitive (cf. Telamónios huids ‘son of Telamon’), but the phrase could, of course, mean ‘the young woman, daughter of Briseis'. 80 Only one passage (Odyssey 19.523) requires the meaning ‘son’ for kofros, though phrases like ko@roi Akhaión (e.g. Iliad 1.473), koüroi Athénatén (Iliad 2.551), koßroi Boiotón

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(Iliad 2.510) were probably felt to have the kin sense by the poet. At Iliad 6.59, koßros refers to an unborn son, and apparently means something like ‘a (potential) fighting man’; the kin sense seems excluded by the absence of a genitive (on this puzzling passage, see Leaf 1900:262). Ko@ros presumably also has the sense ‘son’ in the compound ákouros ‘without male offspring’ (Odyssey 7.54): see Shewan 1925. On the other hand, the feminine kodrö more often has the sense ‘daughter’ than ‘young woman’. 3! When used in the non-kin sense ‘young person’, the age range of pdis differs from that of koüros (-é). Koüros includes young adults (e.g. the Greeks fighting at Troy) and means ‘a man in youthful vigor’ or ‘a man of military age’: at Iliad 4.321, for example, the aged Nestor regrets that he is no longer a ko@ros. Kotiré ‘young woman’ seems to have a similar age range: it is applied to Nausikaa and her playmates, to Briseis, and to Athene, for example (e.g. Odyssey 6.15, 6.135, Iliad 2.377, 24.26), and it is used of a young woman at the time of her marriage (Odyssey 18.279). Páis, on the other hand, refers to a younger child than koüros (-6): paídes mischievously disturb wasps or unsuccessfully try to make a donkey move (Iliad 16.260, 11.560), while kofiroi appear as warriors and hunters or leading a bull to sacrifice (e.g. Iliad 9.86, 17.726, 20.405). The age categories of páis and kottros evidently overlap, since we find both patdes and koüroi described as pröthäbai ‘in the prime of youth’ (Iliad 8.518, Odyssey 8.263). The criteria for being a páis (or a koßros or koürö), however, are presumably less a matter of chronological age than of social role (as with boy and girl). Note that Penelope no longer considers Telemachos a páts, but Antinoos, perhaps ironically, says that he is one (Odyssey 18.216, 4.665). 33 Téknon refers to animal young at Iliad 2.311-327, 11.113, 12.170, 19.400, Odyssey 16.217; tékos at Iliad 8.248, 12.222, 16.265. The restriction of páis to human offspring continues in post-Homeric Greek: at Aischylos, Ag. 50, páis is applied to the young of eagles, but personification is probably involved. 33 Many of the occurrences of tékos are metrically replaceable by the more common pá:s. This suggests, from the standpoint of the economy of epic language, that tékos was retained in Homer's language because it differed semantically from pdis. Tékos is obsolete in post-Homeric Greek and may have been obsolete at the time of Homer. 3 Schmidt (1878:423, followed by Delbrück 1889:456) maintains that téknon and tékos place emphasis on engendering, while pá:s refers to a child as an individual: ‘‘durch país das Kind nicht als Erzeugniss der Eltern, sondern als ein junges menschliches Wesen bezeichnet wird" (Delbrück 1889:456). This is similar to the distinction drawn here between páis and tékos, though Schmidt and Delbrück do not distinguish tékos and téknon. 35 Tékos is accompanied only by possessive adjectives (e.g. Odyssey 2.178) and the colorless phtlos ‘dear’, almost ‘one’s own’. 86 It is significant that génos, in its concrete sense, is accompanied only by the adjectives theton and dion ‘divine’ (Iliad 6.180, 9.538) and basiléion ‘kingly’ (Odyssey 16.401); these adjectives describe not the kinsman but his ancestry (i.e. they are equivalent to genitives “of the gods," ‘‘of a king," as is clear from Iliad 6.180: thefon génos oud’ anthripon ‘a divine génos, not (a génos) of mortals’). τι Tékos also occurs in the phrase Pridmoto tékessin ‘children of Priam’ (Iliad 5.535, 22.453), which might be regarded as similar to a naming formula. This phrase, however, can be interpreted (especially in the context of Iliad 5.535), as contrasting the children of Priam with the child of someone else, stressing kinship in the way tékos generally does. 38 Other uses are also impersonal: three times, a parent is said to have treated an adopted child equally with his own (ékessi ‘children’ (Iliad 5.71, 13.176-15.551), tékos serving merely as a point of comparison rather than a personal figure; a tékos is often hypothetical, as at Odyssey 8.243, where Alkinoos refers to Odysseus’ tékessin, obviously not thinking of individuals, since he does not know at this point whether Odysseus even has any children (cf. Odyssey 2.178, perhaps Iliad 24.467). It is significant that tékos never occurs in the nominative case. ? For the expressions used of wives and children, see the following passages (those in parentheses differ only slightly in wording from the passages preceding them): Odyssey 12.42, Iliad 2.136 (Iliad 6.95), Iliad 18.514 (Tliad 4.238), Odyssey 13.45, Odyssey 14.264,

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Iliad 9.594; women bearing children: Odyssey 11.285, Iliad 6.196, Odyssey 11.249, 19.266, 22.324. ‘0 The words can be used in the vocative with the genitive of a name (e.g. huté Pridmoio ‘O son of Priam’). Whatever the grammatical or stylistic status of such phrases, they are clearly in a different category from uses in the vocative without the genitive of a name, and in the discussion to follow they will not be considered uses in address. 41 There is a rather startling difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey in the use of téknon. In the Odyssey, téknon is addressed to younger persons regardless of kinship. In the Iliad, however, it is restricted to the speaker’s actual offspring (18 times), with one exception (Iliad 10.192), in a book of the Diad whose claim to authenticity is the weakest of any. 42 Nestor tells them to harness a chariot. It is possible that he is addressing servants here, though his children have been performing other domestic tasks in the preceding lines. At Odyssey 7.4-6, the sons of a royal household unharness mules (though at Odyssey 6.73, servants harness them). 42 In poet-Homeric Greek, pat is regularly used as a term of address to slaves, regardless of age. ** On the relation between adelpheós and the later adelphós, see Frisk 1970:8.v. adelpheds and Georgacas 1957 :106-108. On the spelling adelpheóo for the vulgate adelpheiod (Iliad 5.21 etc.) see Chantraine 1958:45. Adelpheós is rare in the plural (Chantraine 1960:28), but the reason may be at least partly metrical: the oblique cases of the plural are excluded from hexameter. 4 Bowra (1934:65) reviews the occurrences of the word; see also Lejeune 1960:20. It occurs outside Aeolic and Cyprian dialecta only in tragic or mock-tragic uses or in Homeric reminiscences. ** The most recent and convincing etymological attempts are those of Lejeune (1960) and Pisani (1961). Lejeune holds that kasígnétos contains a comitative particle *kati- (cf. Hittite kat-ti) and hence is parallel to Latin co-gnatus; he is followed by Chantraine 1960. Pisani accepta the connection with Hittite kat-ti, but regards it not as an IE etymon but 83 the result of influence from a substratum in Greece with Anatolian affinities. A word kásis ‘brother’ is found in Attic tragedy and elsewhere; this term is evidently a hypocoristic shortening of kastgnétos (cf. Gulippos/Gulis) (so originally Fick 1875, followed by Lejeune 1960:21, but not Benveniste 1969:220). On kásioi, see section 8.4.4 below. “ It would be tempting to translate pröton d’ as “but first”’ (i.e. before calling on his kastgnétoi); this would permit kastgnétos to have the sense ‘brother’ here (cf. Lattimore 1951:324). Homer never uses prÓton in this way, however; for a close parallel to its use here, see Iliad 17.553. ** Benveniste, for example (1969:221), refers to this passage and concludes ''. . . cette parenté est nécessairement de type classificatoire et ainsi kasígnétos rejoint phrater . . . ”; Andrewes (1961:134) regards it as δὴ undoubted fact that kastgnétos includes at least first cousins as well as brothers. 9 E.g. frater (patruelis) ‘father’s brother’s son’; see Glotz 1904:87, Gonda 1962, and section 8.4.4 below. 9 In addition to the two passages cited here, Iliad 16.456-16.674 (referring to Sarpedon’s kastgnétot te &lai te) conceivably requires a wider meaning for kasígnétos than ‘brother’ (so Ebeling 1885, LSJ). As the scholia point out, Homer does not mention that Sarpedon had any brothers. This is at best an argument from silence, however. Furthermore, the phrase kasígnétoi te étai te i8 a conventional formula for solidarity groups and cannot be taken too literally (see Section 1.10.3). δι E.g. Odyssey 6.154-155, Iliad 6.421-428. Kastgnétos and its derivatives are associated with primary kin terms twelve times in all. Significantly, adelpheós also is (e.g. Iliad 24.736), but anepsiós never is. δ The sense ‘kinsman’ may be a metaphorical extension: cf. the metaphorical extension of adelphós at S. Ant. 192 (kai nan adelphà tönde kerázas ékhé ‘and I have now proclaimed matters related to these’).

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ss Odyssey 17.547«19.558: every one of the suitors will be killed. Odyssey 11.134-23.281: Odysseus is to sacrifice to all the gods in order. Iliad 13.829: all the Greeks will be killed, says Hektor, without exception. 5* It is interesting to observe that Melanippos is virtually an adopted son of Priam (see lines 547-551). Perhaps kastgnétos could be interpreted as ‘brother’ even in this passage. Pási mála would then mean that Hektor called on all his brothers, including adoptive ones. 55 In both of the Homeric occurrences of dar (Iliad 5.486, 9.327), the meter requires an initia] consonant, e.g. digamma, and its derivatives oarízo, oarisiós, and oaristás also are scanned with an initial consonant in the majority of their occurrences. This seems inconsistent with the usual etymologies, which connect dar with an element *o- (see Frisk 1970), as well as with the recently suggested connection with a proposed Hittite word -asar ‘woman’ (Szemerényi 1966) and with Dyer’s attempt to link the word to ofthar ‘udder’ (Dyer 1964: 128). On the spelling oáressin (for the vulgate öressin) at Iliad 5.486, see Chantraine 1958:55. st Oar and dámar are of uncertain etymology (see the copious literature in Frisk 1970: s.vv.). The formation of álokhos, ákoitis, and parákoitis from words for ‘bed’ or ‘lie’ is clear, but similar formations in other languages may be independent creations. Gun? is inherited, but in the sense ‘woman’; it was probably not the PIE term for ‘wife’ (see Benveniste 1969: 245-249 and the discussion below, section 8.4.2). The word damate occurs on a Mycenaean Greek tablet (PY En 609), and it has been identified with dámartes, in an earlier sense ‘families’ (Carratelli 1954:92, Palmer 1954:35, 1963:190), but this identification is not certain, and others have also been proposed (Chadwick and Baumbach 1963). δι Álokhos appears, apparently as a deliberately archaic word used in a technical sense, at Aristotle, Pol. 1253*6. On dámar as a technical legal term, see below, note 62. 55 The Homeric word pháros, for example, has an apparent double meaning to a speaker of English: ‘cloak’ (Odyssey 5.230) and 'shroud' (Iliad 18.353). But the reality of this distinction in the Homeric language is doubtful; & pháros is simply a piece of cloth for covering & body, whether alive or dead. 9 Tliad 2.289, 3.48, 4.162, 6.81, 6.160, 6.432, 6.400, 6.516, 8.57, 8.165, 9.394, 9.504, 10.422, 11.393, 17.36, 18.265, 21.200, Odyssey 1.13, 1.433, 2.249, 6.184, 7.68, 7.109, 7.347, 8.523, 9.199, 11.162, 11.224, 11.237, 11.403, 11.427, 11.441, 11.444, 11.456, 12.42, 13.44, 14.64, 14.123, 14.130, 14.211, 14.264, 15.237, 15.241, 16.431, 17.152, 17.433, 18.276, 19.165, 19.210, 19.262, 19.336, 19.583, 20.34, 21.72, 22.38, 23.100, 23.168, 24.113. Included in the 58 are a few where the word might be given the sense ‘woman’ by a more or less forced reading (e.g. Iliad 3.48). In the vocative, günai is used as a polite term of address to any woman, whether she is the speaker’s wife or not. Should the uses of günai in address to the speaker’s wife be regarded as tokens of gun& ‘wife’? Probably not: note that Odysseus addresses Penelope as günai both before and after his recognition with no apparent difference in usage. The sense ‘wife’ is required, however, in the five occurrences of the whole-line formula ὃ gina: aidoté Laertidded Odusséos ‘O chaste wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes' (e.g. Odyssey 17.152). © By Schmidt 1878:407; likewise Chantraine 1947:223; and apparently Knebel 1955b (she glosses it as ‘‘Legitime Ehefrau’’). 61 There is a variant reading here: gnésioi ex alókhón ‘legitimate, from wives’; it is not impossible that the singular (alókhou) was introduced into the text by an ancient editor for whom álokhos was an archaic word with associations of legitimacy applicable only to the first wife. *! In later Greek, dámar denoted the wife obtained by engyesis, whose children were legitimate, as opposed to a pallaké ‘concubine’: see Gernet 1937a:393-396 and Demosthenes 46.18; also Harrison 1968:5. #3 One way of punctuating this passage makes the álokhos Klytaimestra (see Leaf 1900: 395). But Leaf’s punctuation makes very poor sense, and it has not been generally accepted (Clark 1940). *! The passages are Odyssey 4.228, 11.266, 11.298, 11.305. The use of (par-)ákoitis in these passages perhaps resulta from metrical convenience, since the lines contain more than one proper name and were presumably more difficult than average to generate. 86 E.g. potésan ákoitin ‘they made her his wife’ (Iliad 24.537), andr) póron parékottin ‘I

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provided her as wife to a man’ (Iliad 24.60); cf. keklésthai ákoitin ‘to be called your wife’ (Iliad 14.269). At Iliad 9.399 occurs the line gémanta mnéstén álokhon, eikuían ákoitin, to paraphrase roughly, ‘marrying a wife, a suitable person to enter into a relationship with.’ *5 On pósis, see below, section 3.4.2. Anér also has Indo-European cognates (see Frisk 1970), but the meaning ' husband' is evidently an independent development in the various languages where the word appears, and it is not possible to discover at what stage of Greek this meaning developed. The word is attested in Mycenaean Greek only as the second member of compound names and in the word adirijate, apparently dative of andriás 'statue' (Chadwick and Baumbach 1963:173). Akottés and parakoités are late formations modeled on the corresponding feminines (8ee Chantraine 1968). © [n Attic, pósis continued to exist (outside poetry) only as an elevated, archaizing, perhaps legalistic term, e.g. Aristotle Pol. 1335^41. Pósis is attested in Cyprian (GDI 26). On post-Homeric terms for husband, see Chantraine 1947:220. € The passages are: Iliad 3.140, 6.463, 14.504, 19.291, 19.295, 24.725, Odyssey 1.292=2.223, 6.181, 6.184, 7.68, 11.327, 19.209, 19.265, 23.101-23.169, 24.196. * He adopts Mehler's emendation of line 551 to emós kalllai, ts neotéras d' dr δὶ ‘be called my pösis but be (in reality) the younger woman's'; this emendation has not been generally accepted, but it is adopted by various editors, most recently Pignarre (1947). 7 K ourídios is used once as a noun, either in the sense ‘husband’ or, perhaps more likely, in the sense ‘legitimate, original (husband)': Odyssey 15.22. For a discussion of kourtdios, with a summary of previous literature, see Thieme 1963:216-221. Thieme considers the word to mean 'legitimate', originally with reference to a marriage arranged during the spouses’ childhood, and hence fully sanctioned. It is not absolutely certain, however, that it preserved this sense in Homer; child marriage is no longer practiced in Homeric society, and kourídios may have become merely a generalized epithet for any spouse (like mnéstés and probably poludöros). Thieme points out that the word is used twice of the marriage of Helen and Menelaos (Iliad 7.392, 13.626), &nd never of the relationship of Helen and Paris, but this might be fortuitous. The strongest evidence for Thieme's hypothesis is the fact that kourídios is used five times in passages which can be interpreted as implying a contrast between Penelope’s marriage to Odysseus (as kourídios) and her marriage to one of the suitors (as not kourtdios): Odyssey 15.22, 19.580-21.78, 23.150, 24.196. τι “Close proximity’’ is limited (rather arbitrarily) to a maximum separation of two lines. At Iliad 19.295, anér is used near álokhos, but they are not directly associated; at Odyssey 8.523 and 14.130, gun? is used near pósis, but is perhaps to be taken as ‘woman’. 7* On the PIE series, see Benveniste 1965; pappepípappos is incorrectly defined by LSJ, as he points out. Broadbent (1968:140-142) cites and discusses some of the ancient testimonia on these terms. 18 The earliest post-Homeric use which I have found is at Theokritos 17.23, in a poem filled with pseudo-archaisms (e.g. népodes: see next section). Schmeja (1963:27) suggests that huiónós may have actually been created by the author of the Homeric poems, but this seems unlikely. The isolated and unproductive nature of its suffix in historical times indicates, rather, that the word is an old formation, perhaps merely an archaic survival in the epic language. In post-Homeric Greek, -ide- becomes the regular suffix for ‘child of’ (it is attested as early as Alkman: see Bection 2.1). ** Frisk (1970) lists and easily disposes of a number of other hypotheses; for references to Still others, see Pariente 1943:110-111. Frisk inclines toward the connection with nepos; Meillet (1930b) confidently accepts it. 78 Mardonios is the anepsids (father's sister's son) of Xerxes at Herodotos 7.5. Euripides also uses anepsids of the father's sister’s son (/T 919), and in the Attic orators it is commonly used for first cousins of all four types. ** On this law, see Jones 1956:191, Harrison 1968:143-149. The phrase anepsién patdes ‘children of cousins’ is ambiguous, meaning either (1) ‘children of ego’s cousins’, i.e. ‘first cousins once removed (downward)’, or (2) ‘children of those who are cousins (to each other)’, i.e. ‘second cousins’. This has led to some controversy over the interpretation of the law, but it appears certain that anepeiós itself was felt to be confined to first cousins.

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In several places, e.g. Isaios 11.10, aneps?ot país refers to a second cousin, thus seemingly making anepsiós a first cousin once removed (upward), but anepsioß pats is probably a somewhat illogical back formation from anepsién patdes in its second sense (‘second cousin’): see Thompson 1970:77-78. When not joined with país, anepsiós never refers to any kinsman other than 8 same-generation first cousin. Thompson refutes in detail the erroneous assumption that anepsiós can mean ‘nephew’ in ancient Greek. T''The Herodotos passage depends for its point on the traditional common descent of all Athenians: on this, see Plato, Euthd. 302c: . . . Athénatois ouk éstin Zeüs ho patróios? *is not Zeus the paternal kinsman of the Athenians?' ? Delbrück 1889:519-520; also van Leeuwen (1912) and other editors. Eustathios (382.17) claims that Helen was metaphorically the nuós of all the Greek heroes, since they fought for her as if they were brothers of Menelaos. 7 Gnölds ‘kinsman’ is not to be confused with the homophonous gnólós ‘known’ (e.g. Diad 7.401). The kin term is almost certainly cognate with gígnomai ‘come into being’ (Frisk 1970). Schulze (1936:113) favors a connection with gignöskö ‘know’, but this view has not met with support. 80 E.g. Apollonios Sophistes, the B scholion at Iliad 15.336, etc. The synonymy of gnótós and adelpheós is supported by Bréal (1889:345) and Chantraine (1960:31). δι Iliad 17.35, 22.234; Lejeune (1960:22) adds Iliad 14.485, but the usage there may be gnomic and not a reference to a specific individual. 33 The meaning ‘kinsman’ seems appropriate for most of these later uses (e.g. Theokritos 16.25, Sammelb. 7423.14), though péostiné (A.R. 1.48) apparently is intended to mean ‘relationship by marriage’. €: E.g. Apollonios Sophistes (131.22), the B and T scholia at Iliad 3.163, the Q scholion at Odyssey 8.583, Schrader and Nehring (1928:376), Ebeling (1885; he also admits a more general sense 'propinquus' at Odyssey 23.120), Wackernagel (1930:456). Eustathios (779.55) explicitly states that péof include hoi (e didónies kai hoi lambánontes ‘the giving ones and the taking ones’, i.e. both CA- and AC-types. * For parallels to this semantic change, cf. Greek pentherós, cognate with Skt. bandhu ‘kinsman’ (Gernet 1937b:25); It. cognato and Sp. cuflado ‘brother-in-law’ from Latin cognatus (Buck 1949:126). 85 Admittedly, Homeric exiles are never (or at least are never stated to be) accompanied by members of their household. Tyrtaios, however, refers to an exile accompanied by his father, mother, children, &nd wife (fr. 10.3 Bergk). 86 The sense ‘private citizen’ is exclusively West Greek. In a sixth-century Elean inscription (GDI 1149.8), a telestá (an official) is contrasted with a wétas. Étés occurs in this sense also in Pindar (Paian 6.10) and in a treaty (in Doric) cited by Thukydides (5.79.4), as well 88 in inscriptions from Black Corcyra (SIG* 141.12, 4th c. B.C.) and Tegea (JG vol. 5, fasc. 2, 20.5, 1st c. B.C.; on Doric influence in late Arcadian inscriptions, see Buck 1955:179). Etés is found in this sense in three passages of Attic tragedy (A. Supp. 247, A. fr. 377 Nauck, E. fr. 1014 Nauck); in view of the absence of the word from other Attic documents, these uses must be regarded as Doric borrowings, even though they occur in trimeter (on Doric borrowings in trimeter passages, see Thumb and Kieckers 1932:220-221, Hoffmann 1914). Étées ‘citizen’ also occurs in a 2nd c. A.D. inscription from Marathon (Graindor 1912:70, verse 12); the artificial language of the inscription suggests borrowing from tragedy. Finally, étés is found in a late epic fragment (Milne 1924, verse 25 of fr. 1); LSJ cite this as an example of the sense 'citizen', but it may well have the Homeric sense. The 8mooth breathing of étés is a problem if, as is most likely, it is from *swetds. Its smooth breathing in the Homeric text results from the fact that it was not current in Attic-Ionic after Homer (cf. ákoitis, etc.; see Chantraine 1958:185, Ruijgh 1970:305-306), but it ie difficult to explain the breathing in Pindar and tragedy as the result of Homeric influence, because of the difference in meaning between the Homeric and West Greek use of the word (Latte 1931:34). On the other hand, there was controversy in antiquity about the correct breathing, and our manuscripts may not correctly represent the word's breathing in tragedy (see Radt 1958:198199).

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* Hesychios, for example, glosses état as hetatroi, sundtheis, polítai, démótai, philoi, epíkouroi ‘comrades, friends, citizens, private citizens, dear (ones), allies’ (polfiai and démétat presumably refer to the West Greek sense). Some ancient sources, however, defined étés in terms of kinship: see Stagakis 1968:386. Ebeling (1885) appears to follow the ancient view that the term does not involve kinship. Likewise, Rohde (1925:260) and Kakridis (1963:51) do not consider état confined to kin. 9 Glotz's view is accepted by many, e.g. Hignett 1952:58; see Andrewes 1951:134 for others. ® On the collective term goné, see section 1.2, note 27. Also, gónos, usually ‘descendant’ (section 1.6.2.1) can have an abstract sense (e.g. Odyssey 19.166) or the collective sense ‘children, considered as a whole’ (e.g. Iliad 20.409). Pátrà, usually ‘native land’, may have the collective sense ‘ancestry’ at Iliad 13.354 (see Leaf 1902:28-29). 90 For references, see Chantraine 1947:243. The affectionate nature of the word is clear from the contexts where it occurs; cf. the verb pappázó ‘say ‘‘pappa’’ ', ‘prattle’ (Iliad 5.408). *! On these words, see Pokorny 1959:789, Buck, 1949:94, Hermann 1935:97. *! The only post-Homeric example I have found is AP 7.89.3 (by Kallimachos), where it appears to be simply a term of address to an older man. 9 Note the definition of átta given by the A scholion at Iliad 9.607: td átta prosphönästs

esti prös trophéa 'átta is a term of address to a tropheds (‘foster father’, ‘tutor’)’. Other Scholia, however (Q and V at Odyssey 16.31, H at Odyssey 16.130), simply define it as a term of address to older men. *! Eleven times to Eurykleia by members of Odysseus’ family (e.g. Odyssey 2.349), once to Eurynome (Odyssey 17.499). CHAPTER

2

! This suffix is found only in kinship terms, though it is probably related to the suffix -ideás, used of the young of animals (e.g. alopekideüs ‘fox cub’) and to the patronymic suffix -idés (e.g. Kronidés ‘son of Kronos’): see Schwyzer 1950:1.509-510. After -i-, the suffix takes the form -ade- by dissimilation (e.g. anepsi-adé-os ‘cousin’s son’; cf. Astádés ‘son of Asios’). 2 Several Homeric affinal terms do not occur in literature after Homer, namely daér * husband's brother’, gáloós ‘husband’s sister’, einátér ‘husband’s brother's wife’. Schwyser (1950: 1.568) cites an occurrence of daér in a fragment of Menander's Dyskolos (Edmonds 135), but the discovery of the play has shown that dáer in the fragmentary quotation is in fact a false reading for Dá(e), Dyskolos 240. These terms do appear in a number of late Lydian and Phrygian inscriptions from the 1st c. B.C. and later: e.g. Buresch 1898, no. 55, v. 9; MAMA 7.209.6; Paris 1884, no. 5 (58 A.D.); for Phrygia, see Anderson 1906:213, no. 10, v. 8. The use of these terms, however, does not reflect their preservation intact in this area of Asia Minor, but is rather an example of Homeric imitation, as is clear from other Homeric words and phrases found in contemporary Lydian inscriptions (e.g. aglads huids ‘glorious son’, MAMA 7.558.9; géras esesthlón [sic] en anthröpoisin ópasen ‘granted him good reputation among men’, MAMA 7.561, cf. Odyssey 1.95). Other Homeric terms which are rare or entirely absent in later literature include dar, dámar, ákoitis, parákoitis (section 1.4.1, above), akofläs, parakottés (1.4.2), huiónós (1.6.2.1), népodes (1.5.2.2), gnötds (1.10.1), pàós (1.10.2), and é¢és (1.10.8). ? Sophokles, OT 70: the scholiast there reads haploikÓs anti tot kédestén ' gambrós is simply used in the sense ''affine" '. Euripides, Rh. 260, in the compound kakógambros ‘pertaining to an evil gambrós'. Euripides, fr. 647. * These elements are subject to morphophonemic changes. In composition, hutós appears 88 hui- or hu-, thugátér as thugatr-; after e and 1, -2 appears as -a; eo is contracted to ou; -ide- appears as -ade- after i (see above, note 1). Except for the last, these rules are special cases of morphophonemic rules operative generally in the language. 5 E. g. Goodenough 1965, with references to previous treatments of English. More recent discussions, however, have tended to move away from the componential model (see section 0.3).

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* This i8 not to deny that there may also have been influence from social structure. Friedrich (1967:54) attributes the loss of Homeric affinal terms to changes in family structure. Such changes no doubt were a factor, though the loss of these terms probably also reflects their failure to conform to the morphological pattern discussed below. Note that it is the most deviant terms which disappeared most completely: daér, gáloós, einátér. Hekurós (-4), pentherós (-á), and gambrés continued in use, at least in poetic language, though with some changes in meaning (see previous section). 7 The -2/-a alternation is a phonological matter; -a appears after r, e, orz in Attic (Schwyzer 1950:1.187-189). * See Schwyzer 1950:1.457, Chantraine 1961:31-33. Greek preserves traces of the old State of affairs, e.g. in animal names and compounds. ® On the replacement of *swekrü- by hekur&, see Benveniste 1969:249. CHAPTER

3

! Already in 1889, Delbrück described the system in terms which we would now call ** Omaha"; the Omaha features are summarized by Friedrich (1966:21-27). ! On Caucasian influence in PIE (and PIE influence on Caucasian languages) see Friedrich 1966:5, 28. * For a discussion, with literature, of the theory of Omaha kinship systems, see Buchler and Selby 1968:247-277, Lounsbury 1964s, 1964b, 1965. * On this example, see Meillet 1908:119-123. 5 In addition to the examples discussed below, Soviet theorists have attempted to explain PIE kinship terminology from the standpoint of Marxist and Stalinist ideas on primitive society: see Galton 1957 and note 22, below. * On cross-cousin marriage in the Mahabharata, and in India in general, see Karve 1968: 43, 170, Ghurye 1962:248-318. ’ The hypothesis of cross-cousin marriage in PIE is apparently Marxist dogma: see Galton 1957, Friedrich 1960:32. * A less radical example may be seen in the different treatment of terms for distant cousins in various idiolects of American English (Goodenough 1965:287). * The diagrams also ignore late developments not related to the use of PIE *awos and *nepol-: e.g. late Greek nénnos, applicable to the grandfather and either uncle. For the data here and in the subsequent discussions I am chiefly indebted to Buck 1949, Pokorny 1959, Bjerke 1969, Delbrück 1889, Friedrich 1966, Benveniste 1969, and lexica for the various daughter languages. 1? On the sense ‘nephew’ as well as ‘grandson’ for Lith. nepuotis, see Fraenkel 1962. Serbo-Croatian necak ‘sister’s son’ also shows that a reflex of *nepot- originally had both senses in Balto-Slavic (Buck 1949:112). 11 On the suffixes, see Benveniste 1969:224, Mezger 1960. 12 On the development of *awos ‘grandfather’ in Proto-Germanic, see Delbrück 1889: 477. According to Friedrich (1966:24), OE gam can refer both to the mother’s brother and the grandfather, but I have been unable to confirm this; Bosworth and Toller (1882) cite only the sense ‘mother’s brother’. 18 A number of kinship words not directly involved with the loss of the Omaha principle also show apparent influence between Greek and Indo-Iranian, e.g. the loan translation seen in Greek kouridios, Skt. kaumära 'legitimate', both referring originally to marriages between child spouses (cf. Greek koüros, Skt. kumära ‘boy’): see Thieme 1963. Cf. also Greek adelpheós ‘brother’, Skt. sagarbhya ‘full brother’; the dissimilar suffixation shows that these words are not descended from a single PIE term (Schwyzer 1950:1.468, fn. 2; Frisk 1970, with literature). In some cases, moreover, actual loan words are found: on Lith. svogeris as a loan from Germanic, see Schrader 1905:34. 4 Delbrück (1889:537) summarizes the data. The wife's father and husband's father are also distinguished in Armenian (Delbrück 1889:518), a language whose chief affinities are with the eastern group. 15 Tn the one language which does not equate wife's father and wife's brother (Angami),

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there is a restriction on the reciprocal equivalence: only the younger sister’s husband is equated with daughter's husband. 16 This equivalence is actually attested in some modern Indic dialects (e.g. Kashmiri), but it probably must be regarded as a late development there (see Turner 1960). " A reflex of *datwér is attested in Germanic, Italic, Balto-Slavic, Greek, and IndoIranian (Buck 1949:123). For ‘wife’s brother’, Latin uses the descriptive phrase uzoris frater ‘brother of the wife’; the absence of any term in the Homeric text may be fortuitous

(see section 1.8.2); on *syP’r-, underlying OCS &urt and Skt. syála, see Friedrich 1966:17. À The Sanskrit term is attested only late, but this is probably fortuitous (see Schulse 1934b, Thieme 1956:153-154). A reflex of 4vdéura is widely attested in modern Indic languages (Turner 1960); it must have been current only in some non-literary dialects of ancient Indic, to judge from the consistent use of devr and syála in Sanskrit documents. » [t is difficult to reconstruct the PIE term which underlies gambrós, etc., since the term has apparently been influenced by folk etymology and analogy in the various languages: in Greek, for example, by the verb gaméó ‘marry’ and in Sanskrit by the pattern of kin terms in -r, e.g. pitr (see Chantraine 1968:8.v. gambrós). 1 Skt. snusd (cognate with Greek nuós) is cited by lexicographers only in the sense *son's wife’; in this Mahabharata passage, however, snusd (in the sense ‘brother’s wife’) is the reading of some manuscripts. tı This particular equivalence seems to be one of the less common Omaha features. Only three of the languages examined in Figure 4.1 show it. ὃ: Thomson (1954:80) maintains that PIE equated the father's sister with the husband's mother (i.e. *swekrü-); here he follows the Marxist explanation of PIE kinship in terms of cross-cousin marriage and Australian class systems (cf. also Miller 1953, Broadbent 1968). Thomson's argument is based on his assignment of PIE to the second of his three types of kinship terminology (i.e. the Australian type), a type which merges father's sister with husband's mother (by the same argument, he concludes that the mother's brother was originally called *swekuros). But any attempt to meaningfully divide kinship terminologies into a small number of canonical types fails to take into account the immense variety of kinship systems; rarely are two terminologies exactly alike, and great care must be taken in drawing conclusions about what configurations are likely or possible. Furthermore, the attempt to describe PIE as an Australian, rather than an Omaha system fails on at least two counts. First, it is geographically implausible, since Australian systems are rare outside Oceania, while Omaha systems are attested, for example, in Caucasian languages. More important, the Indo-European languages show unmistakable survivals of Omaha terminology in several parta of the system, while the Marxist hypothesis is based on speculative reconstructions which produce & terminology far removed from that found in any Indo-European language, especially in the merger of affinal types with consanguineal types (for other objections, see Galton 1957). 22 Greek patradélphà ‘father’s sister’ is not citable but may have existed, since the masculine patrádelphos ‘father’s brother’ is attested; on the other hand, kin compounds in -2 may be a late development in Greek (see section 3.2). The usual Greek term is ‘éthts ‘aunt’, first citable from the orators but probably in existence much earlier (section 1.6.1). Celtic and Germanic compounds are later developments. * No Indo-European language shows the reciproca] equivalence (female ego’s brother's son = brother), and it is impossible to say whether this was a PIE feature. Distinctions between kinsmen of male ego and of female ego have been generally levelled in the IndoEuropean languages (cf. the discussion of sister's husband, section 3.2). 25 Benveniste (1969:215): ‘‘l’étre féminin du groupe social swe’’; cf. Benveniste 1934. ** Gothic atta ‘father’ must be either a borrowing from a non-Germanic stock or a reformation from infant syllables, in view of the Germanic consonant shift. 7 *Polis ‘master’ is attested in Italic and Germanic, but not in the sense ‘husband’ (see Delbrück 1889:431). Likewise, pótnia does not have the sense ‘ wife’ in Greek (section 1.1.2). 5 These examples are from Buck 1949:105. ? For this use of neve, see Bjerke 1969:50.

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Ὁ See Friedrich 1966:5-6, Benveniste 1969:212, Delbrück 1889:451. Hesychios, for example, cites a Greek word annís, which he glosses as ‘grandmother’. CHAPTER 4 ! In the discussion below, the following symbols are used: m = male ego, f = female ego, F = father, M = mother, B = brother, Z = sister, S = son, D = daughter, H = husband, W = wife. Two juxtaposed symbols are understood to stand in a possessive relationShip, e.g. MB - mother's brother. 3 To be read ''let the brother of a female linking relative be equated to her father." 3 The term ''corollary" is perhaps misleading, since it implies that the corollaries depend logically on the rules. In fact, the corollaries are related to the rules only in that they operate on reciprocal kin types. A corollary may be operative without its rule, e.g. in columns 4, 6, and 23. APPENDIX

! Marriage rules of this sort, where choice of a mate is restricted to members of a single group, are common in Oceania but unusual elsewhere. The situation is ordinarily the result of intersection of matrilineal and patrilineal lineages, producing a multiple of four groups; see Murdock 1949:51-56. Three-section divisions occasionally occur but are much less common; on these, see Ruhemann 1945: 551-559. 3 Oaristés occurs once in Homer (Odyssey 19.179: Minos is described as Dids . . . oaristés ‘the oaristés of Zeus’; the line is echoed by Horace, Odes 1.28.9, Iovis arcanis Minos admissus ‘Minos, admitted to the mysteries of Jupiter’). Minos happened to be the son of Zeus (Odyssey 11.568), but this does not make oaristés a word for ‘son’. The clear derivation of oaristés from oarízó ‘associate with’ shows that it means, rather, ‘companion, associate’ (see Frisk 1970:8.v. dar). Plato, Min. 319e, paraphrases Odyssey 19.179, using the word sunousiastés ‘companion, disciple’. * The variants are: (1) son of Zeus and Euryodeia (Ὁ scholion at Odyssey 16.118), (2) son of Kephalos and a she-bear (Aristotle, apud EM 114.22-32, 8.v. Arketsios), (3) son of Kephalos and Prokris (Hyginus, Fabulae, 189 ad fin.), and (4) son of Killeus, the son of Kephalos (B scholion at Iliad 2.631). Only the last fits Miller's table. * Friedrich (1966:33) points out that even the genealogies as presented by Miller do not necessarily imply matrilineal descent. 5 Under her rules for homonymy, two compound names may be considered homonymous if they share the first element; in this genealogy, Amphiaraos and Amphilochos are in different sections, as are Polypheides and Polyidos.

LIST OF WORKS

CITED

In addition to the works listed, this study could not have been completed without the concordances of Prendergast and Dunbar, edited by Marzullo, and the Indez Homericus of Gehring. Ahrens, Heinrich (1843) De graecae linguae dialectis, vol. 2. Góttingen. Alfóldi, Andreas (1954) “Die Geburt der kaiserlichen Bildsymbolik. . . ," Museum Helveticum 11.133-169. Alston, William P. (1964) Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs. Anderson, J. (1906) ‘‘Paganism and Christianity in the Upper Tembris Valley," in William Ramsay, ed., Studies in the History and Art of the Easlern Provinces of the Roman Empire (Aberdeen), 183-227. Andrewes, A. (1961) ‘‘Phratries in Homer,’’ Hermes 89.129-140. Aoki, Haruo (1966) ‘‘Nez Perce and Proto-Sahaptian Kinship Terms,’’ International Journal of American Linguistics 32.357-368. Arndt, William and F. W. Gingrich (1952) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. Cambridge, England.

Autran, Charles (1938) ‘‘Patér et adelpheds,’’ Revue des Etudes Indo-européennes 1.330-343. Beattie, J. H. M. (1957) "Nyoro Kinship," Africa 27.317-340. —— (1958) ‘‘Nyoro Marriage and Affinity," Africa 28.1-22. Bechtel, Friedrich (1914) Lezilogus zu Homer. Halle. Benardete, Seth (1963) “Achilles and the Iliad," Hermes 91.1-16. Bendix, Edward (1966) Componential Analysis of General Vocabulary: The Semantic Structure of a Set of Verbs in English, Hindi, and Japanese. Bloomington. (Publication 41, Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Foklore, and Linguistics). Benveniste, Émile (1934) “Ὅπ nom indo-européen de la ‘femme’,’’ Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 35.104-106. —— (1965) ‘Termes de parenté dans les langues indo-européennes," L'Homme 5, no. 3-4, pp. 5-16. — (1969) Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, vol. 1. Paris. Bérard, Victor (1924) Introduction à l'Odyssée, vol. 1. Paris. Berlin, Brent and Paul Kay (1969) Basic Color Terms. Berkeley and Los Angeles. Bethe, Erich (1929) Homer, Dichtung und Sage, 2nd ed., vol. 2, part 1. Leipzig. Bierwisch, Manfred (1970) *'Semantics,'' in John Lyons, ed., New Horizons in Linguistics (Harmondsworth), 166-184. Bjerke, Robert (1969) A Contrastive Study of Old German and Old Norwegian Kinship Terms. Bloomington. (Memoir 22, Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics). Blass, Friedrich (1904) Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee. Halle a.S. Bolling, George M. (1925) The External Evidence for Interpolation in Homer. Oxford. Bosch-Gimpera, P. (1961) Les indo-européens: Problémes archéologiques. Paris. Bosworth, Joseph and T. N. Toller (1882) An Anglo-Sazon Dictionary. Oxford. Bowra, C. M. (1934) *Homeric Words in Cyprus,’’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 54.54-74. Bréal, Michel (1889) *"Étymologies,'" Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 6.341346. Bright, William and Jan Minnick (1966) “Reduction Rules in Fox Kinship," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 22.381-388. Broadbent, Molly (1968) Studies in Greek Genealogy. Leiden. Brunius-Nilsson, Elisabeth (1955) Daimónie: An Inquiry into a Mode of Apostrophe in Old Greek Literature. Uppsala. Buchholz, Eduard (1883) Die Homerischen Realien, vol. 2, part 2. Leipzig. Buchler, Ira and Henry Seiby (1968) Kinship and Social Organization. New York. Buck, Carl Darling (1949) A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. Chicago. —— (1955) The Greek Dialects, 2nd ed. Chicago. 76

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