3. Metrical Lengthening and the Bucolic Diaeresis . 7. Study of a Proverb attributed to the Rhetor Apollonius . TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 1906. I. Latin Word-Studies. BY PROF. EDWIN W. FAY, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. (1) accersit or arcessit. WALDE, in his Latein. etym. Woert., s.v. arcessit, avows a preference for Brugmann's (IF. XIII, 88 sq.) derivation from *arfacessit 'herbeischafft' as compared with Thurneysen's (Archiv, XIII, 36 sq.) from *arvocessit. To the derivation from *arvocesso Brugmann raises both phonetic and semantic objections, waiving the latter, however, in view of Eng. hales (= 'drags into court, summons'): Lat. calat 'summons,' Gr. Kaλeî 'calls.' In view of calfacere (Cato, Petronius), from calefacere, calefacere, the phonetic difficulties might also seem solvable, arcesso, from *arucesso, from *arvocasso; but the form -vocesso is itself gratuitous. There are, however, psycho-phonetic difficulties in the reduction of *arfacesso to arcesso. It would seem that compound verbs are so liable to "recomposition" that in only four cases1 have they entirely lost a representative of their root vowel, viz.: in surpere (: rapere; cf. usurpare?), pergere, porgere, surgere (: regere), in all of which the group, vowel + -rr- + short vowel, was reduced to vowel + -r- (see Vendryes, Intensité, p. 261). A semantic difficulty with the *arfacesso derivation is to account for the change from facessit 'makes 1 The compounds of iacit exhibit -icit, and are on a somewhat different footing. 5 |