Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1993, Page 117

Learned & Popular Etymology
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(1951:176) the -5 of dis- is a later addition, cf. abs from ab, unconnected
with the earlier *disa for Greek dia. But the second elements are not re-
lated; Latin -tentio is from tendo ‘stretch’ (Pok. ten-1065), while Greek
stasis is from histémi ‘stand’ (Pok. sta-1004). An exact Latin cognate
would be distantia (which actually occurs at this point in Ficino’s 15th
cent. Latin translation of Plotinus, Ficino 1855). Augustine’s distentio
has an exact cognate in Greek diatasis ‘tension, dilation, extension’,
a term carrying the pathological meaning ‘dilation, diseased swelling’
which also adheres to diastasis. Thus tasis and stasis also have an
intertextual relationship in Greek.
But Augustine is hardly concemed with exact cognation; he would
have been more likely to make associations along the same lines as the
Cratylus, exemplified by Bede (12) below. This does not mean however
that linguistic relationships do not concem him: he is keenly aware of
language, and discusses the sequential namre of speech-sounds as part
of his explanation of time and etemity (Confessions XLxxviii (38), PL
XXXII:824). He is also concemed to find suitable Latin terms for Greek
concepts. For instance he discusses at length the coinage essentia, by
then a well-established calque from the Greek ousia ‘essence’ (City of
God XII.ii, PL XLI:350). He inherits, in fact, a terminological frame-
work which is shot through with etymological and non-etymological
intertextual echoes. The Old Latin scriptures that Augustine knew echo
the surface form of the Septuagint time and time again. A typical ex-
ample occurs in Psalm 16.2 (which Augustine quotes in the same form
as the Vulgate):
(10) Augustine:
Deus meus es tu, quoniam bonomm meoram non eges
‘You are my God, for you need not my goods.’
(City ofGod X.v, PL XLI:281)
(11) Septuagint:
... hoti tðn agathön mou ou khreian ekheis
‘... for you have no need of my goods’
(Ps.16.2)