Nouns in σις and -τύς in Homer

The study of verbal nouns in Homer is of considerable importance for the understanding of the development of Greek language and thought and hence of methods of expression in the languages of Western Europe. Verbal nouns function primarily in much the same way as verbs, i.e. they express the same ideas as do verbs, and on the other hand they play similar parts in the structure of the sentence to other nouns. From this second aspect there evolves the tendency to particular reference, the ‘concrete’ use. The two functions of verbal nouns are a commonplace of semantic studies. In English we can say (1) in the building of houses=when one is building houses, (2) he came out of the building, and, in the plural, an important step, these buildings are to be demolished. The suffix -ing would be the nearest equivalent to -σις, capable like it of construction from any verb. The particular interest of nouns in -σις and -τύς in Homer is that the secondary type of use is still very rare, for example these nouns hardly ever occur in the plural, and thus the development of the ‘concrete’ use can be observed at a very early stage. The only functionally similar nouns in Homer, of types still in ‘free’ use, are those in -θμóς and -σἰη, which for reasons of space will be mentioned only incidentally, as their use impinges on that of the two other classes.