-ικός.
Words with this suffix are rare in early writers, and become more frequent as the "new culture" of the sophists gained increasing popularity in Athens. Peppler[1] shows clearly that that is the source of this class of words, from their frequency in Xenophon (especially in the Memorabilia), Plato, and Aristotle, as compared with their extreme rarity in earlier writers and from the use made of them by Aristophanes to ridicule the philosophers. Since the educated classes, trained by the new teachers, used them frequently, it began to be the fashion to employ them to give a tone of culture to one's conversation, and the suffix became a favorite. Hence these words are common in later writers, and also in modern Greek.[2]
Menander's position in the use of this suffix is shown in the following table:
| Author | No. of different words in -ικός[3] |
No. of pages |
Words in -ικός[3] in 113 pp. | |
| Menander | ||||
| a. In Körte's Menandrea | 9 | 60 | ||
| b. In all fragments | 16 | 113 | 16 | |
| Aristophanes | 93 | 537 | 20 | |
| Thucydides | 38 | [4] | 640 | 9 |
| Plato | 347 | [4] | 2350 | 33 |
| Demosthenes | 47 | 965 | 13 | |
| Polybius | 152 | 1552 | 26 | |
| Plutarch | 566 | 5177 | 54 | |
The following adjectives in -ικός do not appear in the Attic writers with the exceptions noted: ἀσθενικός, εὑρετικός (Plato), θεραπευτικός (Plato), λογιστικός (Plato), προνοητικός, ταρακτικός, τοπαστικός, φθισικός. On τοπαστικός, read at Epitr. 340 by most editors, see the critical note of Körte ad loc., and the critical appendix in the edition of Professor Capps. Jensen (Rhein. Mus. 65 [1910] p. 546) vouches for the word. Lefebvre, Papyrus de Ménandre, Cairo 1911, is disposed to support the reading of Jensen. If the word is ἀστικός, it is not new.
- ↑ Peppler, C. W., The Use of the Termination -ικός in Aristophanes for Comic Effect, Am. Jour. of Phil. 31 (1910) pp. 428 ff.
- ↑ Jannaris, l. c., p. 299 §§ 1068, 1070; Thumb, Gr. Spr. p. 178; Mayser, l. c., p. 455.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Derivatives from proper names are excluded from these figures.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 These totals are taken from Peppler, l. c., pp. 429 ff.
