Abstract
Gk. aretḗ ‘excellence, virtue’ can be interpreted as *(H)ar-eteh2-. The term can be traced back to IE *h2er- or *h1ar- ‘to arrange together, to adjust’ and, as such, matches partially Ved. r̥tá (*h2r̥-tó- or *h1r̥-tó-) and Av. aṣ̌a (*[H]ar-tó- or *[H]ŕ̥to-) ‘correctness, justice, truth.’ The etymology is supported by the gloss arḗtēsan: ḗrmosan (Hsch. A 41 L.). aretḗ is associated to [JUSTICE] and [RIGHTNESS] in Greek, which are structural semantic components of the Indo-Iranian (IIr.) terms. Furthermore, aretḗ, r̥tá and aṣ̌a share a set of common associations, namely, with [WHEEL], [WAGON], [(RIGHT) PATH]. The etymology of the term is thus confirmed by the phraseological data.
| Translated title of the contribution | Gk. ἀρετή, Ved. r̥tá-, Av. aṣ̌a- and the ‘excellence' as adjusted order |
|---|---|
| Original language | Italian |
| Journal | Muenchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 123–48 |
| ISSN | 0077-1910 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- Faculty of Humanities
- Greek
- excellence
- Arete
- phraseology
- etymology
- lexicon
- Indo-European
- Indo-European linguistics
- poetics
- Vedic
- Avestan
- Indo-Iranian