Categorie e percorsi etimologici: il caso dell'interpretazione di un composto omerico

The Homeric compound ἱπποκέλευθος (epithet of Patroclus in the Iliad) is mostly interpreted as being a possessive compound of ἵππος “horse” and κέλευ-θος “path”; however, this interpretation is quite unsatisfactory from the semantic point of view. In ancient Greek grammatical tradition, the compound’s second member is sometimes traced back to the verb κελεύω “urge, spur”, which leads to the interpretation of ἱπποκέλευθος as a verbal governing compound meaning “who spurs the horses”. Although the latter etymology raises some problems from the structural point of view, it gives the compound a better semantic interpretation. It is then argued that the case of Homeric ἱπποκέλευθος is an example of what Joseph Vendryes used to call étymologie croisée, where the two different interpretations of the second element -κέλευθος merged and came to coexist synchronically, thus making impossible – and maybe unnecessary – to establish its original meaning and the direction of the semantic reanalysis that took place.