Talk:ἐρῆμος

Feminine plural

Sorry to bother with details, @Mahagaja, Erutuon, Lambiam. If you ever are in the mood, could you check this one:
This feminine plural ἐρῆμαι for the feminine of ἐρῆμος, seemed to me very weird. But, my ancient greek is school level, so, it might be OK.
The feminine ἐρήμη is placed in various sequences at different dictionaries. Where does it truly belong?

• at ἐρῆμος, -ος, -ον ?
• at ἔρημος, -ος, -ον ? My old simplifying schoolbook, says: «ὁ ἔρημος, ἡ ἐρήμη or ἔρημος, τὸ ἔρημον». So, the fem.ἐρήμη's plural is disconnected to ἐρῆμος and cannot be «ἐρῆμαι», but only «αἱ ἔρημαι»

Thank you. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 04:22, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

LSJ says there are two patterns:

• a three-ending adjective ἐρῆμος, ἐρήμη, ἐρῆμον, and
• a two-ending adjective ἔρημος, ἔρημον

though of course in a lot of cases the forms of the two patterns would be identical. The feminine singular ἐρήμη, for example, could belong to either pattern, but I suppose it's attested that a feminine noun is modified with ἔρημος, showing that that pattern is the two-ending type. The feminine plural ἐρῆμαι of ἐρῆμος is completely regular and expected; even if ἔρημος had feminine forms, ἐρῆμαι couldn't be the feminine plural because the accent is wrong. If ἔρημος had a feminine plural, it would be *ἔρημαι. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mahagaja yes, thank you very much. I understand. Ιt was just a feeling of shock to see ἐρῆμαι. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 09:21, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Also, LSJ classifies the form ἔρημος as Attic, being both the masculine and feminine.^[1] The Bailly has “ἔρημος, ος, ον, poét. ἐρῆμος, η, ον”. So both assign feminine ἐρήμη to the masculine lemma form ἐρῆμος. Neither mentions a feminine plural ἐρῆμαι. The Bailly explicitly gives the feminine as “ἡ ἔρημος [...] ou ἡ ἐρήμη [...] ; au plur. αἱ ἔρημοι”. This shows, I think, that the fem. plur. ἐρῆμαι, although (as stated by Mahāgaja) completely regular and expected, is not attested. (Bailly cites “El. N.A. 3,26” for “αἱ ἔρημοι”, that is, Claudius Aelianus, De Natura Animalium.)  --Lambiam 09:36, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so much @Lambiam for taking all this trouble. Perhaps: being a native speaker of Modern Greek, and Greek being based mainly on Koine, my ear is tuned more to Koine. The same thing with ἑτοῖμος (hetoîmos) / ἕτοιμος (hétoimos). The masculines were not a problem in their transformations, but the feminines of adjectives had many versions of metaplasms. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 09:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)