Re: Greek vowels; was Re: an announcement...

You're not likely to find much by Weiss, unless he's been publishing
like a devil lately -- he's fairly young, though IMHO brilliant.  He's
an Indo-Europeanist specializing in Greek.  If I'm representing him as
saying something absolutely ludicrous, then it's possible that my
memory (giving out already at age 29) is betraying me again.

Only thing I can remember that he published is a paper on the verb
ne:phein in _Historsche Sprachforschung_, and I remember that because
he was kind enough to give me a copy. :)

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Boxcars are pulling an Ed of sorts out of town.
             edheil@postmark.net
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Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 12:37 am +0000 27/9/99, Ed Heil wrote:
> >Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> [snip]
>
> >> >> >Oh, to top it all off, eta represented two different values too.  In
> >> >> >addition to [E:] it represented a long version of the "a" sound in
> >> >> >English "hat" [&:] --
> >>
> >> Oh? What proof have you of that?
> >
> >So I was taught by my historical linguistics professor, Michael
> >Weiss.  Allen mentions this on p. 73 of _Vox Graeca_, though he
> >doesn't assert that [&:] persisted till historical times.
>
> I guess you have a later edition of Vox Graeca than I have - my page 73
> deals with high, long [o:] and [u] etc.   But on page 70 in my edition he
> does cmment on something that I'd forgotten, namely that in some early
> Ionic inscriptions from the Cyclades eta represents only the fronted long
> [&:], while [E:] inherited from IE long 'e' is represented by epsilon.  But
> in Attic & the other Ionic dialects no such distinction is found, both
> sounds being represented by eta.  So it would seem that generally in Ionia
> & elsewhere where this change had taken place, the two sounds had merged
> early on.  There is still, however, no evidence that I'm aware of for eta
> ever representing two sounds in the orthography of an individual city or
> dialect.
>
> He does give a longish footnote on a weird theory put forward by R.W.
> Tucker - but no mention of Weiss.
>
> When I get time [which'll probably not be this evening :=( ] I'll see what
> Michel Lejeune says on this.
>
> >I don't still have my notes and so could not cite for you the reasons
> >Weiss gave for claiming this.
>
>
> [....]
> >> >I do not know, but I would guess that this is a spelling
> >> >pronunciation --
> >>
> >> ...and you guess correctly  :)
> >
> >Glad I was right about something!
>
> Courage - even Homer nodded at times  :)
>
> Ray.
>