Re: Hellenish oddities

At 7:42 pm -0500 23/11/00, Roger Mills wrote:
[...]
>Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>I think the words with initial nasal+stop are all loans, but I know that
>>intervocalically they're pronounced [mb], [nd], [Ng], as in [olimbos].>
>
> Yes; a Greek friend explained that initial nasal+stop is simply the way of
>indicating /stops/ in loan words-- as in that famous Greek delicacy,
>mbar-mbe-kiou, offered at a restaurant in Detroit.
Yes, that's right.  Medially they are pronounced [mb], [nd] and [Ng] _or_
simply [b], [d] and [g] according to dialect.  Whether voiced plosives have
any phonemic status in modern Greek is one of things that people like to
argue over.  Those who do not give them phonemic status regard, e.g. both
the simple [b] pronunciation and the [mb] pronunciation of {mp} as being
phonemically /mp/.

Such initials do also occur in native Greek words, e.g. {mporó} [bor'o] "I
can" <-- Ancient Greek: euporeo:

But it is true that these combos are used to represent voiced plosives in
borrowed words - and this has muddied the question of the phonemic status
of voiced plosives in MG.

>>Also, Elliott Lash wrote:
>>>  Two examples of the "ft" at the beginning are
>>> "ftero" "feather" and "ftano" "I arrive"
>>
>>Do those have [ft] in modern Greek? I thought they were still [pt].>
>
>There seems to be some variation here-- my friend pronounced 'seven' as epta
>or efta; similarly 'eight' as okto or [oxto].  This may be a reflection of
>the fact there are _two_ modern Greeks, demotiki and katharevousa, but I'm
>not sure..
It is.

[ep'ta] and [ok'to] are katharevousa, and [ef'ta] and [ox'to] is demotic.
Combos of two plosives or two fricatives are sure signs of katharevousa; in
'pure' demotic we have only fricative+plosive or plosive+fricative.

>Perconally, the little of modern Gk. I learned suggested it was a rather
>neat language.
I agree    :)

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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