Re: Deixis (was: Fourth Person)

At 12:30 pm -0400 5/10/98, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>[an excellent summary of the term "deixis", explaining everything except...]
Thanks.

>
>Just how do you pronounce it?  I've always said [di 'Ik sIs] dee-ixis,
>but I've heard ['dajk sIs] dike-sys and ['dik sIs] deek-sys as well.
And at 2:01 pm -0400 5/10/98, John Cowan wrote:
>Christopher Palmer wrote:
>
>> I've heard all three. I say the first one, [di.?Ik.sIs].
>
>To which the WWWebster dictionary adds ['dejk sIs], which makes
>four pronunciations.
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Well, according to the traditional British rules for pronouncing ancient
Greek borrowings it should be ['dajk sIs] and my dictionary gives that
pronunciation.

I must assume from the WWWebster entry that the tradition American rules
give ['dejk sIs].  I know traditional American & British practices do
differ on the pronunciation of ancient Greek words taken into English

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BUT -

The Classical Greek would've been [de:ksis] with no stress accent but a
high falling to low pitch on the long [e:].

The Hellenistic Greek (contemporary with Roman) pronunciation was
[di:ksis].  In the early Hellenistic period the old pitch accent certainly
prevailed, but during this period it changed to stress, probably at
different times in the Hellinistic world.  The stress would be on the first
syllable.

For the last one & half thousand years the Greeks have pronounced it ['Diksis].

The {ei} I'm afraid has always been a monophthong for the Greeks  ;)
In the ancient language both /e/ and /o/ had two corresponding long sounds,
one open & the other closed (something  similar was also the case in Middle
English BTW).  The open sounds had separate letters, eta [E:] & omega [O:]
respectively, but the closed sounds were written with digraphs {ei} [e:]
and {ou} [o:].

By the Hellenistic period {ei} and {ou} had closed even further to [i:] and
[u:] respectively, which sounds they still maintain in modern Greek, except
that vowel length has long since ceased to be phonemic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm afraid when I read the word I've never 'heard' the official Brit.
English version; it usually sounds in my head like a slightly Anglicized
version of the Hellenistic pronunciation, i.e. ['di:ksIs] deek-siss, though
the modern Greek pronunciation hovers in the basckground  :)

Ray.