Re: Greek plosives

Philip Newton wrote:
> On 2/2/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>>Thus "the father" is [opa'tera] if nominative, but
>>[to(m)ba'tera] if accusative.
>
>
> Minor quibble: [opa'teras].
Absolutely correct! Thanks for pointing it out.

>(Unless you're speaking Graeca sine flexione.)
Ah, but then the definite article wouldn't change either   ;)
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Peter Bleackley wrote:
[snip]
 > Presumably the aspirate => voiceless fricative sound change went through
 > an affricate stage, eg
 > [t_h] => [th] => [tT] => [T]

I don't think there is any need for the affricate stage, IIRC similar
shifts from [th] --> [T] have occurred elsewhere, certainly in the
Celtic langs during the course of their evolution.

 > Is there any evidence of the affricate stage?

No - this does not preclude it, of course, but one might have expected
occasional spellings of |ts| - /ts/ was not a permitted combo in
Classical Greek (tho it is common enough in the modern language), so the
spelling would be unambiguous. But the affricate theory would also imply
that /k_h/ shifted first to  [kx] and /p_h/ shifted first to [pf]. The
latter could clearly be shown in Latin spellings - it is not.

There is some evidence (by no means certain) that the shift to fricative
sound may have started in some dialects as early as the classical period
- but this is controversial. But graffiti & other evidence shows it was
certainly underway by the end of the 1st cent BCE.

--
Ray
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