Re: [PEER REVIEW] Mutations and sound changes (longish)

 --- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote: > En réponse à
bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:
>
> >
> > uvular trill in ancient greek ? that's the first
> i've
> > heard of it.
>
> Strange, since all the reconstructions of Ancient
> Greek I've seen contain it.
> See
>
http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/miscellaneous/faq/greece/linguistics_faq.html
> for instance, where Ancient Greek rho is
> specifically said to be a 'rolled
> French r', an uvular trill thus. I've often seen it
> described that way.
>
>  certainly sydney allen ( vox graeca )
> > puts forward /r/ rather than /R\/, and his is the
> most
> > comprehensive research into greek phonetics i'm
> aware
> > of. i've always considered greek as having two
> > allophones : [r] and word initial [r_0],
> geminating to
> > [rr_0] . . . am i wrong ?
> >
>
> This looks to me more like the Erasmian
> pronunciation (which dates from the
> Middle Ages IIRC) than the original one as it is
> currently reconstructed. Of
> course, we can never be sure on how the Greeks
> themselves pronounced rho, and
> there was probably a lot of dialectical variation.
> But the description of rho
> as a rolled French r (not a Spanish nor Italian nor
> even Modern Greek one) is
> clear enough to be sure that what is meant is the
> uvular trill. And IIRC this
> issue is less hot than the on-going debate on
> whether Greek zeta was /dz/
> or /zd/ (well, with dialectical variation, it was
> probably a lot of
> things ;))) ). I've even heard people speaking
> Ancient Greek texts with a
> reconstruction of Homeric Greek, and this one had
> definitely an uvular trill
> (even a voiceless one IIRC).
>
> Of course, the opinion may have changed since last
> time I checked. But without
> time travel, we cannot be sure of anything anyway...
>
still find it quite unlikely, but would like to see
the evidence as it could win me over. i'ld have
thought the arguments allen uses ( both for the
voiceless rho ( altho he's not so convinced by |rr|
being /rr_0/ and for the alveolar rho ) are pretty
strong. he looks at ancient descriptions of the
phonology, as well as how the sounds were transcribed
in foreign languages ( and some of the middle eastern
languages would presumably have transcribed /R\/ as a
gutteral consonant rather than the /r/ they use ).
also, the transfer of aspiration across the |r| in
phrouros > pro-horos suggests at least that /r/ ( or )
/R\/ had a voiceless allophone.

bn

( having just looked again at the site you cite (
hmmph ! no pun intended ) i get the impression that
this is a recommendation of how to pronounce ancient
greek names if you're a modern english person. as
englishers may be more familiar with and able to
produce a french |r| than an italian or greek one,
this may be the origin.

just a thought )

=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

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