Ancient Greek phonology: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek phonology - Consonants

Ancient Greek phonology - Consonants

In comparison with the vowels, the structure of the consonant inventory of Greek has remained relatively stable over time as far as the number of distinctive sounds is concerned. However, the phonetic nature of many sounds is thought to have changed radically, as a whole set of plosive sounds has turned into fricatives.

Ancient Greek phonology - Plosives

All the following sounds are thought to have been plosives in Attic Greek. Ancient grammarians (beginning with Aristotle, Poetics) collectively refer to them as ἄφωνα.

All of the mediae changed to voiced fricatives later ([v], [ð], [ɣ] ~ [j]), and all of the aspiratae changed to voiceless fricatives ([f], [θ], [χ] ~ [ç]). These are also their values in Modern Greek. The changes are assumed to have happened in antiquity, during the time of Koine Greek, but probably after the time of classical Attic Greek. The changes probably started with the voiced velar [ɡ] > [ɣ] ~ [j] (in the 3rd century BC) and were completed some time during the first centuries CE with the aspiratae.

In the case of the labials, the change must have proceeded through the intermediate stage of bilabial fricatives [β] and [ɸ], as the modern values are not bilabial but labio-dental.

Ancient Greek phonology - Other consonants

Apart from the plosives, the consonant inventory of Classical Greek contains two nasals (/m/, /n/), two liquids (/l/ and /r/) and two fricatives (/h/ and /s/) which are further discussed in separate subsections below. Ancient grammarians classified the nasals, liquids and /s/ together as hemiphona (ἡμίφωνα), by which they probably meant that unlike the aphona ἄφωνα, these sounds could be sustained in pronunciation without vocalic support.

As the terminology of aphona and hemiphona applied to letters of the alphabet rather than phonemes, the letters ψ, ξ and ζ each standing for a consonantal cluster and collectively referred to as διπλά ("double letters"), were also grouped with the hemiphona, presumably because they all contained /s/ as an element. The pronunciation of ζ is not entirely clear. For metrical purposes it was treated as a double consonant, thus forming a heavy syllable (see below), but it is unclear whether it should be regarded as representing [zd] or [dz], or perhaps both at different periods. The arguments for either pronunciation are put forward in Zeta (letter). During the classical period, its pronunciation changed to /z/. The two other διπλά were probably pronounced [phs] and [khs] in Classical Attic (they were written <ΦΣ> and <ΧΣ> in the old alphabet), but the aspiration of the first element was phonologically irrelevant.

These are the bilabial nasal /m/, written μ and the alveolar nasal /n/, written ν. Depending on the phonetic environment, the phoneme /n/ was realized in speech in four distinct manners:

• before the labials /b/, /p/, and /pʰ/, it changes to [m] and it is there represented in writing by μ. So for example: ἐμβαίνω, ἐμπάθεια, ἐμφαίνω. The same is true when the labial is followed by /s/, as in ἔμψυχος;
• before the nasal /m/, there is still assimilation in place of articulation but gemination occurs and the two nasals are pronounced together as a prolonged bilabial nasal [mː] and represented in writing by μμ. E.g.: ἐμμένω;
• before the velars /g/,/k/, /kʰ/ the phoneme /n/ was realized as [ŋ] and is there represented in writing by γ. So for example: ἐγγύς, ἐγκαλέω, ἐγχέω. The same is true when the velar is followed by /s/, as in συγξηραίνω, but this occurs less often. Hence, the spelling γγ does not represent the geminated plosive [gː] (compounds with the preposition ἐκ and a stem beginning with /g/ probably had [g:], but traditional orthography has ἐκγ- in such words);
• In all other environments the phoneme /n/ is realized regularly as [n].

On occasion, the /n/ phoneme participates in true gemination without any assimilation in place of articulation, as for example in the word ἐννέα. Artificial gemination for metrical purposes is also found occasionally, as in the form ἔννεπε, occurring in the first verse of Homer’s Odyssey.

Ancient Greek has the liquids /l/ and /r/, written λ and ρ respectively.

λ probably represented a "clear" l as in Modern Greek and most European languages, rather than a "dark" l as in English in codal position. When /n/ preceeds /l/, the first consonant assimilates to the second, gemination takes place and the combination is pronounced [lː], as in <συλλαμβάνω> from underlying <*συνλαμβάνω>.

ρ probably stood for a trilled alveolar sound, [r] more like Italian or Modern Greek than the English or French r sounds. Word initially, ρ is invariably written with the spiritus asper as ῥ-, probably representing a voiceless or aspirated allophone of /r/ ([r ̥] or [rʰ]), hence the traditional transliteration rh. The same orthography is sometimes encountered when /r/ is geminated, as in <συρρέω>, sometimes written <συῤῥέω>, giving rise to the transliteration rrh. This example also illustrates that /n/ assimilates to following /r/, creating gemination.

Before the mediae and aspiratae became fricatives, Greek probably only had two fricative phonemes: the sibilant /s/ written with a sigma (Σ,σ,ς), and /h/. The former is likely to have had a voiced allophone z before other voiced consonants, which was not distinguished from sigma in writing.

/h/ could only stand in word-initial position. In Attic, it was originally written with the letter Η. Partly before and partly during classical times, /h/ was lost in pronunciation in Ionian and Aeolian but Attic preserved the sound longer than these dialects. In Ionic, where it had been lost early, the letter Η was then co-opted to serve as a vowel letter. On adoption of the Ionic alphabet in the other dialect areas (in Athens in 403 BCE), the sound /h/ ceased to be represented in writing. In some inscriptions it was instead indicated by a symbol formed from the left-hand half of the original letter. Later grammarians, during the time of the hellenistic Koine, developed that symbol further into the spiritus asper (δασεῖα), which they no longer treated as a letter in its own right but as a diacritic written on the top of the initial vowel. Correspondingly, they introduced the reverse diacritic called spiritus lenis (ψιλή), which indicated the absence of aspiration. These signs were not adopted universally until the Byzantine age.

The letter digamma, written Ϝ, ϝ, was used in some dialects to represent the sound w in syllable-initial position. This sound had been lost in Attic and Ionic before the classical period, and the letter was no longer used except as a numeral (= 6, later replaced by ς). The /w/ of other Greek dialects and of foreign languages was normally rendered with <β> and later also with <ου>.

Ancient Greek phonology - Doubled consonants

Gemination was distinctive in Ancient Greek, so doubled consonants would have been prolonged in pronunciation, as confirmed by metrical considerations and the modern Greek dialect of Cyprus. Doubled consontants do not occur at the start or end of words. φ, θ, χ are not doubled in the orthography, the combinations πφ, τθ, and κχ being used instead (compare doubled rho above).

A doubled sigma in most Ancient Greek dialects (and in Koine) — σσ — is generally replaced in Attic by a doubled tau — ττ. Some authorities have postulated that this represented an affricate pronunciation ([tʃ] or [ts]), but there is no direct evidence for this.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Consonants", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki