The “phonetic prehistory” of Grassmann’s law in Greek

Bibliographic Data

ID21463022
AuthorsA De Angelis (0000-0002-3288-2517, University of Messina, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume54
Issues41-s1
Pages67-87
Publication date2020-12-16
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolia Linguistica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-4004 • E-ISSN: 1614-7308
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/flih-2020-0003
OpenAlexW3135092346
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited32

Grassmann’s Law (=GL) is generally regarded as a quintessential example of regular sound change, though dissimilation processes are generally said to be quite rare and sporadic. In the present paper, evidence is presented aiming to show “the phonetic prehistory” of Grassmann’s Law in Greek, namely a diachronic stage during which GL acts in all but regular fashion. In particular, especially in some dialectal areas, some forms retain the original diaspirate stem up until Classical epoque (V–IV c. BC). Moreover, the presence of an opposite process, that is the assimilation (generally regressive) between aspirated segments, is also documented. Both of these aspects seem to show a lexically constrained spread of such a change. Its relatively late regularity can be explained as a process implemented by phonological constraints, which intervene at some point in the linguistic change

Archaeology · Dissimilation · Linguistics · Phonology · Prehistory · Sound change · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research

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