Greek phonetics and phonology

The forthcoming special issue of Epistēmēs Metron Logos will be dedicated to the study of the sounds of language in ancient Greece (ca. 1200 B.C. ‒ ca. A.D. 500), in all its aspects: pronunciation and enunciation, phonetics and phonology, prosody and duration, pitch and accents, musical aspects, intonation, orality and the representation of sounds in script. Emphasis will be given to questions of methodology and epistemology, such as research tools, theories, and experimental techniques for the reconstruction and analysis of Greek pronunciation in antiquity; the history of scholarship on the sound of Greek; different tendencies and schools of research and their approaches; and the practical use of methods and theories to elucidate particular questions posed by empirical data, or to fill the gaps left by the lack of materials. Papers which combine theoretical background with the examination of case studies will be most welcome.

In particular, the questions treated in the papers of the issue may include the following (but note that the list is neither exhaustive nor restrictive):

‒ The reconstruction of the sounds of Greek in antiquity: phonetics and phonology, pitch, melodic and dynamic accents, intonation, duration and prosody, orality and aurality.
‒ Poetic and musical exploitation of the sound of language: metres and verses, music and melody, sound effects, echomimesis.
‒ Regional and dialectical variation: different dialects of Greek in antiquity and their peculiar phonetics. “Geography” of phonologies, groupings of kindred phonologies in adjacent areas, regional dichotomies (“north-south”, “east-west”, “mainland-islands” etc.) in the distribution of the various phonologies over the Greek landscape.
‒ The relation of language sound and script. Different versions of the Greek alphabet and the conventions used for the transcription of phonemes. Fidelity and infidelity of the alphabetic scripts as to the representation of sounds. Written signs with multiple phonetic values, phonemes represented by more than one sign.
‒ The use of present-day Greek pronunciation for the reconstruction of Greek phonetics in antiquity. In particular, the value of the modern dialects and their peculiar phonologies for the study of the ancient material. Relations between the modern and the ancient distribution of phonological/dialectical peculiarities.
‒ Comparative issues: the value of other languages as parallel/comparative material for the study and analysis of Greek phonetics and prosody. Indo-European heritage, local pre-Hellenic substrata, and their contribution to the formation of the soundscape of Greek in antiquity.
‒ Experimental methods and tools for the study of the phonetics and prosody of Greek in antiquity. Use of computer technology, sound laboratories, statistics, acoustics and psycho-acoustics, and their epistemological value.
‒ History of scholarship and practice. Different ways of pronouncing Classical Greek that are used in the modern world; Erasmian, Byzantine and present-day Greek, and other approaches, their history, rationale, and principles, their status by comparison to ascertainable linguistic reality.

See the full call for papers in https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/episteme/announcement/view/284.

This paper presents preliminary results of two experiments investigating acoustic characteristics of the glide in several environments in Greek. We show that the phonological claims of Topintzi & Baltazani (to appear) regarding the phonemic status of both /i/ and the glide /j/ as well as of the existence of two separate palatalization processes (simple vs. extreme) are phonetically supported. In the first experiment, different degrees of curvature in the F2 trajectory and different transition rates distinguish /Vi/ hiatuses from /Vj/ diphthongs. The second experiment supports the distinction between simple and extreme palatalization as signaled by durational and formant differences.

This paper aims to identify the stress pattern of Greek acronyms experimentally and to provide insights over default stress, in light of work suggesting that this arises in morphologically-bare forms (Krämer 2009), such as acronyms. Two experiments with novel acronyms were conducted. The first tested stress preferences; the second attempted to understand those by deliberately priming speakers to attend to morphology through the use of suffix-like endings in acronyms. A clear preference for final stress was evident throughout; in acronyms with suffix-like endings, this is attributed to a combination of morphology and lexical frequency effects of the least frequent words. In acronyms ending in non-native codas -thus free of such influences -this is due to default stress placement, a finding that challenges previous work on Greek default stress.