Database

Greek (Classical)

(Greece; Indo-European, Greek)

Summary:
a. Nasals, liquids and the glide 'w' metathesize with a following segment 'y'.
b. A PIE tautomorphemic coronal and velar stop sequence underwent metathesis in Greek.

Examples:
a. The glide 'w' metathesizes with 'y' regardless of of the quality of the preceding vowel.

*dawyo > *daywo > dai'o [dayyo] > 'kindle'
*ewrewya > *ewreywa > eure ia [ewreyya] > 'wide (f.)'

b. Nasals and liquids metathesize with 'y' only after 'a' and 'o'.

*morya > moira > 'lot'
*phanyo > phai'no > 'show'

c. A PIE tautomorphemic coronal and velar stop sequence underwent metathesis into Greek.

PIE	Greek
*titko:	[tikto:]	'beget'
*tkey-	[ktizdo:]	'found'

Conditions:
No information currently available.

Motivation:
No information currently available.

Related Information:
No information currently available.

Symbols:
V' = stressed vowel

Last Updated: 6/13/2007

References:

Kiparsky, P. 1967. Sonorant clusters in Greek. Lg. 43. vol. 3. 619-35.
McCall, Betsy. 1998. Restrictions on Stop-Stop Clusters in Ancient Greek: Implications for Alignment. Paper presented at the Mid-Continental Workshop on Phonology. University of Michigan.
McCall, Betsy 2000. Metathesis, Deletion, Dissimilation and Consonant Ordering in Proto-Greek. Proceedings of the 11th UCLA Indo-European Conference, Journal of Indo-European Studies.