Open questions in ancient Greek phonology: some new evidence from enclitics

Book section : Chapter

Roussou and Probert (2023: 235–297) put forward some new discoveries bearing on the accentuation of sequences of consecutive ancient Greek enclitics, and a new descriptive claim as to the way in which host words plus sequences of consecutive enclitics were accented. This chapter takes some first steps towards a new account of Greek metrical phonology from which the proposed descriptive facts would follow, and argues that doing so helps us with three open questions in ancient Greek phonology: (a) What phonological principles underly the placement of the Greek word accent, including the restrictions known as the “law of limitation”? (b) Did ancient Greek have “resonant diphthongs”? (c) Is the law of limitation sensitive to the weight of the word-final syllable, or the length of its vowel?

Authors: Probert, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Host title: Advances in Ancient Greek Linguistics
• Pages: 33-64
• Chapter number: 2
• Series: Trends in Classics – Greek and Latin Linguistics
• Series number: 5
• Publication date: 2025-09-08
• Acceptance date: 2024-10-19
• DOI: 10.1515/9783111648644-002
• EISSN: 2940-6382
• ISSN: 2940-6374
• EISBN: 9783111648644
• ISBN: 9783111633619
• Language: English
• Keywords: phonology; accentuation; enclitics; ancient Greek
• Subtype: Chapter