The Greek 'law of limitation' and the early history of Greek accentuation

Journal article

In Ancient Greek, the placement of the accent is restricted, by the so-called ‘Law of Limitation’, to the last three syllables of a word. Whether the penultimate or the antepenultimate syllable is accented in words with recessive accentuation depends on the weight of the final syllable; and the choice between acute vs. circumflex penultimate accentuation is further determined by the ‘sōtē̂ra Law’. In recent decades, there has been much debate about how best to formalize the exact rules involved here from a synchronic point of view, but the seemingly contradictory nature of some of the surface outcomes suggests that the complexities also reflect diachronic layering. After laying out the shortcomings of earlier diachronic accounts, the present contribution offers a new one, which traces the evolution of Greek recessive accentuation from the later stages of Proto-Indo-European (as reconstructable by comparing Greek and Vedic accentuation) through the Proto-Greek and Mycenaean periods down to the situation in Classical Attic. Particular attention is paid to the identification of the factors triggering each innovative step, and to thus situating the history of Greek accentuation within the wider frame of Greek historical phonology. Among other things, it is argued that ‘limited’ recessive accentuation probably first arose in sentence-final verbal forms, that the loss of intervocalic consonants brought about a change from syllable-based to mora-based melodic accentuation principles, and that rhythmic considerations began to play a role only at a fairly late stage.*

Authors: Willi, A

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG)
• Journal: Glotta
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-28
• EISSN: 2196-9043
• ISSN: 0017-1298
• Language: English
• Keywords: contonation; Greek accent; law of limitation; (accentually) long vs. short diphthongs; sōtē̂ra law; Vedic accent