190 likes | 278 Views
A Corpus Study of Attic Greek Alpha, Iota and Upsilon Cory Robinson. Attic Vowels. Short Long A E I O Y. Attic Vowels. Short Long A E H I O Ω Y. Minimal Pairs. Allen (1987) “such contrasts are rare” “no more numerous than true homonyms”
E N D
A Corpus Study of Attic Greek Alpha, Iota and Upsilon Cory Robinson
Attic Vowels Short Long A E I O Y
Attic Vowels Short Long A E H I O Ω Y
Minimal Pairs Allen (1987) “such contrasts are rare” “no more numerous than true homonyms” “the context will in any case seldom have left room for ambiguity”
Minimal Pairs Example from German /x/ [ç] [x]
Minimal Pairs Example from German /x/ [ç] [x] However… Kuhchen (little cow) [|khu:çən] Kuchen (cake) [|khu:xən]
Phonemic or Allophonic? Allen (1987) Primarily concerned with phonetics Teodorsson (1974) “Sequences of identical phonemes” Woodard (1997) “Vowel length is phonemic in Greek”
Phonemic or Allophonic? Complementary Distribution
The Corpus Lysias (c. 445 – 380 B.C.) Attic orator Everyday speech Oration 32: Against Diogeiton 700 words 1,600 syllables
The Corpus Vowel Length First marked c. 400 – 200 B.C. Poetry Accent
The Corpus Sorting By syllable All syllables together For any factors correlating to the length of alpha, iota, upsilon
Results Short Long A 85% 15% I 90% 10% Y 85% 15% E/H 68% 32% O/Ω 62% 38%
Conclusion Distinction is phonemic No need for new letters
Future Work Bigger corpus Historical factors