kurylowicz - on the development of the greek intonation

7/27/2019 Kurylowicz - On the Development of the Greek Intonation

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Linguistic Society of America

On the Development of the Greek IntonationAuthor(s): Jerzy KurylowiczReviewed work(s):Source: Language, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Sep., 1932), pp. 200-210Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409650 .

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ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEK INTONATIONJERZY KURYLOWICZUNIVERSITY OF LWoW

[An attempt is made to show that the intonation designated by theGreek circumflex is not inherited from IE, but is produced partly byspecifically Greekcontractions, and partly by the analogical extension ofthe intonation thus arising to morphologically similar forms.]

The traditional theory of the Indo-European origin of Greek intona-tions is founded on the comparison of Vedic with Greek and on thecomparison of Lithuanian with Greek. As to Slavonic, it seems to pre-sent a development more recent than Lithuanian and therefore its testi-mony regarding intonations is hardly to be accepted as an independentone (cf. my article, Le probl~me des intonations balto-slaves, in RocznikSlawistyczny 10. 1-80). Streitberg thought that certain phenomenaconcerning abbreviation or conservation of final long vowels in Germanicwere related to the corresponding phenomena in Lithuanian and wereto be explained by original differencesof intonation. But if, as has beenshown in the article just quoted, these Lithuanian phenomena havenothing to do with intonation, although this language offers a distinc-tion between two intonations, the existence of similar phenomena inGermanic, even if complete parallelism between Germanic and Lithu-anian has been proved, does not involve the existence of intonations inProtogermanic. It is possible that the rather complicated treatment offinal vowels in Germanic depends not only upon the phonetic cir-cumstances (whether the vowel is short, long, or a diphthong, whetherit is final or followed by a consonant, whether this consonant is an oc-clusive, s, or a sonant), but also upon the functional value of the pho-netic elements in question (accounting for secondary arrangements).In his book Sprachkorper und Sprachfunktion, Horn has shown howdifferences of phonetic treatment are to be explained by different de-grees of functional value. This, however, does not interest us for themoment. The chief point is that there are so many principles explain-ing the differentiation of finalvowels that to introduce a newand a prob-lematic one is to complicate the matter still further.200


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ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK INTONATION 201A survey of Vedic dissyllabic vowels (cf. my article, Quelques prob-lImes metriques du Rigvyda, in Rocznik Orjentalistyczny 4) shows that

on the whole their dissyllabic character is etymological. But not allvowels proceeding from contraction are dissyllabic in the Rigveda. Wefind only seven examples (five different words) of the ablative ending-dt scanned as two syllables (Arnold, Vedic Metre 99) and not one caseof a dissyllabic -d- in dya (dative sing. of a-stems), which etymologicallymust be the result of a contraction. There is no sure example of adissyllabic -ds (nominative pl. of a-stems) or of a dissyllabic -ais (in-strumental pl. of a-stems), where prehistoric contractions seem alsopretty sure. We find no sure case of the dissyllabic character of theoptative suffix -e- (< -oi- < -o + i-), or of the subjunctive suffix-d- (< -j/5- < -e/o- + -e/o-), etc. The only case where a dissyllabicVedic ending corresponds to a Greek ending with circumflex intonationis the -Jm of the genitive pl. (Greek -cv). It is, however, to be re-membered that the Greek ending -cw is never dissyllabic. There isalso no trace left of the originally dissyllabic character of the dativeending -w, of the optative suffix -o0- or of the subjunctive suffix -7/w-.All these contractions must have been effected before he limitation of theaccent to the three last syllables. We have X'yo suE,XMyflrEnd not*XEIoL-E, *XEYr-r< *XEyb-6-~y.,XeY)-e-rE,tKWV and not *0 K;V

kurylowicz - on the development of the greek intonation

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