A Corpus Study of Attic Greek Alpha, Iota and Upsilon Cory Robinson

Attic Vowels ShortLong A E I O Y

Attic Vowels ShortLong A EH I OΩ 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) [ | k h u:çən] Kuchen (cake) [ | k h u: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

ShortLong A85%15% I90%10% Y85%15% E/H68%32% O/Ω62%38%

Conclusion Distinction is phonemic No need for new letters

Future Work Bigger corpus Historical factors