Greek and Latin Linguistics

Gk. Χείρων, Hitt. kiššeraš ^dUTU‑uš and Rudrá‑ ‘of healing hand’

The invention of the Greek accent marks

Purpose

Aristophanes of Byzantium is credited with inventing the signs for Greek accents, breathings, and vowel lengths, according to a single source: a passage found in two sixteenth-century Paris manuscripts. The passage has a doubtful history, but the story it tells generates considerable interest (see Prauscello 2006: 33–40, with bibliography). This paper argues that at least for the material on accents the passage had a source that was in Latin, and whose subject was the Latin accent.

Limited Grassmann’s Law in Latin

Following the lead of Walde 1906, Weiss 2011:156 posits the dissimilation of the first of two successive aspirates when the intervening syllable contained a liquid. The examples cited are:

*b^hard^heh₂ ‘beard’ (cf. OCS brada, OE beard) > *bardhā >> barba not †farba.

*d^hrag^heti ‘drags’ (cf. OE dragan) > *dragheti > trahit not †frahit

Accenting sequences of enclitics in ancient Greek: rediscovering an ancient rule

Philomen Probert, Oxford

This paper results from work done together with Dr Stephanie Roussou. It presents an ancient rule about sequences of Greek enclitics that modern debate has missed, although Lehrs (1837: 129) had correctly interpreted the crucial text.

Previous scholarship

'To Have’ and ‘To Hold’ in Mycenaean

Hans Bork, UCLA

The Quickening Course and Watery Ways: Deriving Greek κέλευθος ‘path’ from PIE *h₁léwd^h-

A New Type of Ring Composition? Towards a Technique of Inherited Poetics

Alexander SW Forte

Harvard University