The Shape of Eta: Evolutionary Phonology and the Development of Attic Greek [£:]
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Type
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
No restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
Blevins's Evolutionary Phonology model has not previous been employed in analyzing
sound changes in dead languages (Blevins, 2004). Here, I present evidence from Attic Greek,
and follow the evolution of the pronunciation of grapheme eta <11< as a sound change for EP to
explain. Eta during the fifth century BeE was pronounced as [s:J, but today is pronounced as [i].
I create a rubric by which to apply EP to my account of eta, tracking which EP mechanisms
could be at play and different points in eta's development, and analyzing ifEP would predict the
results. I have discovered that EP does describe the change from [s:] to [i] very effectively,
accounting for both the loss of phonemic vowel length and the raising of [s] to [i]. However, EP,
due to its nonteleological nature, is unable to provide an explanation for why this change
occurred. In short, while it has great descriptive power, it lacks the explanatory power of a useful
theory of sound change.