A Corpus Study of Attic Greek Alpha, Iota and Upsilon

Cory Robinson

Attic Vowels

Short LongAEIOY

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?

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

The Corpus

Lysias (c. 445 – 380 B.C.)Attic orator

Everyday speech

Oration 32: Against Diogeiton

700 words

1,600 syllables

The Corpus

The Corpus

1O3 1O2 1O1 1N 1L 1A 1C1 1C2T A \N O S) EI :

M E \ NM H : \L A) H : /\ NT A \T A) W : /\

D R E S

The Corpus

Vowel LengthFirst marked c. 400 – 200 B.C.

Poetry

Accent

The Corpus

SortingBy syllable

All syllables together

For any factors correlating to the length of alpha, iota, upsilon

Results

222

3952 43

5

78

34

6 8

302

144

194

121

A E H O ΩA: A? I I: I? Y Y: Y?

Frequency of Vowels in Corpus

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