Chapter IV: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY.3--I. General works on Greek Art.--The only (2)

The most noticeable characteristic of Attic and Ionic is the change of
[alpha] into [eta] which is universal in Ionic but does not appear in
Attic after another vowel or [rho]. Thus both dialects used [Greek:
meter, time] from an earlier [Greek: mater, tima], but Attic had
[Greek: sophia, pragma] and [Greek: chora], not [Greek: sophie,
pregma] and [Greek: chore] as in Ionic. The apparent exception [Greek:
kore] is explained by the fact that in this word a digamma [digamma]
has been lost after [rho], in Doric [Greek: korwa]. That the change
took place after the Ionians came into Asia is shown by the word
[Greek: Medoi], which in Cyprian is [Greek: Madoi]; the Medes were
certainly not known to the Greeks till long after the conquest of
Ionia. While Aeolic and the greater part of Doric kept [digamma], this
symbol and the sound _w_ represented by it had disappeared from both
Ionic and Attic before existing records begin--in other words, were
certainly not in use after 800 B.C. The symbol was known and occurs in
a few isolated instances. Both dialects agreed in changing _u_ into
_u_, so that a _u_ sound has to be represented by [Greek: ou]. The
short _o_ tended towards _u_, so that the contraction of [omicron] +
[omicron] gave [Greek: ou]. In the same way short _e_ tended towards
_i_, so that the contraction of [epsilon] + [epsilon] gave [Greek:
ei], which was not a diphthong but a close _e_-sound. In Attic Greek
these contractions were represented by O and E respectively till the
official adoption of the Ionic alphabet at Athens in 403 B.C. So also
were the lengthened syllables which represent in their length the loss
of an earlier consonant, as [Greek: emeina] and [Greek: eneima],
Aeolic [Greek: emenna, enemma], which stand for a prehistoric *[Greek:
emensa] and *[Greek: enemsa], containing the -[sigma]- of the first
aorist, and [Greek: tous, oikous, echousi] representing an earlier
[Greek: tons, oikons, echonti] (3 pl. present) or *[Greek: echontsi]
(dative pl. of present participle). Both dialects also agreed in
changing [tau] before [iota] into [sigma] (like Aeolic), as in [Greek:
echousi] above, and in the 3rd person singular of -[Greek: mi] verbs,
[Greek: tithesi, didosi], &c., and in noun stems, as in [Greek: dosis]
for an earlier *[Greek: dotis]. Neither dialect used the particle
[Greek: ke] or [Greek: ka], but both have [Greek: an] instead. One of
the effects of the change of [alpha] into [eta] was that the
combination [Greek: ao] changed in both dialects to [Greek: eo], which
in all Attic records and in the later Ionic has become [Greek: eo] by
a metathesis in the quantity of the vowels: [Greek: naos], earlier
[Greek: nawos], "temple," is in Homeric Greek [Greek: neos], in later
Ionic and Attic [Greek: neos]. In the dative (locative) plural of the
-[alpha] stems, Ionic has generally -[Greek: eisi] on the analogy of
the singular; Attic had first the old locative form in -[Greek: esi],
-[Greek: asi], which survived in forms which became adverbs like
[Greek: Athenesi] and [Greek: thurasi]; but after 420 B.C. these were
replaced by -[Greek: ais, thurais], &c. The Ionic of Asia Minor showed
many changes earlier than that of the Cyclades and Euboea. It lost the
aspirate very early: hence in the Ionic alphabet H is _e_, not _h_; it
changed [Greek: au] and [Greek: eu] into [Greek: ao] and [Greek: eo],
and very early replaced to a large extent the -[Greek: mi] by the
-[omega] verbs. This confusion can be seen in progress in the Attic
literature of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., [Greek: deiknymi]
gradually giving way to [Greek: deiknyo], while the literature
generally uses forms like [Greek: ephiei] for [Greek: ephie] (impft.).
In Attica also the aspiration which survived in the Ionic of Euboea
and the Cyclades ceased by the end of the 5th century. The Ionic of
Asia Minor has -[Greek: ios] as the genitive of _o_-stems; the other
forms of Ionic have -[Greek: idos].

4. _Doric._--As already mentioned, the dialects of the North-West
differ in several respects from Doric elsewhere. As general
characteristics of Doric may be noted the contractions of [alpha] +
[epsilon] into [eta], and of [alpha] + [omicron] or [omega] into
[alpha], while the results in Attic and Ionic of these contractions
are [alpha] and [omega] respectively: [Greek: enike] from [Greek:
nikao], Attic [Greek: enika; timames] 1 pl. pres. from [Greek: timao],
Attic [Greek: timomen; timan] gen. pl. of [Greek: tima] "honour,"
Attic [Greek: timon]. In inflection the most noticeable points are the
pronominal adverbs in locative form: [Greek: toutei, tenei] (this from
a stem limited to a few Doric dialects and the Bucolic Poets), [Greek:
teide, hopei], &c.; the nom. pl. of the article [Greek: toi, tai], not
[Greek: hoi, hai] and so [Greek: toutoi] in Selinus and Rhodes; the
1st pl. of the verb in -[Greek: mes], not in -[Greek: men], cp. the
Latin -_mus_; the aorist and future in -[xi]-, where other dialects
have -[sigma]-, or contraction from presents in-[Greek: zo]; dikazo,
dikaso], Doric [Greek: dikaxo], &c.; the future passive with active
endings, [Greek: epimeletheseunti] (Rhodes), found as yet only in the
Doric islands and in the Doric prose of Archimedes; the particles
[Greek: ai] "if" and [Greek: ka] with a similar value to the Aeolic
[Greek: ke] and the Attic-Ionic [Greek: an]. Doric had an accentuation
system different both from Aeolic and from Ionic-Attic, but the
details of the system are very imperfectly known.

In older works Doric is often divided into a _dialectus severior_ and
a _dialectus mitis_. But the difference is one of time rather than of
place, the peculiarities of Doric being gradually softened down till
it was ultimately merged in the _lingua franca_, the [Greek: koine],
which in time engulfed all the local dialects except the descendant of
Spartan, Tzakonian. Here it is possible to mention its varieties only
in the briefest form. (a) The southern dialects are well illustrated
in the inscriptions of Laconia recently much increased in number by
the excavations of the British School at Athens. Apart from some brief
dedications, the earliest inscription of importance is the list of
names placed on a bronze column soon after 479 B.C. to commemorate the
tribes which had repulsed the Persians. The column, originally at
Delphi, is now at Constantinople. The most striking features of the
dialect are the retention of [digamma] at the beginning of words, as
in the dedication from the 6th century [Greek: wanaxibios] (_Annual of
British School_, xiv. 144). The dialect changed -[sigma]- between
vowels into -h-, [Greek: moha] for [Greek: mosa] "muse." Later it
changed [theta] into a sound like the English _th_, which was
represented by [sigma]. Before o-sounds [epsilon] here and in some
other Doric dialects changed to [iota]: [Greek: thios, sios] for
[Greek: theos] "god." The result of contraction and "compensatory
lengthening" was not [Greek: ei] and [Greek: ou] as in Attic and
Ionic, but [eta] and [omega]: [Greek: emen] infinitive = [Greek:
einai] from *esmen; gen. sing. of _o_-stems in [omega]: [Greek: theo],
acc. pl. in -[Greek: os: theos]; dy was represented by [Greek: dd],
not [zeta], as in Attic-Ionic; [Greek: musidde = muthize]. The dialect
has many strange words, especially in connexion with the state
education and organization of the boys and young men. The Heraclean
tables from a Laconian colony in S. Italy have curious forms in
-[Greek: assi] for the dat. pl. of the participle [Greek:
prassontassi] = Attic [Greek: prattousi]. Of the dialect of Messenia
we know little, the long inscription about mysteries from Andania
being only about 100 B.C. From Argolis there are a considerable number
of early inscriptions, and in a later form of the dialect the cures
recorded at the temple of Asklepios at Epidaurus present many points
of interest. There is also an inscription of the 6th century B.C. from
the temple of Aphaia in Aegina. [Digamma] survives in the old
inscriptions: [Greek: wewremena (= eiremena); ns], whether original or
arising by sound change from -_nty_, persists till the 2nd century
B.C.: [Greek: hantitychonsa = he antitychousa, tons huions = tous
huious]. The dialect of the Inachus valley seems to resemble Laconian
more closely than does that of the rest of the Argolic area. Corinth
and her colonies in the earliest inscriptions preserve [Digamma] and
[qoppa] (= Latin Q) before [omicron] and [upsilon] sounds, and write
[xi] and [psi] by [Greek: chs] and [Greek: phs], the symbols which are
used also for this purpose in old Attic. In the Corcyrean and Sicilian
forms of the dialect, [lambda] before a dental appears as [nu]:
[Greek: Phintias = Philtias]; and in Sicilian the perfect-active was
treated as a present: [Greek: dedoiko] for [Greek: dedoika], &c. From
Megara has come lately an obscure inscription from the beginning of
the 5th century; its colony Selinus has inscriptions from the middle
of the same century; the inscriptions from Byzantium and its other
Pontic colonies date only from Hellenistic times. In Crete, which
shows a considerable variety of subdialects, the most important
document is the great inscription from Gortyn containing twelve tables
of family law, which was discovered in 1884. The local alphabet has no
separate symbols for [chi] and [phi], and these sounds are therefore
written with [kappa] and [pi]. As in Argive the combination -[Greek:
ns] was kept both medially and finally except before words beginning
with a consonant; -_ty_- was represented by [zeta], later by -[Greek:
tt]-, as in Thessalian and Boeotian: [Greek: hopottoi], Attic [Greek:
hoposoi]; and finally by -[Greek: tt]-; [lambda] combined with a
preceding vowel into an au-diphthong: [Greek: auka], Attic [Greek:
alke], cp. the English pronunciation of _talk_, &c. In Gortyn and
some other towns -[Greek: st]--was assimilated to--[Greek: tt], where
[theta] must have been a spirant like the English _th_ in _thin_;
[zeta] of Attic Greek is represented initially by [delta], medially by
[Greek: dd], but in some towns by [tau] and [Greek: tt: doos (= zoos),
dikadden (= dikazein)]. Final consonants are generally assimilated to
the beginning of the next word. In inflection there are many local
peculiarities. In Melos and Thera some very old inscriptions have been
found written in an alphabet without symbols for [phi], [chi], [phi],
[xi], which are therefore written as [pi]h, [kappa]h or [koppa]h,
[Greek: ps, ks]. The contractions of [epsilon] + [epsilon] and of
[omicron] + [omicron] are represented by E and O respectively. The old
rock inscriptions of Thera are among the most archaic yet discovered.
The most characteristic feature of Rhodian Doric is the infinitive in
-[Greek: mein: domein], &c. (= Attic [Greek: dounai]), which passed
also to Gela and Agrigentum. The inscriptions from Cos are numerous,
but too late to represent the earliest form of the dialect.

(b) The dialects of N.W. Doric, Locrian, Phocian, Aetolian, with which
go Elean and Achaean, present a more uncouth appearance than the other
Doric dialects except perhaps Cretan. Only from Locris and Phocis come
fairly old inscriptions; later a [Greek: koine] was developed, in
which the documents of the Aetolian league are written, and of which
the most distinctive mark is the dative plural of consonant stems in
-[Greek: ois: archontois] (= Attic [Greek: archousi]), [Greek:
agonois] (= Attic [Greek: agosi]), &c. Phocian and the Locrian of Opus
have also forms like Aeolic in -[Greek: essi]. In place of the dative
in -[omega], locatives in -[Greek: oi] are used in Locrian and
Phocian. Generally north of the Corinthian gulf the middle present
participle from -[Greek: eo]-verbs ends in-[Greek: eimenos]; similar
forms are found also in Elean. Locrian changed [epsilon] before [rho]
into [alpha]: [Greek: patara] for [Greek: patera]; cf. English _Kerr_
and _Carr_, _sergeant_ and _Sargeaunt_. [Greek: st] appears for
[Greek: st], and [koppa] and [Digamma] are still much in use in the
5th century B.C. Many thousands of inscriptions were found in the
French excavations at Delphi, but nothing earlier than the 5th century
B.C. In the older inscriptions the Aeolic influence--datives in
-[Greek: essi, onyma] for [Greek: onoma]--is better marked than later.
In the Laws of the Labyad phratry (about 400 B.C.) the genitive is in
[Greek: ou], but a form in -[omega] is also found, [Greek: woiko],
which seems to be an old ablative fossilized as an adverb. The nom.
pl. [Greek: dekatetores] is used for the acc.; similar forms are found
in Elean and Achaean.

The more important of the older materials for Achaean come from the
Achaean colonies of S. Italy, and being scanty give us only an
imperfect view of the dialect, but it is clearly in its main features
Doric. Much more remarkable is the Elean dialect known chiefly from
inscriptions found at Olympia, some of which are as early as the
beginning of the 6th century. The native dialect was replaced first by
a Doric and then by the Attic [Greek: koine], but under the Caesars
the archaic dialect was restored. Many of its characteristics it
shares with the dialects north of the Corinthian gulf, but it changes
original [epsilon] to [alpha]: [Greek: ma = me], &c.; [delta] was
apparently a spirant, as in modern Greek (= _th_ in English _the_,
_thine_), and is represented by [zeta] in some of the earliest
inscriptions. Final -[sigma] became -[rho]; this is found also in
Laconian; -_ty_- became -[Greek: ss]-, but was not simplified as in
Attic to -[sigma]-: [Greek: ossa] = Attic [Greek: hosa].

As we have seen, Ionians, Aetolians and Dorians tended to level local
peculiarities and make a generally intelligible dialect in which
treaties and other important records were framed. The language of
literature is always of necessity to some extent a [Greek: koine]:
with some Greek writers the use of a [Greek: koine] was especially
necessary. The local dialect of Boeotia was not easily intelligible in
other districts, and a writer like Pindar, whose patrons were mostly
not Boeotians, had perforce to write in a dialect that they could
understand. Hence he writes in a conventional Doric with Aeolic
elements, which forms a strong contrast to that of Corinna, who kept
more or less closely to the Boeotian dialect. For different literary
purposes Greek had different [Greek: koinai]. A poet who would write
an epic must adopt a form of language modelled on that of Homer and
Hesiod; Alcaeus and Sappho were the models for the love lyric, which
was therefore Aeolic; Stesichorus was the founder of the triumphal
ode, which, as he was a Dorian of Sicily, must henceforth be in Doric,
though Pindar was an Aeolian, and its other chief representatives,
Simonides and Bacchylides, were Ionians from Ceos. The choral ode of
tragedy was always conventional Doric, and in the iambics also are
Doric words like [Greek: drao, lao], &c. Elegy and epigram were
founded on epic; the satirical iambics of Hipponax and his late
disciple Herondas are Ionic. The first Greek prose was developed in
Ionia, of which an excellent example has been preserved to us in
Herodotus. Thucydides was not an Ionian, but he could not shake
himself free of the tradition: he therefore writes [Greek: prasso,
tasso], &c., with -[Greek: ss]-, which was Ionic, but is never found
in Attic inscriptions nor in the writers who imitate the language of
common life--Aristophanes (when not parodying tragedy, or other forms
of literature or dialect), Plato and the Orators (with the partial
exception of Antiphon, who ordinarily has -[Greek: ss]-, but in the
one speech actually intended for the law-courts -[Greek: tt]-).
Similarly Hippocrates and his medical school in Cos wrote in Ionic,
not, however, in the Ionic of Herodotus, but in a language more akin
to the Ionic [Greek: koine] of the inscriptions; and this dialect
continued to be used in medicine later, much as doctors now use Latin
for their prescriptions. The first literary document written in Attic
prose is the treatise on the _Constitution of Athens_, which is
generally printed amongst the minor works of Xenophon, but really
belongs to about 425 B.C. From the fragment of Aristophanes'
_Banqueters_ and from the first speech of Lysias "Against
Theomnestos" it is clear that the Attic dialect had changed rapidly in
the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., and that much of the phraseology of
Solon's laws was no longer intelligible by 400 B.C. Among the most
difficult of the literary dialects to trace is the earliest--the
Homeric dialect. The Homeric question cannot be discussed here, and on
that question it may be said _quot homines tot sententiae_. To the
present writer, however, it seems probable that the poems were
composed in Chios as tradition asserted; the language contains many
Aeolisms, and the heroes sung are, except for the Athenians (very
briefly referred to), and possibly Telamonian Ajax, not of the Ionic
stock. Chios was itself an Ionicized Aeolic colony (Diodorus v. 81.
7). The hypothesis of a great poet writing on the basis of earlier
Aeolic lays ([Greek: klea andron]) in Chios seems to explain the main
peculiarities of the Homeric language, which, however, was modified to
some extent in later times first under Ionic and afterwards under
Athenian influence.

Of Dorian literature we know little. The works of Archimedes written
in the Syracusan dialect were much altered in language by the late
copyists. The most striking development of the late classical age in
Doric lands is that of pastoral poetry, which, like Spenser, is "writ
in no language," but, on a basis of Syracusan and possibly Coan Doric,
has in its structure many elements borrowed from the Aeolic love lyric
and from epic.

From the latter part of the 5th century B.C. Athens became ever more
important as a literary centre, and Attic prose became the model for
the later [Greek: koine], which grew up as a consequence of the decay
of the local dialects. For this decay there were several reasons. If
the Athenian empire had survived the Peloponnesian War, Attic
influence would no doubt soon have permeated the whole of that empire.
This consummation was postponed. Attic became the court language of
Macedon, and, when Alexander's conquests led to the foundation of
great new towns, like Alexandria, filled with inhabitants from all
parts of the Greek world, this dialect furnished a basis for common
intercourse. Naturally the resultant dialect was not pure Attic. There
were in it considerable traces of Ionic. In Attica itself the dialect
was less uniform than elsewhere even in the 5th century B.C., because
Athens was a centre of empire, literature and commerce. Like every
other language which is not under the dominion of the schoolmaster, it
borrowed the names of foreign objects which it imported from foreign
lands, not only from those of Greek-speaking peoples, but also from
Egypt, Persia, Lydia, Phoenicia, Thrace and elsewhere. The Ionians
were great seafarers, and from them Athens borrowed words for seacraft
and even for the tides: [Greek: amtotis] "ebb," [Greek: rhachia] "high
tide," an Ionic word [Greek: rhechie] spelt in Attic fashion. From the
Dorians it borrowed words connected with war and sport: [Greek:
lochagos, kunagos], &c. A soldier of fortune like Xenophon, who spent
most of his life away from Athens, introduced not only strange words
but strange grammatical constructions also into his literary
compositions. With Aristotle, not a born Athenian but long resident in
Athens, the [Greek: koine] may be said to have begun. Some
characteristics of Attic foreigners found it hard to acquire--its
subtle use of particles and its accent. Hence in Hellenistic Greek
particles are comparatively rare. According to Cicero, Theophrastus,
who came from as near Attica as Eretria in Euboea, was easily detected
by a market-woman as no Athenian after he had lived thirty years in
Athens. Thoucritus, an Athenian, who was taken prisoner in the
Peloponnesian War and lived for many years in Epirus as a slave, was
unable to recover the Athenian accent on his return, and his family
lay under the suspicion that they were an alien's children, as his son
tells us in Demosthenes' speech "Against Eubulides." In the [Greek:
koine] there were several divisions, though the line between them is
faint and irregular. There was a [Greek: koine] of literary men like
Polybius and of carefully prepared state documents, as at Magnesia or
Pergamum; and a different [Greek: koine] of the vulgar which is
represented to us in its Egyptian form in the Pentateuch, in a later
and at least partially Palestinian form in the Gospels. Still more
corrupt is the language which we find in the ill-written and ill-spelt
private letters found amongst the Egyptian papyri. Not out of the old
dialects but out of this [Greek: koine] arose modern Greek, with a
variety of dialects no less bewildering than that of ancient Greek. In
one place more rapidly, in another more slowly, the characteristics of
modern Greek begin to appear. As we have seen, in Boeotia the vowels
and diphthongs began to pass into the characteristic sounds of modern
Greek four centuries before Christ. Dorian dialects illustrate early
the passing of the old aspirate [Greek: th], the sound of which was
like the final t in English _bit_, into a sound like the English _th_
in _thin_, _pith_, which it still retains in modern Greek. The change
of [gamma] between vowels into a y sound was charged by the comic
poets against Hyperbolus the demagogue about 415 B.C. Only when the
Attic sound changes stood isolated amongst the Greek dialects did they
give way in the [Greek: koine] to Ionic. Thus the forms with -[Greek:
ss]- instead of -[Greek: tt]- won the day, while modern Greek shows
that sometimes the -[Greek: rr]- which Attic shared with some Doric
dialects and Arcadian was retained, and that sometimes the Ionic
-[Greek: rs]-, which was also Lesbian and partly Doric, took its
place. In other cases, where Ionic and Attic did not agree, forms came
in which were different from either: the genitives of masculine a
stems were now formed as in Doric with [alpha], but the analogy of the
other cases may have been the effective force. The form [Greek: naos]
"temple," instead of Ionic [Greek: neos], Attic [Greek: neos], can
only be Doric.[1] In the first five centuries of the Christian era
came in the modern Greek characteristics of Itacism and vowel
contraction, of the pronunciation of [Greek: mp] and [Greek: nt] as
_mb_ and _nd_ and many other sound changes, the loss of the dative and
the confusion of the 1st with the 3rd declension, the dropping of the
-[Greek: mi] conjugation, the loss of the optative and the
assimilation of the imperfect and second aorist endings to those of
the first aorist.[2] There were meantime spasmodic attempts at the
revival of the old language. Lucian wrote Attic dialogue with a
facility almost equal to Plato; the old dialect was revived in the
inscriptions of Sparta; Balbilla, a lady-in-waiting on Hadrian's
empress, wrote epigrams in Aeolic, and there were other attempts of
the same kind. But they were only _tours de force_, [Greek: kepoi
Adonidos], whose flowers had no root in the spoken language and
therefore could not survive. Even in the hands of a cultivated man
like Plutarch the [Greek: koine] of the 1st century A.D. looks
entirely different from Attic Greek. Apart from non-Attic
constructions, which are not very numerous, the difference consists
largely in the new vocabulary of the philosophical schools since
Aristotle, whose jargon had become part of the language of educated
men in Plutarch's time, and made a difference in the language not
unlike that which has been brought about in English by the development
of the natural sciences. It is hardly necessary to say that these
changes, whether of the [Greek: koine] or of modern Greek, did not of
necessity impair the powers of the language as an organ of expression;
if elaborate inflection were a necessity for the highest literary
merit, then we must prefer Caedmon to Milton and Cynewulf to
Shakespeare.

_The Chief Characteristics of Greek._

As is obvious from the foregoing account of the Greek dialects, it is
not possible to speak of the early history of Greek as handed down to
us as that of a single uniform tongue. From the earliest times it
shows much variety of dialect accentuated by the geographical
characteristics of the country, but arising, at least in part, from
the fact that the Greeks came into the country in separate waves
divided from one another by centuries. For the history of the language
it is necessary to take as a beginning the form of the Indo-European
language from which Greek descended, so far as it can be reconstructed
from a comparison of the individual I.E. languages (see ANDO-EUROPEAN
LANGUAGES). The sounds of this language, so far as at present
ascertained, were the following:--

(a) 11 vowels: _a_, _a_, _e_, _e_, _i_, _i_, _o_, _o_, _u_, _u_,
_[schwa]_ (a short indistinct vowel).

(b) 14 diphthongs: _ai_, _au_, _ei_, _eu_, _oi_, _ou_, _ai_, _au_,
_ei_, _eu_, _oi_, _ou_, _[schwa]i_, _[schwa]u_.

(c) 20 stop consonants.

Labials: _p_, _b_, _ph_, _bh_ (_ph_ and _bh_ being _p_ and _b_
followed by an audible breath, not _f_ and _v_).

Dentals: _t_, _d_, _th_, _dh_ (_th_ and _dh not_ spirants like the two
English sounds in _thin_ and _then_, but aspirated _t_ and _d_).

Palatals: _k_, _g_, _kh_, _gh_ (_kh_ and _gh_ aspirates as explained
above).

Velars: _q_, _g_, _qh_, _gh_ (velars differ from palatals by being
produced against the soft palate instead of the roof of the mouth).

Labio-velars: _qu_, _qu_, _quh_, _guh_ (these differ from the velars
by being combined with a slight labial w-sound).

(d) Spirants--

Labial: _w_.

Dental: _s_, _z_, post-dental _s_, _z_, interdental possibly [thorn],
[eth].

Palatal: [chi] (Scotch ch), y.

Velar: _x_ (a deeply guttural [chi], heard now in Swiss dialects),
[gh].

Closely akin to _w_ and _y_ and often confused with them were the
semi-vowels _u_ and _i_.

(e) Liquids: _l_, _r_.

(f) Nasals: _m_ (labial), _n_ (dental), _n_ (palatal), [symbol]
(velar), the last three in combination with similar consonants.

(a) As far as the vowels are concerned, Greek retains the original
state of things more accurately than any other language. The sounds of
short _e_ and short _o_ in Attic and Ionic were close, so that _e_ +
_e_ contracted to a long close e represented by [Greek: ei], _o_ + _o_
to a long close _o_ represented by [Greek: oe]. In these dialects _u_,
both long and short, was modified to _u_, and they changed the long
_a_ to _e_, though Attic has [alpha] after [epsilon], [iota] and
[rho]. In Greek [schwa] appeared regularly as [alpha], but under the
influence of analogy often as [epsilon] and [omicron].

(b) The short diphthongs as a whole remained unchanged before a
following consonant. Before a following vowel the diphthong was
divided between the two syllables, the [iota] or [upsilon] forming a
consonant at the beginning of the second syllable, which ultimately
disappeared. Thus from a root dheu- "run" comes a verb [Greek: theo]
for [Greek: the-wo], from an earlier *[Greek: theu-o]. The
corresponding adjective is [Greek: thoos] "swift," for [Greek:
tho-wo-s], from an earlier *[Greek: thou-o-s]. The only dialect which
kept the whole diphthong in one syllable was Aeolic. The long
diphthongs, except at the ends of words, were shortened in Attic. Some
of these appear merely as long vowels, having lost their second
element in the proethnic period. Apparent long diphthongs like those
in [Greek: letourgia, sozo] arise by contraction of two syllables.

(c) The consonants suffered more extensive change. The voiced
aspirates became unvoiced, so that _bh_, _dh_, _gh_, _gh_, _guh_ are
confused with original _ph_, _th_, _kh_, _qh_, _quh_: I.E. *_bhero_
(Skt. _bharami_) is Gr. [Greek: phero]; I.E. *_dhumos_ (Skt.
_dhumas_), Gr. [Greek: thymos]; I.E. *_ghimo_- (Skt. _hima_-), Gr.
[Greek: (dys)-chimo-s]; I.E. *_stigh_- (Skt. _stigh_-), Gr. [Greek:
stiches]; I.E. _guhen_- (Skt. _han_-), Gr. [Greek: theino] (probably),
[Greek: phonos]. The palatal and velar series cannot be distinguished
in Greek; for the differences between them resort must be had to
languages of the _satem_-group, such as Sanskrit, Zend or Slavonic,
where the palatals appear as sibilants (see INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES).
The labio-velar series present a great variety of forms in the
different Greek dialects, and in the same dialect before different
sounds. Thus in Attic before _o_ vowels, nasals and liquids, the
series appears as [pi], [beta], [phi]; before _e_ and _i_ vowels as
[tau], [beta] ([delta]), [theta]; in combination with _u_, which led
to loss of the u by dissimilation, [kappa], [gamma] [chi]. Thus
[Greek: hepomai] corresponds to the Latin _sequo-r_, apart from the
ending; [Greek: bous] to Latin _bos_ (borrowed from Sabine), English
_cow_; [Greek: phonos] "slaughter," [Greek: epephnon], old Irish
_gonim_, "I wound." Parallel to these forms with _p_ are forms in the
Italic languages except Latin and Faliscan, and in the Cymric group of
the Celtic languages. The dental forms [tau], [delta], [theta] stand
by themselves. Thus [Greek: tis] (from the same root as [Greek: pou,
poi, pothen], etc.) is parallel to the Latin _quis_, the Oscan _pis_,
old Irish cia, Welsh _pwy_, "who?" "what?"; Attic [Greek: tettares],
Ionic [Greek: tesseres] "four" is parallel to Latin _quattuor_, Oscan
[Greek: petora], old Irish _cethir_, old Welsh _petguar_; [Greek:
tisis] is from the same root as [Greek: poine]. For the voiced sound,
[beta] is much more common than [delta] before _e_ and _i_ sounds;
thus [Greek: bios] "life," from the same root as Skt. _jivas_, Latin
_vivus_; [Greek: bios] "bowstring," Skt. _jya_, &c. In Arcado-Cyprian
and Aeolic, [pi] and [beta] often precede _e_ and _i_ sounds. Thus
parallel to Attic [Greek: tettares] Lesbian has [Greek: pessyres],
Homer [Greek: pisyres], Boeotian [Greek: pettares]; Thessalian [Greek:
bellomai], Boeotian [Greek: beilomai] alongside of Attic [Greek:
boulomai], Lesbian [Greek: bollomai], Doric [Greek: bolomai] and also
[Greek: delomai]. In Arcadian and Cyprian the form corresponding to
[Greek: tis] was [Greek: sis], in Thessalian [Greek: kis], where the
labialization was lost (see the article on Q).

A great variety of changes in the stopped consonants arose in
combination with other sounds, especially _i_ (a semivowel of the
nature of English _y_), _u_ (_w_) and _s_; -[Greek: ti-, -thi]- became
first -[Greek: ss]- and later -[sigma]- in Attic Greek, -[Greek: tt]-
in Boeotian (the precise pronunciation of -[Greek: ss]- and -[Greek:
tt]- is uncertain): Attic [Greek: ho-posos], earlier [Greek:
ho-possos], Boeotian [Greek: ho-pottos], from the same stem as the
Latin _quot_, _quotiens_; Homeric [Greek: messos], Attic [Greek:
mesos] from *[Greek: methios], Latin _medius_; -[Greek: ki-, -chi]-
became -[Greek: ss]-, Attic -[Greek: tt-: pissa] "pitch," Attic
[Greek: pitta] from *[Greek: pikia], cp. Latin _pix_, _picis_, [Greek:
elasson], Attic [Greek: elatton] comparative to [Greek: elachus].
[Greek: di] and [Greek: gi] became [zeta]: [Greek: Zeus] (Skt.
_Dyaus_) [Greek: elpizo] from [Greek: elpis], stem [Greek:
elpid]-"hope," [Greek: mastizo] from [Greek: mastix], stem [Greek:
mastig]- "lash."

(d) The sound _u_ was represented in the Greek alphabet by [digamma],
the "digamma," but in Attic and Ionic the sound was lost very early.
In Aeolic, particularly Boeotian and Lesbian, it was persistent, and
so also in many Doric dialects, especially at the beginning of words.
When the Ionic alphabet was adopted by districts which had retained
[digamma], it was represented by [beta]: [Greek: brodon] Aeolic for
[Greek: rodon], i.e. [Greek: Drodon]. In Attic it disappeared, leaving
no trace; in Ionic it lengthened the preceding syllable; thus in Homer
[Greek: hupodeisas] is scanned with o long because the root of the
verb contained [digamma]: [Greek: ddei]-. Attic has [Greek: xenos],
but Ionic [Greek: xeinos] for [Greek: xenwos]. Its combination with
[tau] became -[Greek: ss]-, Attic and Boeotian -[Greek: tt]-, in
[Greek: tesseres, tettares, pettares] for I.E. [Greek: guetu]-.

But the most effective of all elements in changing the appearance of
Greek words was the sound _s_. Before vowels at the beginning, or
between vowels in the middle of words, it passed into an _h_ sound,
the "rough breathing." Thus [Greek: hepta] is the same word as the
Latin _septem_, English _seven_; [Greek: hal-s] has the same stem as
the Latin _sal_, English _sal-t_; [Greek: euo] for [Greek: euho] is
the same as the Latin _uro_ (*_euso_). Combined with _i_ or _u_ also
it passes into _h_; [Greek: hymen], Skt. _syuman_, "band"; [Greek:
hedus], Doric [Greek: adus], Latin _sua(d)vis_, English sweet; cp.
[Greek: oikoio] for *[Greek: woikosio, neos], Lesbian [Greek: nauos]
"temple," through [Greek: nawos] from *[Greek: naswo-s] connected with
[Greek: naio] "dwell." Before nasals and liquids _s_ was assimilated:
[Greek: mei-dao], Latin _mi-ru-s_, English _smile_; [Greek: nipha],
Latin _nivem_, English _snow_; [Greek: lego], Latin _laxus_, English
_slack_; [Greek: rheo] from *_sreu-o_ of the same origin as English
_stream_ (where _t_ is a later insertion), imperfect [Greek: erreon]
for *_esreuom_; cp. also [Greek: philommeides, aganniphos, allektos].

After nasals _s_ is assimilated except finally; when assimilated, in
all dialects except Aeolic the previous syllable is lengthened if not
already long: Attic [Greek: eneima, emeina] for the first aorist
*_enemsa_, *_emensa_; but [Greek: tons, tans], &c., of the accusative
pl. either remained or became in Aeolic [Greek: tois, tais], in Ionic
and Attic [Greek: tous, tas], in Doric [Greek: tos, tas]; cp. [Greek:
titheis] for *[Greek: tithents, bas] for *[Greek: bants, heis] "one"
for *sem-s, then by analogy of the neuter *sens. Assimilation of
[sigma] to preceding [rho] and [lambda] is a matter of dialect: Ionic
[Greek: tharseo], but Attic [Greek: tharro], and so also the Doric of
Thera: [Greek: ekelsa], but [Greek: esteila] for *[Greek: ettelsa].
With nasals [iota] affected the previous syllable: [Greek: tektaino]
(*[Greek: tekteio]), where _n_ is the nasal of the stem [Greek:
tekton], itself forming a syllable (see the article N for these
so-called sonant nasals). Before [iota] original _m_ becomes _n_;
hence [Greek: baino] with _n_, though from the same root as English
_come_. Original [iota] does not survive in Greek, but is represented
by the aspirate at the beginning of words, [Greek: hagnos] = Skt.
_yajnas_; medially after consonants it disappears, affecting the
preceding consonant or syllable where a consonant precedes; between
vowels it disappears. A sound of the same kind is indicated in Cyprian
and some other dialects as a glide or transition sound between two
vowels.

(e) The most remarkable feature in the treatment of the nasals is that
when _n_ or _m_ forms a syllable by itself its consonant character
disappears altogether and it is represented by the vowel [alpha] only:
[Greek: tatos], Latin _tentus_, [alpha]- negative particle, Latin
_in_, English _un_; [Greek: ha-ploos] has the same prefix as the Latin
_sim-plex_ (_sm_). The liquids in similar cases show [Greek: la] or
[Greek: al] and [Greek: ra] or [Greek: ar: te-tla-men, pe-paltai;
edrakon, thrasys, tharsos].

The ends of words were modified in appearance by the loss of all
stop-consonants and the change of final _m_ to _n_, [Greek: edeixe],
Latin _dixit_; [Greek: zygon], Latin _iugum_.

_Accent._--The vowel system of Greek has been so well preserved
because it shows till late times very little in the way of stress
accent. As in early Sanskrit the accent was predominantly a pitch
accent (see ACCENT).

_Noun System._--The I.E. noun had three numbers, but the dual was
limited to pairs, the two hands, the two horses in the chariot, and
was so little in use that the original form of the oblique cases
cannot be restored with certainty. Ionic has no dual. The I.E. noun
had the following cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Ablative,
Instrumental, Locative and Dative. The vocative was not properly a
case, because it usually stands outside the syntactical construction
of the sentence; when a distinctive form appears, it is the bare stem,
and there is no form (separate from the nominative) for the plural.
Greek has confused genitive and ablative (the distinction between them
seems to have been derived from the pronouns), except for the solitary
[Greek: woiko = oikothen] in an inscription of Delphi. The
instrumental, locative and dative are mixed in one case, partly for
phonetic, partly for syntactical reasons. In Arcadian, Elean,
Boeotian, and later widely in N. Greece, the locative -[Greek: oi] is
used for the dative. The masculine _a_-stems make the nom. in most
dialects in -[Greek: as]. The genitive is in -[Greek: ao] (with
[omicron] borrowed from the _o_-stems), which remains in Homer and
Boeotian, appears in Arcado-Cyprian as -[Greek: au], and with
metathesis of quantity -[Greek: eo] in Ionic. The Attic form in
-[Greek: ou] is borrowed directly from the _o_-stems. In the plural
the -[alpha] and -_o_ stems follow the article in making their
nominatives in -[Greek: ai] and -[Greek: oi] instead of the original
-_as_ and -_os_. The neuter plural was in origin a collective
singular, and for this reason takes a singular verb; the plural of
[Greek: zygon] "yoke" was originally *_iuga_, and declined like any
other -a stem. But through the influence of the masculine and feminine
forms the neuter took the same oblique cases, and like its own
singular made the accusative the same as the nominative. In the plural
of -_a_ and -_o_ stems, the locative in -[Greek: aisi, -oisi] was long
kept apart from the instrumental-dative form in -[Greek: ais, -ois].

_The Verb System._--The verb system of Greek is more complete than
that of any of the other I.E. languages. Its only rival, the early
Vedic verb system, is already in decay when history begins, and when
the classical period of Sanskrit arrives the moods have broken down,
and the aorist, perfect, and imperfect tenses are syntactically
confused. Throughout the Greek classical period the moods are
maintained, but in the period of the [Greek: koine] the optative
occurs less and less and finally disappears. The original I.E. had two
voices, an active and a middle, and to these Greek has added a third,
the passive, distinguished from the middle in many verbs by separate
forms for the future and aorist, made with a syllable -[Greek: the-,
timethesomai, etimethen], though in this instance, [Greek: timesomai],
the future middle, is often used with a passive sense. Other forms
which Greek has added to the original system are the pluperfect--in
form a past of the perfect stem with aorist endings. It merely
expressed the perfect action in past time, and, except as derived from
the context, did not possess the notion of relative time (past at a
time already past), which attaches to the Latin forms with the same
name. The future optative was also a new formation, betraying its
origin in the fact that it is almost entirely limited to _Oratio
Obliqua_. The aorist imperatives were also new; the history of some of
them, as the second sing. act. [Greek: pauson], is not very clear. The
whole verb system is affected by the distinction between -_o_ and
-_mi_ verbs; the former or thematic verbs have a so-called "thematic
vowel" between the root and the personal suffix, while the -_mi_ verbs
attach the suffixes directly to the root. The distinction is really
one between monosyllabic and disyllabic roots. The history of the
personal endings is not altogether clear; the -_o_ verbs have in the
present forms for the 2nd and 3rd person in -[Greek: eis] and -[Greek:
ei], which are not yet elucidated. In the middle, Greek does not
entirely agree with Sanskrit in its personal endings, and the original
forms cannot all be restored with certainty. The endings of the
primary tenses differed from those of the secondary, but there has
been a certain amount of confusion between them.

The syntax of the verb is founded on the original I.E. distinction of
the verb forms, not by time (tense), but by forms of action,
progressive action (present and imperfect), consummated action
(aorist), state arising from action, emphatic or repeated action
(perfect). For the details of this see INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--(i.) A grammar of Greek, which will deal fully with the
whole material of the language, is at present a _desideratum_, and is
hardly possible so long as new dialect material is being constantly
added and while comparatively so little has been done on the syntax of
the dialects. The greatest collection of material is to be found in
the new edition of Kuhner's _Griechische Grammatik, Laut- und
Formenlehre_, by Blass (2 vols., 1890-1892); _Syntax_, by Gerth (2
vols., 1896, 1900). Blass's part is useful only for material, the
explanations being entirely antiquated. The only full historical
account of the language (sounds, forms and syntax) at present in
existence is K. Brugmann's _Griechische Grammatik_ (3rd ed., 1900).
Gustav Meyer's _Griechische Grammatik_ (nothing on accent or syntax),
which did excellent pioneer work when it first appeared in 1880, was
hardly brought up to date in its 3rd edition (1896), but is still
useful for the dialect and bibliographical material collected. See
also H. Hirt, _Handbuch der griech. Laut- und Formenlehre_ (1902). Of
smaller grammars in English perhaps the most complete is that of J.
Thompson (London, 1902). The grammar of Homer was handled by D. B.
Monro (2nd ed., Oxford, 1891). The syntax has been treated in many
special works, amongst which may be mentioned W. W. Goodwin, _Syntax
of the Greek Moods and Tenses_ (new ed., 1889); B. L. Gildersleeve and
C. W. E. Miller, _Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to
Demosthenes_, pt. i. (New York, 1901--and following); J. M. Stahl,
_Kritisch-historische Syntax des griechischen Verbums_ (1907); F. E.
Thompson, _Attic Greek Syntax_ (1907). (ii.) The relations between
Greek and the other I.E. languages are very well brought out in P.
Kretschmer's _Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache_
(Gottingen, 1896). For comparative grammar see K. Brugmann and B.
Delbruck, _Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen
Sprachen_ (the 2nd ed., begun 1897, is still incomplete) and
Brugmann's _Kurze vergleichende Grammatik_ (1902-1903); A. Meillet,
_Introduction a l'etude comparative des langues indo-europeennes_ (2nd
ed., 1908). Greek compared with Latin and English: P. Giles, _A Short
Manual of Comparative Philology for Classical Students_ (2nd ed.,
1901, with an appendix containing a brief account and specimens of the
dialects); Riemann and Goelzer, _Grammaire comparative du Grec et du
Latin_ (1901), a parallel grammar in 2 vols., specially valuable for
syntax. (iii.) For the dialects two works have recently appeared, both
covering in brief space the whole field: A. Thumb, _Handbuch der
griechischen Dialekte_ (with bibliographies for each dialect, 1909);
C. D. Buck, _Introduction to the Study of the Greek Dialects, Grammar,
Selected Inscriptions, Glossary_ (Boston, 1910). Works on a larger
scale have been undertaken by R. Meister, by O. Hoffmann and by H. W.
Smyth. For the [Greek: koine] may be specially mentioned A. Thumb,
_Die griech. Sprache in Zeitalter des Hellenismus_ (1901); E. Mayser,
_Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemaerzeit: Laut- und
Wortlehre_ (1906); H. St J. Thackeray, _A Grammar of the Old Testament
in Greek_, vol. i. (1909); Blass, _Grammar of New Testament Greek_,
trans. by Thackeray (1898); J. H. Moulton, _A Grammar of New Testament
Greek. I. Prolegomena_ (3rd ed., 1906). (iv.) For the development from
the [Greek: koine] to modern Greek: A. N. Jannaris, _An Historical
Greek Grammar, chiefly of the Attic Dialect, as written and spoken
from Classical Antiquity down to the Present Time_ (1901); G. N.
Hatzidakis, _Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik_ (1892); A.
Thumb, _Handbuch der neugriechischen Volkssprache_ (2nd ed. 1910).
(v.) The inscriptions are collected in _Inscriptiones Graecae_ in the
course of publication by the Berlin Academy, those important for
dialect in the _Sammlung der griech. Dialektinschriften_, edited by
Collitz and Bechtel. The earlier parts of this collection are to some
extent superseded by later volumes of the _Inscr. Graecae_, containing
better readings and new inscriptions. A good selection (too brief) is
Solmsen's _Inscriptiones Graecae ad inlustrandas dialectos selectae_
(3rd ed., 1910). A serviceable lexicon for dialect words is van
Herwerden's _Lexicon Graecum suppletorium et dialecticum_ (2nd ed.,
much enlarged, 2 vols. 1910). (vi.) The historical basis for the
distribution of the Greek dialects is discussed at length in the
histories of E. Meyer (_Geschichte des Altertums_, ii.) and G. Busolt
(_Griechische Geschichte_, i.); by Professor Ridgeway, _Early Age of
Greece_, i. (1901), and P. Kretschmer in _Glotta_, i. 9 ff. See also
A. Fick, _Die vorgriechischen Ortsnamen_ (1905). (vii.) Bibliographies
containing the new publications on Greek, with some account of their
contents, appear from time to time in _Indogermanische Forschungen:
Anzeiger_ (Strassburg, Trubner), annually in _Glotta_ (Gottingen,
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht), and _The Year's Work in Classical Studies_
(London, Murray). (P. Gi.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Thumb, _Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus_
(1901), pp. 242-243.

[2] Thumb, _op. cit._ p. 249.