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to appear: Brent Vine and David Goldstein (editors) Proceedings of the 28th annual Indo-European Conference, Hempen Verlag

Quantitative rhythm and Saussure’s Tribrach Law*

Donca Steriade, MIT

September 2017

1. Introduction

In a 1884 study, Ferdinand de Saussure proposed a rhythmic law that would have functioned

in the prehistory of Greek to limit the length and position of light syllable sequences. This is the

Tribrach Law, TL, paraphrased below:

1. The Tribrach Law (TL)

No word contains a nonfinal tribrach: *[…LLLσ…]Word (L = light syllable; σ =syllable)  

Saussure believed that only traces of TL were left in the Homeric language and later Greek.

He assembled these fragments, dividing apparent violations of TL into infractions hystérogènes,

violations arising after the death of the law and thus requiring no further explanation, and lawful

original deviations. Saussure’s evidence was suggestive but incomplete. Later work, including

Wackernagel (1889:2, 3-4, 20) and Szemerényi (1964: 4, 272-277) cast doubt on parts of it. This

paper offers systematic evidence for TL, an extension of it to later Greek, and a reinterpretation

of its contents.

We start from an outline of Saussure’s own view of the law. To a modern reader, the striking

fact is that Saussure recognized in 1884 that TL was a surface-oriented constraint: a

dispreference against tribrachs that is independent of the strategies employed to satisfy it1. These

included a variety of input modifications, (2.a-d), and morphological exponence changes, (2.e).

They are unified only by the fact that all worked to eliminate the nonfinal tribrach, LLLσ.

                                                                                                               *Acknowledgments : I am grateful to David Goldstein and Brent Vine for extremely helpful comments that rescued a first draft ; to Juliet Stanton for the statistical analysis in section 3.2 and for comments throughout; to François Dell, Dieter Gunkel and Stephanie Jamieson for comments and references ; to Ryan Sandell and Sam Zukoff for getting me to look into TL; and to audiences at LSA 2015, WCIEC 32 and MIT. 1 “[U]n effort de la langue pour éluder le tribraque”; “un même résultat obtenu par plusieurs voies différentes” (1884:464)

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2. Strategies to satisfy TL, after Saussure (1884)2 (L = light syllable, H = heavy syllable)

a. lengthen an affixal vowel in nonfinal LLL sequences Vowel lengthened in /…LLLσ.../ Short vowel elsewhere i. LLLσ → LHLσ

soph-ɔ-teros ‘wiser’ soph-ɔ -tatos ‘most wise’

dēn-ó-teros ‘more fearful’ dēn-ó-tatos ‘most fearful’

hier-ɔ-sún-ɛ ‘priesthood’ dōl-o-sún-ɛ ‘slavery’ ii. LLLσ → LLHσ

idi-ɔ-tɛs ‘private person’ hipp-ó-tɛs ‘horseman’ hɛliki-ɔ-tis ‘contemporary-fem.’ toks-ó-tis ‘archeress’ kotul-ɛdɔn ‘cup-like hollow’ harp-edɔn ‘cord for snaring’

b. lengthen root-initial vowels in compounds (but cf. Wackernagel 1889; and section 4)

Vowel lengthened in /LLLσ/ Short vowel elsewhere i. LLLσ → LHLσ

an-ɛreph-ɛs ‘not covered’ phil-ɛnemós ‘loving the wind’

hups-ereph-ɛs ‘high roofed’ paus-anemós ‘stilling the wind’

ii. LLLσ → LLHσ phloger-ɔnuks ‘with fiery hooves’ sūl-ónuks ‘paring nails’

c. geminate a morpheme initial C in nonfinal LLL sequences C lengthened in /LLLσ/ Short C elsewhere LLLσ → LLHσ Pelopó-nnɛsos ‘Peloponesus’ Khersó-nɛsos ‘Chersonesus’

d. syncopate LLLσ (but see Szemerényi 1964:272ff)

Syncope in /LLLσ/ No syncope elsewhere LLLσ → HLσ

*eluth-e-men → elth-é-men ‘we went’ *theso-phatos→ thés-phatos ‘spoken by god’ *theso-kelos→ thés-kelos ‘moved by a god’

el-ɛluth-a ‘I have gone’ tɛlé-phatos ‘spoken afar’ theó-phantos ‘revealed by god’

e. substitute a H ending for the -o- compound linking morpheme in LLLσ

Endings replace linking -o- in /LLLσ/ Linking –o– elsewhere LLLσ→ LHLσ

thanat-ɛ-phoros ‘death bearing’ odont-ó-phoros ‘tooth bearing’ Pul-oi-genɛs ‘born in Pylos’ Dɛl-o-genɛs ‘born in Delos’

In a different move that anticipates modern developments, Saussure proposed that TL was a

phrase-level process, whose function would have been to adjust the lexicon to the needs of

dactylic rhythm. He thought that the cadence of connected speech in pre-historic Greek – not just

that of the poetic language, but of ordinary speech – was dactylic. Tribrachs had to be excluded

because they couldn’t be parsed into dactyls3.

                                                                                                               2 Saussure’s data is supplemented, including by comparisons to contexts where TL was moot. In transliterating, I use macrons to mark long vowels; I transcribe the dipththongs ει, ου as tense long <ē, ō>; and η, ω as lax <ɛ, ɔ>. 3 “La langue courante et journalière s’offensait alors d’une succession de trois syllabes brèves.”  (1884:464)

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Why did TL prohibit tribrachs only in non-final positions? In part because, Saussure argues,

a word-final sequence of three lights, LLL#, can sometimes be incorporated into a dactylic HLL

sequence: whenever word-initial Cs turn the preceding L into a H. A word final LLL followed is

parsed as LLH if enough Cs are added to the last L to turn it into a H.[1] This LLH sequence can

be distributed across two dactyls, HLL HLL. A non-final LLL differs because its weights remain

invariant in all phrasal contexts. TL is needed to modify this phrase-invariant, word-medial LLL.

Thus, Saussure’s explanation for why TL applied to only non-final tribrachs suggests that he

conceived of TL as a process with a phrase-level objective. It follows that the statement in (1),

*[…LLLσ…]Word, should change to *[…LLL…]PPhrase to reflect his thinking: tribrachs are bad

anywhere in a phrase, because the phrase in its entirety must be parsed into dactyls, but word-

final tribrachs can be avoided without overt changes, while phrase-final tribrachs are remedied

by the independent process of final lengthening.

While Saussure thought of TL as a phrasal process, his project in 1884 was to find word-

internal traces of it. A phrase-medial LLL sequence that arises across word boundaries – LL#L

or L#LL – can be avoided by different lexical choices or a different syntax. Any such prehistoric

avoidance strategies would have left no traces after the law was abandoned. By contrast, word-

internal changes like (2) could be transmitted to the later language, because the death of the law

would not necessarily cause their undoing in lexicalized forms. It is then on these word-internal

traces that Saussure planned to build his case for a reconstructed TL.

Before Saussure, Friedrich Blass (1893, 1st edition 1868) had discovered a strikingly similar

rhythmic preference, this time in 4th BC Attic. Blass’ Law refers to the avoidance of tribrachs

across word boundaries, in the speeches of Demosthenes and his followers. This phrasal domain

is complementary to that studied by Saussure. Below is an approximation to Blass’ Law, meant

to highlight the parallels to TL:

3. Blass’ Law (BL): No phonological phrase contains a nonfinal sequence of more than two

lights: *[…LLLσ…]PPhrase The means of satisfying BL are different from TL. We do not find in the lexicon of Demosthenes

changes comparable to (2) and peculiar to him. The effects of BL emerge only from a

comparison between the rhythm of Demosthenes’ phrases to those of his contemporaries. As the

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surface lexical material is the same for all Greek writers, compliance with BL must have resulted

from lexical and syntactic selection alone.

Saussure took BL and TL to be unrelated (1884:476). The most likely reasons were internal

to his hypothesis: he considered TL a prehistoric, input-modifying strategy that enforced dactylic

rhythm. BL was none of those things. In particular, what Blass had found in Demosthenes was

not a preference for dactyls, but just an avoidance of tribrachs. Still, the similarities between (1)

and (3) invite a second look at their relation.

We explore here a unified conception of BL and TL, on somewhat different terms from

Saussure. What looks like a stylistic preference for Demosthenes can reflect the activity of a

constraint identical to the one that underlies TL and (2). The difference between the changes that

BL and TL induce derives, in an OT grammar, from a different ranking of a markedness

constraint banning tribrachs relative to input-output faithfulness. The changes in (2.a-d) result

from a grammar like (4.a), where an anti-tribrach constraint outranks faithfulness to certain

inputs. In a different grammar, (4.b), the same constraint, now demoted below all input-output

faithfulness, expresses itself only through lexical/syntactic choices. BL can be seen in that light.

4. Prehistoric TL (a) vs. BL (b) as Optimality Theoretic4 grammar fragments

a. The grammar of TL proper (cf.(2.a-d)): *LLLσ >> Faith IO b. The grammar of BL: Faith IO >> *LLLσ >> syntactic/lexical preferences

The focus of the present study is on a claim suggested by (4.b): the TL constraint, *LLLσ,

was active in historical Greek, when Demosthenes began to systematically enforce it in phrasal

contexts. This claim is suggested by any attempt to unify BL and TL. A related speculation is

that Demosthenes, like any speaker of Greek, could reconstruct from the phenomena in (2), and

others to be discussed below, an active TL constraint.

In support of the claim that TL is active in historical Greek, I examine evidence that word-

medial tribrachs continued to be avoided into the historical period. While most TL-promoting

alternations in (2.a-d) are unproductive remnants at this stage, as Saussure saw, they were

replaced in later Greek by subtler avoidance strategies, which Saussure missed: compounds and

certain derivatives that could create TL violations are underattested compared to those that abide

by TL. Saussure didn’t look for such effects, possibly because his conception of sound law was a

                                                                                                               4 Prince and Smolensky 1993 (2004).

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Neogrammarian one: it required any sound law to cause surface changes relative to some input.

Once it stopped causing such changes, the law was dead. I suggest that the systematic avoidance

effects are a sign of life.

There are further differences between the interpretation of TL that this study supports and

Saussure’s. The first of them involves the nature of the rhythm that the constraint enforces: the

evidence suggests that tribrachs were avoided in later Greek, but does not support the conjecture

that dactylic rhythm was favored, as opposed to iambic, trochaic or anapestic. In fact, neither

does Saussure’s evidence in (2) support a specifically dactylic conjecture, for any stage of Greek.

The alternative rationale for TL is that tribrachs are disfavored because they represent the

quantitative-rhythmic counterpart of EXTENDED LAPSE, the prohibition against long stressless

strings (Gordon 2002, Houghton 2008). What is avoided in both cases are strings of non-

prominent syllables, where prominence is defined in either quantitative terms (as in TL and BL,

where prominent = heavy) or accentually (in EXTENDEDLAPSE, where prominent = stressed).

Evidence from Greek meter (section 6) and from Sanskrit (section 7), where dactyls play no role

in meter or accent, will support this interpretation.

Another difference of interpretation refers to the status of nonfinal syllables in TL. The

evidence shows that historical Greek TL had effects only on non-final tribrachs. Why, on a non-

dactylic interpretation, should the prohibited tribrachs be non-final in the word? We can link this

to the fact that, in this inflectional language, the last syllable alternates quantitatively in

inflection. Thus prótera ‘in front-NACC.pl neuter’ violates any anti-tribrach ban if we factor in

the final, but most inflected forms of such paradigms end in a heavy: protérō, protérɔn,

protérois, etc. My proposal is that only paradigmatically stable TL violations were targeted,

those that an entire inflectional paradigm suffers from: those involve pre-desinential sequences.

Then, while próteros offers no paradigmatically stable pattern of TL violation, a longer form,

like the expected comparative *apóteros ‘farther off’, LLLσ, does: TL changed that to apɔteros.

The suggested explanation for non-finality in TL is then paradigmatic uniformity. This point,

however, is not developed here.

2. Saussure’s TL evidence revisited

In assembling the evidence for TL, Saussure compared attested Greek forms that satisfy TL

with reconstructed TL violators: e.g. expected *soph-ó-teros with attested soph-ɔ-teros. He did

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not discuss the productivity of the patterns he discovered, because he did not expect TL to be

enforced in historical Greek. Here I proceed differently, because I test the idea that tribrach

avoidance was still active until at least 4th BC. Then productivity matters. With this in mind, I

review only the processes in (2) that bear on the activity of TL in later Greek. Syncope, Attic and

reduplication[2] and gemination do not belong here – see Szemerényi 1964 and Zukoff 2016 on

alternative analyses of the former two – and will not be discussed further. To preview, the

evidence discussed below will show that certain morpheme- or allomorph-selection strategies of

historical Greek are used to enforce TL and maintain a degree of productivity in this limited role.

2.1. Inflected first members of compounds

2.1.1. Locatives in compounds

The first member of any Greek compound is a root, frequently separated from the second

member by an invariant linking vowel -o-, as in (5.a). This is especially true when the first

member corresponds to a nominal of a thematic declension, and in many other cases as well

(Schwyzer 1939:438). Case endings, including locatives, are avoided in the first member (5.b),

being generally limited to the right periphery of words. TL causes at least one deviation from this

rule. The clearest is the use of -oi locatives in first members, as in (5.c), when the normal -o-

linker would cause a violation of TL. In a string σ1-o-σ3σ, the most common shape for a Greek

compound, TL is violated iff the first three syllables σ1-o-σ3 are light, yielding LLLσ. First-

member locatives, like hodoi-porós, replace in such cases LLLσ by LHLσ.

5. Locatives in compounds and TL a. oik-ó-bi-os ‘living at home’ litt. ‘home-o-live’

khor-o-terp-ɛs ‘delighting in the dance’ litt. ‘choir-o - delight-ADJ’ mes-o-knɛmi-on ‘middle of the leg’ litt. ‘middle-o - leg-DIM’ hod-o-skop-éɔ ‘road-watch’ litt ‘road-o-watch-VB1SGPRES’

b. *oikoı-bi-os ‘living at home’ litt. ‘home-LOC - live-ADJ’ *khoroi-terp-ɛs, mesoi-knɛmi-on, *hodoi-skop-éɔ

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c. hodoi-por-ós ‘traveller’ litt. ‘road-LOC - run-ADJ’ khoroi-thal-ɛs ‘blooming in the dance’ litt. ‘choir-LOC - bloom-ADJ’

The o-compounds in (5.a) don’t violate TL. In each of them, one of the first three syllables is

heavy: the first in oik-ó-bi-os, the second in hod-o-skopé-ɔ, the third in khor-o-terp-ɛs. By

contrast, without locative –oi, hodo-por-ós, khoro-thal-ɛs (cf. 5.c) would violate TL.

This part of the argument for TL builds on very brief remarks by Saussure (1884:474). To

check the full pattern, the distribution of oi/o in first compound members was verified using

materials in Schwyzer (1939) and the Perseus Digital Library. A first search identified nouns

with -oi locatives. Among them, the following have roots that occur in compounds: oíkos, hodós,

khorós, pédos, ísthmos, mésos, Púlos, Dɛlos; and the locative-shaped adverbs húpsoi ‘upwards’

and tɛloi ‘far,’ which have also compounding forms in -o-, hupso-, tɛlo-. Based on this list, a

second search located the compounds with Xoi- and Xo- first members, as in (5.c) and (5.a).

By comparing the lists of Xoi- and Xo- compounds, we determine what rule, if any, underlies

the distribution of the locatives in the full data. The strongest version of the rule is: ‘use Xoi- as

the first compound member if and only if TL is violated by an Xo- first member; otherwise use

Xo-’. The results provide limited support for this rule. A weaker version of it is: ‘use Xoi- in the

first compound member only if TL is violated by Xo.’ This rule was confirmed: no first members

in Xoi- occur in compounds if a corresponding Xo- version satisfies TL. This means that

locatives oíkoi, húpsoi, ísthmoi, tɛloi never occur as first members, presumably because the

alternative compounds with standard 1st members oíko-, húpso-, tɛlo, ísthmo-, Dɛlo-, all with

initial heavies, satisfy TL. This also means that Xoi- never occurs before a 2nd member that

begins with a heavy CC-cluster (*hodoi-skopé-ɔ) or with a heavy syllable (*khoroi-terp-ɛs).

Table (6) summarizes the distribution of Xo- and Xoi- compounds in the list just described.

6. Rates of Xoi- locatives in 1st members of compounds, compared with Xo- alternatives:

hodo(i)-, khoro(i)-, pedo(i)-, meso(i)-, Pulo(i)-

_L (e.g. -thalɛs) _H (e.g. -terpɛs, -skopos ) _L/H (-tribɛs)

L-o (LL) (N=126) 33 (26%) 92 (73%) 2 (1%) L-oi (LH) (N=21) 18 (86%) 0 3 (14%)

This table counts only Xo(i)- forms where X ends in a light syllable: we ignore 1st members

like oík-o-, because, as noted above, the TL account predicts that they will invariably exclude

Xoi-, and they indeed do. The ‘_L’ column in (6) reports rates of Xo(i)- 1st members occurring

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before a 2nd member that begins with at most one C, to keep the middle syllable light, and whose

first syllable is itself light. In other words, the ‘_L’ column, in the L-o row, contains potential TL

violations: we expect Xoi- forms to be clustered there. The ‘_H’ column reports Xo(i)- 1st

members occurring before a 2nd member that begins with a CC or a heavy syllable: we expect no

Xoi- locatives in the _H context, since TL is satisfied without them. Finally, the ‘_L/H’ column

reports Xo(i)- 1st members occurring before a muta-cum-liquida (ML) cluster, whose weight is

fluctuating in the meter (Hermann 1923:94-110, Devine and Stephens 1994:32-34, 59-61;

Fortson 1995). We expect variation in that column. In fact the variation is minimal: ML clusters

act as heavy.

A χ2 test of independence reveals that the distribution of Loi and Lo sequences in relation to

the weight of the following sequence is highly unlikely to occur by chance: χ2 (2, N=147)=42.49,

p < .00001. Some[3] irregularity in the distribution in (6) comes from compounds in meso-: these

never use the locative (e.g. mesó-khoros ‘mid-choir’; not *mesoi-khoros). There is a reason for

this: Attic meso- is a recently degeminated outcome of messo-, with the quantity of the first

syllable still fluctuating in metrical texts. The possibility that meso- acts as if it still has a first

heavy syllable, after degemination, could support a version of Saussure’s idea that TL is no

longer active in the recent layers of Greek: if no other constraint is relevant, then one would

expect a productive TL to adjust the shape of Greek compounds after messo- became meso-. That

apparently did not happen. However, without meso-, the picture changes very little: χ2 (2,

N=71)=34.38, p < .00001.

A simple analysis for the pattern uncovered here uses two constraints: TL (*LLLσ) and the

requirement that inflectional endings be right-peripheral in the word (ALIGNINFLR). The majority

pattern in (6-7) is characterized by *LLLσ >> ALIGNINFLR.

7. Locatives in compounds analyzed

*LLLσ ALIGNINFLR *LLLσ ALIGNINFLR

☞khoro-thalɛs *!

☞khoro-terpɛs khoroi-thalɛs

* khoroi-terpɛs *!

The less frequent option, the cca 20% Xo- compounds that violate TL, reflects the opposite

ranking, ALIGNINFLR >> *LLLσ. Locatives not needed to avoid TL violations, as in *khoroi-

terpɛs (or, equivalently, *oikói-bi-os, *hodoi-skopé-ɔ (5.b)), are excluded under both rankings.

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This explains the one invariant fact about the distribution of Xoi- first members: they don’t

surface where TL is moot.

No other unambiguously case-marked 1st members are attested, but two other observations

about compound linkers support the synchronic relevance of TL.

2.1.2. The distribution of the linker -i- in compounds, after es-stems

The vowel -i- frequently follows 1st members of compounds based on athematic nouns: e.g.

nukt-i-phóros ‘bringing night’. This -i- is sometimes suppressed after es-stems, e.g. telés-phoros

‘bringing completion’, LHLσ, from télos/teles- ‘goal, fulfillment’, for expected tele(s)-í-phoros,

LLLLσ. A look at the entire set of -os/es nouns like telos reveals a systematic effect of TL and

some complexities5.

I started with the es-stem list in Blanc (2008:p. 43-44) and expanded on that to create a list of

81 compounds whose first members correspond to attested es-stem neuter bases6. Three options

are found: (a) expected –e(s)-i- forms like teles-í-phrɔn LLHLσ ‘fulfillment-thinking’; (b) forms

with suppressed -i-, like telés-phoros LHLσ; and (c) poetic forms using what looks like old -essi

Datives, e.g. teless-í-gonos LHLLσ ‘ripe’.

Table (8) shows that the distribution between these three options is regular and shaped by

quantitative rhythm, with near complementarity between -esi- and -es-/-essi-. Before second

members like –phoros, i.e. those beginning with at most one C plus a light, a context identified as

‘LL’ in (8), the expected -esi- forms are relatively rare, representing under only 111% of this

group.[4] The other options, bare -es- and geminated -essi-, are largely limited to the LL context

and can thus be viewed as TL-mandated substitutions for the expected -esi- structure. The bulk

of the -esi- first members is found in the ‘_H, H’ column in (8), i.e. before a heavy syllable (e.g.

telesi-ōrgós ‘completion worker’, ernesí-peplos ‘wrapt in foliage’) or before a cluster (e.g. telesí-

phrɔn)7.

8. Rates of es-stem allomorphs in 1st compound members depending on the right context

LL _H, H

esi (N=45) 5 (11%) 40 (89%)

                                                                                                               5  The effect is briefly mentioned by Saussure 1884: 475 and by Wackernagel 1889:2.  6 That list is: ákos, ánthos, árkos, áos, bélos, énkhos, éntos, épos, érnos, génos, makos, mɛdos, mélos, óros, rıgos, sákos, téikhos, télos, téukhos, plus pháos, which is treated as an es-stem, phaes-, in such compounds. 7 Here, as elsewhere in this data, ML clusters are mostly heavy and not further distinguished from other clusters.

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es (N=18) 14 (77%) 4 (22%) essi (N=18) 15 (83%) 3 (17)

Note that the presence of -i- in compounds like telesi-ōrgós, ernesí-peplos is not

phonotactically motivated: without this -i-, hypothetical *teles-ōrgós, *ernés-peplos avoid hiatus

and contain a legitimate s-stop cluster in a legitimate context. Rather, it is the absence of -i- that

needs to be explained in phonotactic terms: the motivating factor is TL. I propose in (9) an

analysis similar to (7): TL competes with exponence constraints, including a constraint that

favors the -i- linker in compounds (USE -I-), and a constraint, possibly ALIGNINFLR, that blocks

the -essi ending from the interior of compounds. The ranking TL (*LLLs) >> USE -I-,

ALIGNINFLR characterizes the majority patterns in (8).

9. Xes-i-Y vs. Xes-Y, Xessi-Y compounds

TL USE -I- TL USE -I-

telesi-phoros LLLLs *!*

teles-phrɔn LHs *! ☞teles-phoros LHLs

* ☞ telesi-phrɔn LLHs

TL ALIGNINFL TL ALIGNINFL telesi-gonos LLLLs *!*

ernessi-peplos- LHLHs *!

☞telessi-gonos LHLLs

* ☞ernesi-peplos HLLHs

More details about TL emerge when we consider the contribution of the left context in the

choice between -esi-, -es- and -essi-. The weight of the syllable before -es- decides if X-esi-Y

compounds avoid TL violations entirely (as in H-esi-Hs forms like ernes-í-peplos), or violate TL

once (as in L-esi-Hs compounds like telesi-ōrgós), or twice (e.g. L-esi-Ls compounds like akesí-

ponos ‘assuaging pain’). The data in table (8) shows that violations of TL are rare but does not

distinguish violation profiles. Table (10) provides this information. It reports single, double and

zero TL violations resulting from the use of -esi-, -es-, essi-, given the left and right context

where these occur. The TL** column in (10) contains frequencies of strings with double

violations, TL* reports strings with a single violation, and TL√ reports strings that satisfy TL.

10. Shape of es-stems in 1st compound members, weight profiles and rates of TL violations

TL** TL* TL√

esi LLL-Ls LLL-Hs (H)LL-Ls (H)LL-Hs, LLH-s, LH-Ls 4(8%) 6 (14%) 2 (4%) 33 (73%)

es 1(6 %) 0 17 (94%) essi 0 0 18 (100%)

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This data shows that double TL violations are less frequent. In addition, the TL* column of

(10) suggests an asymmetry between the -esi- compounds that violate TL once, internal to the

first member (telesí-ōrgos) and those that violate it also once, but across the compound boundary

(anthesi-pótātos‘fluttering round flowers’): the second pattern seems less frequent. A larger data

set containing 77 compounds with Xesi- first members8 confirms this: 16 of these (21%) contain

one TL violation, but only 4 (5%) fall into the (H)LL-Ls class, where the TL violation

arises across a compound boundary. The ranking TL >> USE i, predicts telesi-ōrgos, LLL-Hs, to

be as rare as anthesi-pótātos, HLL-Ls, but this data suggests otherwise: it appears that the

placement of the compound boundary matters here, with member-internal TL violations, LLL-

Hs, more readily tolerated. I propose that the grammar of Greek contains a more restricted TL

constraint, NARROW TL, which penalizes only tribrach sequences created across a derivational

boundary:

11. NARROW TL: *LL-Lσ [5]

This constraint is satisfied by telesí-ōrgos (LL-H), teles-phoros (LH-L), telessi-gonos (HL-

L). It is violated only by items like anthesi-pótātos, akesí-ponos. The proposal assumes that the

compound boundary occurs right before the 2nd member. That is, the 1st member includes any

linker. This is independently justified by the fact that it is lexical properties of the 1st member

that dictate the linker’s identity, e.g. the choice of -o- vs. -i- vs. -oi-, -es-, and -essi-. We will

observe further uses for NARROW TL below9.

2.1.3. The distribution of the linker -ā/ɛ- in compounds

Nouns of 1st declension have an ā/ɛ theme vowel that is the unique exponent of the

Nominative Singular, e.g. stephán-ɛ. This vowel appears after many 1st members of compounds

corresponding to nouns of thematic declensions, in violation of the rule demanding -o- in that

context. That this too was a rhythmically motivated substitution was perhaps understood by

Apollonius Dyscolus, who presented the data in (12), cited here after Wackernagel 1889:10:

                                                                                                               8 This larger set includes also verbal first members, e.g. helkesí-peplos ‘robe trailing’, olesí-ptolis ‘city-destroying’, some of them corresponding to attested deverbal -sis nouns: heuresí-tekhnos ‘inventor of arts’. It’s possible that several items in the first set of Xes(si)- compounds also fall in this -sis class. 9 The fact that the LLL sequence is prohibited more strenuously across a morphological boundary is reminiscent of the Derived Environment condition (Kiparsky 1973). The significance of this fact is not examined here.

  12  

  13  

12. Distribution of -ɛ- and -o- as compound linkers -ɛ- between L and L -o- elsewhere, after a thematic first member stephan-ɛ-phóros stephan-o-poiós ‘crown-bearing/maker’ cf. stephánɛ/os kalath-ɛ-phóros kalath-o-poiós ‘basket-carrier/maker’ cf. kálath-os elaph-ɛ-bólos elaph-o-któnos ‘deer-shooting/killing’ cf. elaph-ɛ/os The distribution in (12) suggests that -ɛ- replaces the expected -o- in forms like stephan-o-

phorós, LLLLσ, in order to remove TL violations. There is support for this hypothesis. First, the

-ɛ- linker precedes mostly 2nd members like -phoros, whose first syllable is light and which begin

with at most one C. There are few compounds like X-ɛ-poios, with a heavy following -ɛ-: only

6% of the 141 X-ɛ-Y compounds in the survey described below. Also, few forms contain a CC

cluster following -ɛ-, e.g. X-ɛ-ktonos, X-ɛ-dromos: these form 10% of the 141 X-ɛ-Y

compounds. Such forms have a good reason to be rare: they don’t need the -ɛ- to avoid the TL

violation, as any linking vowel will be made heavy by the following cluster. Further, -ɛ- mostly

follows 1st compound members like thúr-, stephán- whose predesinential stem ends in one or

more light syllables. The expected -o- could yield in this context one or more TL violations, as in

stephan-o-phorós. Third, the almost identical but critically short -a- theme vowel of nouns like

Mégar-a is never found to replace the -o- linker: it would do no good in this context. All these

facts, and the parallel findings on -oi-, suggest that TL is involved here.

To explore how systematic the effect of TL is on the distribution of X-ɛ-Y, I used a corpus of

83 first compound members, most of which correspond to thematic nouns. The nouns were

selected because they are all relatively frequent and because they are found in 1st position of

compounds. Many correspond to -ɛ nouns. Of the 83, 47 contain one or two light syllables in

predesinential position: these are nouns like thúr-ā, stephán-ɛ. Their stems would generate one or

more TL violations if the -o- linked them to a 2nd member like -phoros, as in stephan-o-phorós

(LLLLσ) or thur-o-kopós (LLLσ). The other 36 first members of compounds in the survey, items

like anáŋk-ɛ ‘necessity’ or thūm-ós ‘soul’, contain a pre-desinential heavy: compounds

containing these as first members will not violate TL, no matter what the linking vowel is. The

survey aims to verify that the distribution between -o- and -ɛ- in compounds is, as Appolonius’

data in (12) suggests, entirely determined by TL. If so, we expect that -ɛ- is used if and only if

the -o- alternative generates TL violations.

I proceeded as follows. I identified in Perseus all the compounds containing the stems of the

83 nouns in first member position. Of these, I recorded all the compounds, 1225 in number, in

  14  

which a linking vowel, -o- or -ɛ- and its variant -ā-, separated the first member from the second,

as in the left column in (12). Compounds were coded for whether the linking vowel is long -ɛ/ā-

or short -o-, and for the left and right rhythmic contexts in which the linking vowel occurs. The

simplest characterization of these contexts is identical to that found in (10) and involves just

three categories: contexts in which -o-, if used, would result in a string with two TL violations

(TL**, LL-oL-L), the context where -o- will produce one TL violation (TL*, (H)L-oL-L), and the

contexts in which use of -o- will not violate TL (TL√, H-oL-L, L-oL-H, L-oH-X, H-oH-X). I use

oL and oH to refer to the weight of the syllable to which the linking vowel belongs: it is light (oL)

before (C)V and it is heavy (oH) before CC.

13. Use of the linker -ɛ/ā- (as opposed to -o-) at the end of first members of compounds, as a

function of the pattern of TL violations resulting from use of -o-: TL** (N=116) TL*(N=158) TL√ (951) Frequency of ɛ/ā linker 59 (51%) 29 (18%) 53 (.6 %)

This data suggests that -ɛ/ā- is primarily used to avoid double TL violations, that -ɛ/ā- is

relatively uncommon as a means to avoid single TL violations, and almost never used otherwise.

This confirms a weaker version of the working hypothesis: -ɛ/ā- is indeed a strategy for TL

compliance, but only a minority of the potential TL violations are avoided by its use. This data

also suggests that the severity of the TL violation plays a role in triggering the use of the non-

standard linker. This may also be the case with -es- stem compounds : recall from (10) that

double TL violations (e.g. telesí-gonos) are less frequent that single ones (e.g. anthesi-pótātos).

2.2. Lengthening

Of the lengthening or syncope strategies in (2.a-c), only one remains robustly attested and

fully productive in historical Greek. This is the presuffixal lengthening in the comparative-

superlative suffixes seen in soph-ɔ-teros vs. dēn-ó-teros (2.a.i). Searches in the Perseus helped

identify 151 such forms. This is clearly an incomplete record10, but sufficient for exploratory

purposes. Table (14) divides the contexts where -o/ɔteros/tatos occur into three categories,

                                                                                                               10 There are, for instance, 821 forms in Perseus in –aios, mostly of which are adjectives not included in the 151. Since word medial ai is heavy, TL predicts that these should always form comparatives and superlatives in –aioteros, -aiotatos. These were not included. Although no complete count of forms in –aioteros/tatos was made, a random check of some hundred forms bears out entirely the prediction that only short -o- is found in this context.      

  15  

similar to table (6): after a light (L_), after a heavy (H_), and after a V-ML sequence (L/H_).

Variants (e.g. phalakróteros and phalakrɔteros) are recorded as independent items.

14. Length of theme vowel in comparatives and superlatives as a function of TL

L_ H_ L/H_ o-(teros, tatos) N=111 4 (3%) 55 (50%) 52 (47%) ɔ-(teros, tatos) N=40 32 (80%) 1 (3%) 7 (17%)

The effect of TL too is significant here too: χ2 (2, N=151)=100.19, p < .00001. The slight

variation found in this data set occurs in the L/H_ context: e.g. Euripides’ duspotm-ɔ-teros vs.

Plutarch’s duspotm-ó-tatos ‘unluckier/est’. The muta-cum-liquida clusters (ML) function here as

predominantly heavy, with a majority of short -o-s following them: this is their behavior for all

aspects of TL studied here. In all other contexts, the distribution of long and short -o- is strictly

complementary11, along the lines predicted by the TL hypothesis.

Before a few other suffixes, Saussure points to alternations in the length of the presuffixal

vowel that may once have been rhythmically conditioned. In synchronic terms, however, the

long variant is rhythmically unpredictable in some cases (in the -ɛdɔn vs. -edɔn nouns); or is

invariant, as in -ɔ-tɛs and -ɔ-tis agentives, which have presuffixal -ɔ- in essentially all words

longer than three syllables12); or is predictable on grounds independent of TL.

Belonging to this last category are the directional-locative adverbs -se ‘towards’, -thi ‘at’ and

-then ‘from’. These are preceded by -ɔ- after ɔ-final adverbials, as in ap-ánɔ-then ‘from above’,

cf. ánɔ ‘above’, and adverbs in -terɔ like ampho-térɔ-then ‘from both sides’. All these adverbial

-ɔ-s are invariant in historical Greek, and occur even when TL is moot: e.g. katɔ-térɔ-then ‘from

a greater depth.’ In all other contexts, when the adverbial suffixes are preceded by a nominal

stem, the presuffixal vowel is short -o-, including after two lights: e.g. ereb-ó-then ‘from Erebos’,

gonik-ó-then ‘from parents.’ It appears then that none of these forms can be attributed, in

historical or earlier times, to TL.

                                                                                                               11 The single instance of -ɔteros after heavy is eksɔteros, where ɔ is part of the adverb éksɔ ‘outside’. The single instance of a comparative –oteros after light is the hapax kallióteros ‘more beautiful’, a late blend of two TL-abiding comparatives, kallíɔn and kalɔteros. Two other forms, hopóteros ‘which of two’ and mɛdopóteros ‘neither’ are related to the comparatives only in a historical sense. 12 In trisyllables like bo-ɔ-tɛs ‘ploughman’ (LHσ) vs. toks-ó-tɛs ‘bowman’ (HLσ) there is an almost-complementary distribution based on rhythm, with -ɔ- occurring mostly after lights, -o- mostly after heavies. But the principle determining it is a Pyrrhic Law, banning two lights, not exactly TL. Any broader evidence for PL was not explored.

  16  

One detail about the adverbials does however bear on TL: the number of TL violations

arising from the addition of directional-locative adverbial suffixes is very small. There are 87

adverbials that could violate TL, i.e. forms longer than three syllables with short presuffixal -o-

(-o-then, -o-thi, -o-se). Of these, only 7 violate TL: e.g. Megár-o-then ‘from Megara’.

This raises the possibility that TL-violators are avoided, not repaired. Avoidance would have

to have continued into historical Greek for this defective distribution to arise. In the case of

adverbials, we lack information on the frequency of the quantitative patterns found in the pool of

stems to which adverbial suffixes attach. It is just conceivable that LL-stems of toponyms like

Mégar-a are rare in that set. But we can explore the same hypothesis elsewhere.

Consider the deadjectival/denominal abstracts in -sunɛ, briefly mentioned by Saussure as an

isolated instance of TL-induced lengthening (1884:465). When we consider the full data, we

discover something rather different. The expected theme vowel is, again, -o-, as in dikai-o-súnɛ

‘righteousness’. This vowel appears in lengthened form, as -ɔ-, in an older form, hierɔsunɛ

‘priesthood’, in variants of it and in a few more recent forms possibly modeled on it, like megal-

ɔ-súnɛ ‘greatness’, for a total of 8 forms. Importantly, all these forms would violate TL if the

theme vowel was the expected -o-. But Perseus also reveals 251 -o-sunɛ nouns longer than three

syllables: each of these would violate TL if its stem ended in just one light. Strikingly, just three

TL violations are found in this large set, including eupherosúnɛ a nonce form imagined by Plato

as the etymon of euphrosúnɛ (Cratylus 419d)13. Aside from these, -sunɛ forms abide by TL. And

yet only a small fraction, 1%, satisfy TL by the method identified by Saussure, that of

lengthening theme vowels. We know that the set of potential TL violators is large: many

adjectives have stems ending in a light (agath-ós, dóli-os, kak-ós, kal-ós, ligur-ós, melano-, olíg-

os, poikíl-os, bath-ús, brad-ús, bar-ús, takh-ús, das-ús, gluk-ús, pak-hús, lig-ús, etc.). None of

these gives rise to -o-sun-ɛ abstracts: a handful use -ɔ-sunɛ, the rest choose the shorter suffix -ó-

tɛs (e.g. kak-ó-tɛs, takhú-tɛs), or lack an abstract.

What happened to the expected –sunɛ derivatives from the dozens of adjective stems ending

in XL? My conjecture is that TL blocked them from ever being created, and that this prohibition

continued into historical Greek. The fact that -o-sunɛ with short o is absolutely barred from

following a light syllable can’t be a frozen remnant of a prehistoric system. This suffix is fully

productive. Without TL, there is no reason to expect its distribution to be restricted in this way.

                                                                                                               13 The other two are ksenosúnɛ ‘hospitality’ and metriosúnɛ ‘poverty’.

  17  

Below I experiment with a simplified synchronic analysis in which -sunɛ and -tɛs function as

competing variants of each other14. I set aside the theme-vowel lengthening items like megal-ɔ-

súnɛ : they represent a lexically restricted option that is synchronically uninformative. Most

stems ending in a light are forced by TL to use -o-tɛs instead of -o-sunɛ, (15.a). Longer stems,

like melano-, which lack the lexically restricted -ɔ- option found in megal-ɔ-súnɛ, will violate TL

whether they are suffixed with -sunɛ or -tɛs: *melan-o-súnɛ (LLLLσ) vs. melan-ó-tɛs (LLLσ). In

fact, only -tɛs is found after such stems, a fact that TL again explains: the shorter suffix

minimizes the number of TL violations (15.b). Where TL is moot, as in (15.c), both suffixes are

available. Indeed, both winners in (15.c) are attested, a general fact for abstracts of this type.

15. TL effects in selecting -sunɛ vs. -tɛs a. kako-,{-sunɛ, -tɛs} ID LONG *LL-Lσ b. melano-, {-sunɛ, -tɛs} ID LONG *LL-Lσ kak-o-súnɛ LLLσ

*! melan-o-súnɛ LLLLσ **!

kak-ɔ-sunɛ LHLσ *!

☞melan-ó-tɛs LLLσ * ☞ kak-ó-tɛs LLσ

melan-ɔ-tɛs LLHLσ *!

c. dikaio-, {- sunɛ, -tɛs} ID LONG *LL-Lσ ☞dikaio-sunɛ LHLLσ ☞ dikaio-tɛs LHLσ

Returning to the TL-induced forms in –ɔteros, –ɔtatos, the ranking TL >> IDENT ±LONG

needed in (15) is inconsistent with the assumption that a short underlying o lengthens to avoid

TL violations. There is no lengthening in melan-ó-tɛs or in comparatives like brakhu-teros. To

analyze the o/ɔ alternation in the comparative and superlative we can use instead lexically

indexed versions of TL, or two lexically listed allomorphs of the comparative/superlative

suffixes: a default one which begins with short o, and the TLL-conditioned variant with the long

ɔ. This second option is illustrated below. We minimize the proliferation of allomorphs by taking

the variable ot/ɔt substring to be the exponent of a morpheme shared by the comparative and the

superlative. While TL favors the ɔt-initial variant, a low tie-breaking constraint, e.g. *LONG,

favors the ot-initial variant (16.b). Then IDENT LONG is never violated in these forms, consistent

with the ranking in (15). The high position of IDENT LONG in the ranking is confirmed by items

                                                                                                               14 Possibly relevant to this competition are the lexical semantics: -sunɛ nouns typically refer to dispositions of character and intellect, or human properties in general, while -tɛs refers to any property. This does not alter my point: kak-ó-tɛs, doli-ó-tɛs, and dozens of others, are abstract nouns referring to human qualities, yet all of them lack -sunɛ counterparts. Cf. (15.b).

  18  

like brakhúteros (16.c), where hiatus blocks any V-initial variant of the comparative suffix,

including TL-abiding - ɔteros.

16. TL effects in comparatives

a. kak- {ot, ɔt} -ero-s IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ * LONG kakoteros LLLσ *! kākoteros HLLσ *! * ☞kakɔteros LHLσ *

b. dikai-{ot, ɔt} -ero-s IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ * LONG ☞dikaioteros LHLLσ dikaiɔteros LHHLσ *!

c. brakhu-{ot, ɔt} -ero-s *VV MAX V ROOT IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ brakhuɔteros LLHLσ *! brakhɔteros LHLσ *! brakhūteros LHLσ *! ☞ brakhuteros LLLσ *

This section started from Saussure’s evidence that TL had originally triggered the

lengthening of theme vowels. We examined the synchronic distribution that results from this

prehistoric process and confirmed that lengthening is not productive in historical Greek. Two

other effects emerged. Before some suffixes (-se, -thi, -then), stems that could generate TL

violations do not occur. Second, pairs of roughly equivalent suffixes (-sunɛ, -tɛs) are distributed

so as to minimize the number of TL violations in the suffixed stem. A synchronic analysis of the

latter effect is possible, if suffixes are allowed to compete and the ranking is IDENT LONG >>

*LL-Lσ. Under a version of this ranking, IDENT LONG >> *LL-Lσ >> *LONG, length alternations

like -ot/ɔt- can also be analyzed as TL-dictated choices among affixal allomorphs.

3. TL-induced blockage of word formation

3.1. TL-induced blockage of word formation 1: suffixation

Next, we go beyond Saussure’s evidence, looking to strengthen the conjecture that TL blocks

word formation in historical Greek. As a preliminary test, we compare four disyllabic suffixes.

Two of them, -iskos (diminutive) and -issa (feminine) begin with a heavy, Hσ. The other two, -o-

  19  

eis (adjective) and -danos (adjective), begin with a light, Lσ15. The latter two, when affixed to

stems ending in two lights, will violate TL. Unlike –o/ɔsunɛ and -o/ɔteros, these formations

display not even a limited option of theme vowel lengthening, nor any other means of modifying

the expected input. The data in (17) shows that they too display a TL effect: LL-stems are

severely underattested before the Lσ suffixes, compared to Hσ suffixes.

17. Percentage of LL stems before Lσ vs. Hσ suffixes -Lσ suffixes -óeis (N=167) 3 (2%) -danós (N=14 ) 0 -Hσ suffixes -íssa (N = 25)

-ískos (N = 85 ) 14 (56%) 22 (26%)

This is only suggestive evidence for the blocking effect of TL on word formation: these are

only four of the dozens of derivational suffixes of Greek, selected here because the limited

number of derivatives allows a quick test of the TL hypothesis. It may be that the picture changes

after a closer look at Greek derivation. But the data in (17), taken in the context of the evidence

of preceding sections, is consistent with the idea that TL inhibits affixation.

3.2. TL-induced blockage of word formation 2: compounding

The idea that TL can block word formation can be systematically explored in the domain of

compounding. Greek has a productive set of deverbal compound adjectives like ēdó-phoros

‘figure-bearing,’ which consist of a second member derived from a verbal root plus an -os or -ɛs

adjectival ending and of a first member that refers to an argument or modifier of the verb.

Normally, the root in the second member of such compounds is monosyllabic, perhaps as a

historical reflex of the original verb root structure; many such compounds display -o- or zero

grade vocalism, again as a reflex of older constraints on the structure of IE compounds

(Wackernagel 1889). Most members are separated by the linker -o-, as seen earlier. In most other

cases, the first member ends in a vowel.

                                                                                                               15  Strictly speaking, -o-eis is monosyllabic -eis, following any theme or root vowel. It cannot follow a C. But examples are very rare with -eis after any other vowels than o and ā/ ɛ. After ā/ ɛ, the TL effects are moot. The editors of this volume point out that the -ēs adjectives have Mycenaean counterparts that lack any theme vowel and contain C-w clusters across the suffixal boundary: te-mi-dwe-ta /termid-wenta/, for Homeric termióēs ‘fringed’. If the C-w clusters were heavy in forms like termidwenta, then the quantitative profile of -o-ēs forms has changed from XH-Ls to XL-Ls. If so, the strict TL-abiding behavior of -oēs forms in historical times was the result of a relatively recent development. This is consistent with the idea that TL is active more recently than Common Greek.

  20  

18. Structure of deverbal compounds [[1st member X ] – (o) – [ C0VC0]Verb Root – ɛs/os], X = exponent of verb argument/modifier

… σ1 σ2 σ3 σ4 ēd o phor os Properties of the root syllable in the second member, σ3 above, determine the potential for TL

violation arising in the compound as a whole. When this σ3 is heavy, no TL violation will result

across the compound boundary, no matter what first member the σ3 is combined with. This is

seen in (19.a). When the root syllable begins with a non-ML cluster, the syllable before the

cluster will be heavy and then, again, no TL violation will result, (19.b). When the root syllable

begins with an ML cluster, we expect that the preceding syllable will be variably heavy: in fact,

we will see that it is almost always heavy as well. Suppose now that none of these conditions is

met: suppose the root syllable is light and begins with at most one C. Even then, if the first

member does not end in an LL sequence, no TL violation will arise from the compound

formation, (19.c). It is only in the last case, (19.d) that the compound will create a TL violation:

that is the case where a light root σ3, with simple or null onset, an Lσ, is combined with an

XLL 1st member.

19. How TL violations could might in deverbal compounds

compound structure TL satisfied? Examples a. Xσσ – Hσ √ (Xσ − Hσ) boró-poios LLHσ

kardi-algɛs ‘inducing hunger’ ‘heartburn suffering’

b. Xσσ – CCC0VC0 σ √ (XH − σσ) philó-spondos LHHσ broto-któnos LHLσ puri-phlegɛs LHLσ

‘used in libations’ ‘child murdering’ ‘burning with fire’

c. XH(σ) – (C)V(C) σ √ (XH(σ) − Lσ)

ēdó-phoros HLLσ lagɔ-phónos LHLσ

‘figure bearing’ ‘hare killer’

d. XLL – (C)V(C) σ * (XLL − Lσ) polu-phónos LLLσ ‘murderous’

To decide if TL has any effect on the formation of these compounds, we should ask if the

frequency of XLL first members is lower in the case of (19.d) than in (19.a-b). This can be posed

as the following question: what is the relative frequency of XLL first members compared to

other first members (XH, XHL) as a function of the rhythmic structure of the second member? If

TL blocks compounding, we predict that the ratio of XLL first members will be lower only when

the second member consists of Lσ, because that is the one case where TL could be violated.

  21  

With this in mind, a corpus of compounds was assembled, starting from the verb root list in

Smyth 1956. For each of the monosyllabic roots on that list, I extracted from Perseus any os- or

ɛs-final compounds whose second member came from that root, bearing in mind possible ablaut-

related changes. This generated a list of 188 second members. To these, I added 15 non-verbal

compound types (e.g. in –dēpnos ‘banquet’, -dōlos ‘slave’), to obtain a more even distribution

among the rhythmic classes to be compared. For the resulting 203 second members, I used

Perseus to identify all the compounds in which these items appear in second position.

The compounds obtained in this way, totaling 6185, were coded for rhythmic properties.

Second members were classified as H-initial (beginning with a H, like -poios, (19.a)), CC-initial

(beginning with a cluster other than ML, like -ktonos (19.b)), ML-initial (beginning with ML,

like -phlegɛs, (19.b)), and L (all others: light syllable, no cluster, like -phonos). Second members

that begin with some cluster and a heavy syllable (e.g. –spondos in (19.b)) were assigned to their

cluster category. This decision was arbitrary and did not affect the analysis. First members were

classified as ‘ending in LL’ (e.g. polu-, boro-, philo-, broto-) vs. ‘other’ (e.g. kardi-, ēdo-, lagɔ-).

Importantly, the LL category refers here to the potential weight of the first member,

independent of the contribution of any cluster that might follow it. In a compound like broto-

któnos (19.b), the surface quantity is LH-Hσ, yet the first member was coded as LL. That’s

because the surface H in broto-któnos arises from combining the last vowel in broto- with the

initial kt- in -ktonos. This coding method allows us to ask if a potential LL first member like

broto- is more or less likely to be used as a function of the type of second member it combines

with. That includes the case in which the potential LL surfaces as an actual LH.

I am indebted for the statistical analysis of this data to Juliet Stanton. Figure (1) displays the

basic result: potential LL first members are underattested when they precede an L-initial second

member, (C)V(C)σ, compared to all other types of second members, i.e. cluster-initial second

members, whether CC or ML, as in (19.b), or H-initial second members, as in (19.c). There is no

significant difference between Aside from _L, Figure (1) suggests that the effects of the second

members other than Lare fairly uniform: before them, the LL first members generally represent a

bit more than 55%around 60% of attested options. This shows that LL first members are robustly

attested, but that they avoid the _L context. This is the TL effect[6].

A linear regression model (using R’s lm function), again due to Juliet Stanton, was used to

compare the ratio of LL first members to other first members in the contexts _CC, _ML, _H vs.

  22  

in the context _L. The category of the second member was included as a four-level factor and

dummy-coded, with _L treated as the baseline value. Results, in (20), confirm that the frequency

of LL in the context _L is significantly lower than that of LL in the other three contexts. The

coefficients in (20) correspond to the rate at which the second member is preceded by LL; for

_CC, _H, and _ML this number is relative to the intercept (for example, _CC is preceded by LL

64%, or 27% + 37%, of the time). Effects were considered significant if p < .05, as assessed by a

t-test.16[7]

To further assess the significance of the TL effect, Stanton compared two linear regression

models. Model 1 predicts the ratio of LL in the first compound members in this data entirely

based on the identity of the individual second members, coded as random effects. Model 2 adds

to this a factor with four levels – L, H, CC and ML – which characterizes the rhythmic

contribution of the second member. Model 2 is a significantly better fit for this data (p <2.2e-16).

Figure 1: frequency of LL-final 1st members as a function of the 2nd member’s structure

Linear regression model predicts frequency ratios of LL 1st membersResults of linear

regression model 20. Category of 2nd member Estimate Coefficient Std. Error t-statistic value Pr(>|t|)Significant?

(Intercept: L)L (Intercept) 0.26986 27 0.02290

                                                                                                               16 To ensure that the asymmetry observed in Figure (1) is not just due to individual preferences of second members, two linear mixed effects model were fit to the data (using the lmer function of R’s lme4 package, Bates & Maechler 2011): one that included the category of the 2nd member as a fixed effect (as in (20)), plus the identity of the second member as a random effect; and another that included only the random effect. A likelihood ratio test revealed that the model including the fixed effect is a better fit to the data (χ2 (3) = 84.04, p < .001), indicating that asymmetry in Figure (1) is not merely due to the individual preferences of second members alone.

CC H LL ML

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Effect of *LLLs on the frequency of different types of first compound members

Category of 2nd member

Pct

. pre

cede

d by

pot

entia

l LL

CC: 2nd members beginning with a non-ML initial CC cluster. ML: 2nd members beginning with an ML initial cluster H: 2nd members beginning with a heavy syllable, and no initial CC L: 2nd members beginning with a light syllable, and no initial CC .

  23  

11.785– < 2e-16 *** – ClusterCC CC 0.376772 0.03966 9.272 3.33e-15 *** Yes (p < .001) ClusterH H 0.35281 0.04090 8.626 63 8.82e-14 *** Yes (p < .001) ClusterML ML 0.29913 30 0.04508 6.636 64 1.58e-09 *** Yes (p < .001)

In addition to demonstrating the TL effect, the compound data confirms the observation

made earlier about the weight of different clusters: ML clusters do not differ significantly from

others in their contribution to the weight of a preceding syllable.

This analysis leaves several questions unaddressed. It does not distinguish bipartite from

further derived compounds like arkhi-(dendro-phóros) ‘head of the tree-bearers.’ Under a

successive cyclic analysis of compounding, only items like dendro-phóros should be counted.

Second, accentual doublets (e.g. rabdo-phóros, rabdó-phoros ‘rod-carrying’) were counted

separately, as were all near-duplicates reported by Perseus as distinct. This issue arose

frequently, but was ignored, as it affected – like the first one – all compound types alike.

More significantly, the analysis does not distinguish single from multiple TL violations, i.e.

LLL vs. LLLL, and can’t determine if LLLL strings are more strenuously avoided. Informally,

however, the frequency of LLLL strings arising in these compounds seems very low.

The most germane of the questions left open involve the homogeneity of the data. No effort

was made, in this or earlier analyses, to separate entries that are first attested in later stages of

Greek from earlier attested ones, to track TL’s activity over time. Nor did the analysis

distinguish frequent, possibly lexicalized compounds like patro-któnos from infrequent or nonce

forms that would inform us about the role of TL in productive phonology and word formation.

This last point can however be addressed, in a preliminary way. The clear majority of the set

of compounds studied here have frequency 0 or 1 in the Perseus database. Words with 0

frequency occur in dictionaries, not in the Perseus texts. I take both 0 and 1-frequency

compounds to be hapaxes, and assume they are too infrequent to owe their phonological

properties to inheritance and rote learning. This majority of nonce forms in the compound set is

then potentially informative on the issue of TL productivity, provided the behavior of hapaxes is

representative of the full data. To obtain an estimate of this, I did the comparisons in (21),

choosing the six best attested compound types in the set: I calculated their LL ratios using the

  24  

hapax compounds only and compared the result with the LL ratios based on the full data. In all

six cases, the LL ratios remain largely the same no matter how they are calculated. This suggests

that hapax compounds are representative of the full data.

20.21. Comparing two ways of calculating LL_ ratios in the 6 most frequent compound

types. % LL in first members: all cpds % LL in first members: cpds of frequency 0 and 1

-ēdɛs 47% (213/453) 43% (173/403) -phoros 22% (93/422) 26% (76/294) -poios 47% (178/379) 42% (120/286) -bolos 31% (52/168) 25% (26/106) -logos 34% (55/162) 33% (34/102) -phagos 22% (22/107) 21% (15/71)

This comparison suggests that conclusions drawn from the present data set do not differ from

those based on a set composed exclusively of nonce words. Then these conclusions directly

support the role of TL in productive compounding, in historical Greek. Had TL effects been

preserved only in fossilized remnants, as Saussure thought, its role in inhibiting XLL-Lσ

structures in hundreds of nonce compounds, words presumably generated on the fly in historical

times, would be inexplicable. The analysis of this effect is postponed to section 5.

4. Wackernagel’s Dehnungsgesetz and TL

Greek compounds containing a vowel-initial second member frequently lengthen this vowel:

e.g. tri-ɔroph-os ‘with 3 stories’, from oroph-ɛ ‘roof’. Saussure thought that this lengthening –

called here the Dehnungsgesetz, after Wackernagel 1889 – is another TL effect (1884:467).

Some of the evidence Saussure cites are alternations like paus-anemós (‘stopping the wind’, H-

LLσ, vs. pod-ɛnemós (‘wind footed’, needed to avoid L-LLσ).

However when the full evidence is examined, this lengthening turns out to be invariant for

some V-initial second members (e.g. only -ɔnumos, no *-onumos attested) and very frequent

with others, including in contexts where TL is moot (e.g. hept-ɔroph-os ‘with 7 stories’, hups-

ɔroph-os ‘with high roof’, both HHLσ). Further, no lengthening occurs in C-initial second

members: there is no *polú-phɔnos for polú-phonos (19.d). This is puzzling. If lengthening in

pod-ɛnemós originates as a means to enforce TL, why can’t it happen after a C, in *polú-phɔnos?

It seems more realistic then to admit that the Dehnungsgesetz is independent of TL, that it comes

  25  

from a form of hiatus resolution – contraction (Wackernagel 1889) or V1 elision with

compensatory lengthening of V2 (homo-onumos→hom-ɔnumos) – or from a laryngeal effect

(Bader 1972).

What is relevant for this study, however, is just the synchronic distribution between

lengthened and unlengthened allomorphs, not how they originated. When we consider contexts

where lengthened vs. unlengthened variants tend to cluster, we observe, in (22), the familiar TL

distribution: lengthened Vs tend to cluster just in contexts where TL would otherwise be

violated. Thus a larger proportion of lengthened forms occur after a first member ending in XL,

if the second member is trisyllabic with a second light syllable, like -ɔ/orophos. Similarly a larger

proportion of lengthened allomorphs occur if the first member ends in XLL and the second

member is disyllabic, like -ɛ/agós, than in other contexts. Thus the contexts where most

Dehnungsgesetz variants occur in historical times involve the contexts of potential TL violations:

L-_Lσ and LL-_σ. The contexts are coded in (22) below as *TL and compared with √TL

contexts, where TL would not be violated even without lengthening. Conversely, a larger

proportion of allomorphs with unlengthened initial Vs occurs after H or generally in contexts

where TL would not be violated, than in the complement class of contexts. This distribution,

however, is overlaid on a tendency to lengthen all vowels in initial position of the second

member, presumably a residue of the original distribution of a TL-unrelated Dehnungsgesetz17.

21.22. Distribution of root-initial vowels, V vs. V, as a function of TL violations arising

with V *TL √TL V (e.g. -ɔroph-os), N = 331 208 (63%) 123 (37%) V (e.g. -óroph-os), N = 99 27 (27%) 72 (73%)

Finally, lengthening is infrequent or nonexistent if the second root syllable is heavy, in

second members like -anaŋkɛs, -amoibós, -agɔgós, in contrast to cases like -orophos, where

lengthening is frequent or invariable and where the TL violation would be, without it, very

likely.

I suggest then that Wackernagel’s Dehnungsgesetz is relevant to TL, but not as anticipated

by Saussure. The phenomenon of interest is the TL-conditioned redistribution of root allomorphs

                                                                                                               17 The second members tabulated in (22) are: -anemos, -orophos, -erephɛs, -eretɛs, -ɔnumos, -ɔrukhos, -agoros, -akoos, -aliphɛs, -odunos, onukhos, -ɛgeretɛs, -ɔphelɛs, -ɔrugos, -agos, -anɔr. The distribution of second members beginning with original /s/ or /w/ was not recorded: only one of these, -e/ɛthos, participates in the Dehnungsgesetz.

  26  

generated earlier by the Dehnungsgesetz proper. We can think of the distribution in (22) as

produced by a grammar where a lengthened root allomorph exists already, for many V-initial

roots, even if the constraint that generated it originally is no longer active. To make this concrete,

take the root to be that of ereph-ɔ ‘to roof’. Assume that older lexicalized compounds, say amph-

ɛreph-ɛs ‘roofed all round,’ are preserved and provide evidence for the existence of an allomorph

-ɛreph- of this root. Recall now the ranking IDENT LONG >> *LL-Lσ >> *LONG established

earlier, and assume that IDENT LONG can be satisfied by correspondence to any listed root

allomorph. If so, new compounds can use at this stage either -ɛreph-ɛs or -ereph-ɛs without

violating IDENT LONG. As before, *LONG is used to inhibit use of -ɛreph-ɛs outside the contexts

where TL is at stake. (23) illustrates how these assumptions generate a complementary, TL-

governed distribution between -ereph-ɛs and -ɛreph-ɛs as second members.

22.23. TL effects in the distribution of root allomorphs produced by the Dehnungsgesetz a. dia, [ereph-]i, [ɛreph-]j IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ *Long di-[ereph-]i ɛs LLLσ *! * di-[erɛph-]i ɛs LLHσ *! ** ☞di-[ɛreph-]j ɛs LHLσ **

b. hupsi, [ereph-]i, [ɛreph-]j IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ *LONG hups-[ereph-]i ɛs HLLσ * ☞hups-[ɛreph-]j ɛs HHLσ **!

The distribution in (22) is not entirely complementary. I conjecture that this is in part because

some forms, like amph-ɛreph-ɛs, which are unjustifiable in TL terms but which were justified by

the original operation of the Dehnungsgesetz, were preserved as archaisms at this later stage. In

addition, some forms, e.g. perhaps sun-ákoos ‘fellow hearer’, where the original Dehnungsgesetz

did not justify any lengthening, were preserved as such at later stages. Finally, while vowel-

initial roots like ereph- display as second members both the lengthened and the unlengthened

variant, as predicted by (23), some roots, like onoma, possess only long vowel allomorphs, i.e. -

ɔnumos, when used as second members. How exactly this came to be remains unclear. In

synchronic terms, we have to stipulate that the bound-root allomorphs -ɔnumos has not listed

counterpart -onumos.

  27  

5. Global analysis

Earlier sections have documented TL effects in the phonology of historical Greek. Most of

them are generated by letting TL control the distribution of certain heavy-syllable morphs (-oi,

-ɛ, -es, -essi) and that of long-vowel root or affix allomorphs created at earlier stages either by

TL itself, during the prehistorical period when it outrank IDENT LONG, or by an independent

lengthening process, the Dehnungsgesetz. All these effects can be generated in a grammar of

classical Greek where TL is outranked by all forms of Input-Output faith, including IDENT LONG,

and where TL outranks ALIGNINFLR (perhaps for certain endings only), and preferences on the

distribution of individual morphs, like USE-i, as well as *LONG.

This is not yet an integrated analysis of all TL effects in historical Greek. One missing

ingredient is an analysis of the blockage of TL-violating forms, such as the verbal compounds

analyzed in section 3.2. For these cases, a first option is to claim that TL competes with, and

frequently outranks, the constraint M-PARSE (Prince and Smolensky 1993: 50ff) which penalizes

zero-output (ʘ) candidates.

24. Compound blocked under *LL-Lσ >> M-PARSE

IDENT LONG *LL-Lσ M-PARSE polu-phonos LLLσ *! polū-phonos LHLσ *! ☞ ʘ *

This solution is applicable to verbal compounds, with *LL-Lσ>> M-PARSE representing just

the more frequent ranking option. Whether this ranking is applicable to other suffixal derivatives

remains to be investigated. Recall from section 2.2 that the abstract suffix -tɛs is used even when

this leads to TL violations, as in megaló-tɛs. Of the 338 -ó-tɛs abstracts in Perseus, 38% violate

TL, compared to essentially zero for the -súnɛ nouns. This is not inconsistent with a general

ranking *LL-Lσ>> M-PARSE, if the theme vowel -o- in -ó-tɛs nouns is part of the preceding

stem, as already assumed in 3.2 for verbal compounds. On such an analysis, forms like megaló-

tɛs violate TL but not Narrow TL (*LL-Lσ) and surface unrestricted because only the latter

outranks M-PARSE. Whether this is the right basis for a general analysis, will depend on whether

  28  

the other -Lσ derivational suffixes behave as -sunɛ does, and whether the mass of exceptions to

TL in the derivational domain is concentrated in formations like the -tɛs abstracts18.

The other missing ingredient is the analysis of a more basic fact: in morphological contexts

other than derivational suffixation and compounding – i.e. in comparatives like brakhúteros

(17.c), in inflected verbs like legómetha, and in prefixed forms like kata-légomen – the TL

violations surface apparently unrestricted.

The prefixed forms could be set aside because they are phonotactically deviant in ways that

suggest that they form distinct prosodic words (Jatteau 2016:101ff). Perhaps the freedom with

which they generate TL violations could be attributed to that.

The remainder of the problem posed by the ranking LL-Lσ >> M-PARSE are the inflected

verbal forms and the adjectival comparatives. For all these we could use morphologically-

indexed versions of the constraint *LL-Lσ. Thus TL-constraints indexed to specific

morphological classes (e.g. *LL-Lσ-derivation) can be ranked above M-PARSE, with the general

*LLLσ constraint outranked by M-PARSE.

A more interesting alternative would be to consider what alternatives Greek offers to word-

sized expressions that violate TL. At least certain instances of compounding and derivational

affixation permit phrasal alternatives. Thus tóu patròs phoneús, as in Aristophanes Frogs 1191, is

a potential alternative to patro-phoneús ‘father killer’. One could speculate that underattestation

of TL violating compounds relates to the availability of such phrasal expressions. If right, this

would suggest an analysis in terms of competition between TL and general constraints favoring

single-word expressions, which Kiparsky 2004:114 dubs ECONOMY. (25) sketches how

underattestation of TL-violating compounds like polú-phonos (20.d) could be modeled as due to

the existence of phrasal alternatives like phoneùs pollɔn.

25. TL-violating compound replaced by phrase, under *LL-Lσ >> ECONOMY *LL-Lσ ECONOMY polú-phonos LLLσ *! ☞ phoneùs pollɔn Lσ Hσ *

Additional assumptions are needed to extend such an analysis to the inflection of verbs and

comparative/superlative adjectives. First, there do exist periphrastic comparatives and

                                                                                                               18  A different explanation would then have to be given for the fact that the rate of TL violations is so low among -ó-e:s adjectives (cf. section 3.1.): their structure is identical to that of -ó-tɛs abstracts.

  29  

superlatives, e.g. mallon hekɔn ‘more willing’. So, the difficulty for an analysis based on

ECONOMY is that, while mallon hekɔn is available, *mallon brakhús, litt. ‘more short,’ is not

available as a substitute for TL-violating brakhúteros. More precisely, to generate mallon hekɔn

there must be constraints that bar the comparative/superlative affixes from attaching to certain

forms19 and such constraints must outrank ECONOMY. But if *LL-Lσ also outranks ECONOMY, as

in (25), *mallon brakhús is predicted. It follows that additional conditions, beyond ECONOMY,

are needed under such an analysis to favor brakhúteros over *mallon brakhús. In the evaluations

that follow, I refer to the constraint that blocks synthetic forms like *hekont(es)teros as –tero-TO-

ADJ . I assume that the bases which reject synthetic comparatives are all and only those

interpreted as participial or nominal. The constraint that favors brakhúteros over *mallon

brakhús. In the evaluations that follow, I refer to the constraint that blocks synthetic forms like

*hekont(es)teros as –tero-TO-ADJ . I assume that the bases which reject synthetic comparatives

are all and only those interpreted as participial or nominal. The constraint that favors brakhúteros

over *mallon brakhús, USE –tero, can be a preference for synthetic expressions in the specific

case of comparatives/superlative forms:

26. Constraints ranked above *LL-Lσ (a) –tero-TO-ADJ USE –tero *LL-Lσ ECONOMY hekɔn(tes)teros LHHLσ *! ☞ mallon hekɔn Lσ Hσ * *

(b) –tero-TO-ADJ USE –tero *LL-Lσ ECONOMY brakhúteros LLLσ * ☞ mallon hekɔn Lσ Hσ *! *

Similarly, an analysis of TL that appeals to ECONOMY in cases like (25) must address the

question of periphrastic alternatives to TL-violating verb forms like legómetha. Periphrastic

combinations of participles plus copula exist, sometimes as alternatives to more common

inflected forms: sumphéron estí ‘it is advantageous, doing good’ for sumphérē ‘it does good’

(Smyth 1956: §1961, §1857). But there is no report that such periphrastic expressions are used as

                                                                                                               19  Kühner and Blass (1890:572) and Smyth 1(956: §323) list the conditions under which periphrastic comparatives and superlatives can be used. Most data in these sources reduces to the observation that participles, forms perhaps interpretable as participial (hekɔn ‘willing’, philos ‘beloved’) and adjectivalized nouns reject, for some writers, the comparative and superlative affixes.

  30  

substitutes for TL-violating verb forms: e.g. no suggestion that TL-violating forms like

legómetha is specifically targeted for periphrasis, more so than TL-compliant légomen. This

situation is parallel to that described in the preceding paragraph: to describe the pattern in a way

consistent with the analysis in (25) we need constraints beyond general ECONOMY, which strictly

limit the availability of periphrasis to certain syntactic contexts and make it unavailable

elsewhere.

6. TL and other rhythmic constraints on periodic feet

Support for TL can be found in the analysis of Greek meter. First, TL plays a role in the

structure of the anapestic dimeter. Golston and Riad (2000) show that, in this meter, anapests can

be replaced if the substitute sequence preserves four moras. Indeed, both spondees, HH, and

dactyls, HLL, can replace anapests, with limitations noted below. Amphibrachs, LHL, are

excluded, perhaps because any prominence peak must be peripheral within the foot. This leaves a

fourth option, the proceleusmatic, LLLL: Golston and Riad note that those are extremely rare in

tragedies and rare otherwise. This proceleusmatic substitution is the only one that violates TL

while maintaining the four mora count. Thus TL is sufficient to account for its avoidance.

A distinct TL effect is noted by Koster (1953:146), who shows that anapest substitutions are

further limited in the dimeter when sequences of two feet are simultaneously considered. If the

second foot is an anapest, the first foot can’t be a dactyl. This prohibited sequence, HLL + LLH,

contains two TL violations. Note here too that no substitutions that maintain four moras per foot

can violate TL just once per metron: that’s because LHL + LLH or HLL + LHL, the only

combinations violating TL just once, are independently ruled out because they contain

amphibrachs, LHL, which are not suitable anapest replacements in any context. Then Koster’s

observation is also explained by TL.

The TL and its counterpart against HHH sequences explain a much broader implicit

generalization made by Greek metricians. This involves the difference between potential feet vs.

periodic or repeatable feet, also known as prototypa. An inventory of potential Greek feet of up-

to-four syllables can be generated by prefixing a syllable, light or heavy, to each member of the

set of disyllabic feet; and then by prefixing a light or a heavy to each resulting trisyllabic foot.

The inventory produced in this way is seen in (27), after Koster (1953:25). Of the 30 resulting

  31  

feet only 10 were said (by Hephaistion, apud Koster 1953; see also Leonhardt 1989) to occur in

regular periodic sequence: those cells are shaded.

27. Inventory of potential feet of 2-4 syllables and prototypa (shaded); after Koster 1953:25

28. LH

iamb LLH anapest LLLH 4th paion

HLLH choriamb

HLH cretic LHLH diiamb HHLH 3rd epitrite

HL trochee LHL amphibrach LLHL 3rd paion

HLHL ditrochee

HHL un-bachic LHHL anti-spast HHHL 4th epitrite

HH spondee LHH bachic LLHH ionian a minore

HLHH 2nd epitrite

HHH molossus LHHH 1st epitrite HHHH dispondee

LL pyrrhic LLL tribrach LLLL proceleusmatic

HLLL 1st paion

HLL dactyl LHLL 2nd paion HHLL ionian a maiore

What defines the full set of periodic feet or prototypa? Mostly, two quantitative rhythmic

constraints: *HHH and *LLL, Saussure’s TL. To reach this conclusion, we consider violations of

these two constraints found either internal to one foot or generated when feet of the same type

are concatenated in a line. The key observation is that none of the prototypa violate *HHH or

*LLL in either of those ways. Conversely, all but one non-prototypa violate one or the other.

Take the effect of each constraint in turn. *HHH is violated foot internally by the molossus

(HHH), the dispondee (HHHH), the 1st and the 4th epitrite (LHHH, HHHL). It is violated across

a boundary between identical foot types by the spondee (HH+HH) and 3rd epitrite

(HHLH+HHLH). None of these are prototypa20.

The TL constraint, *LLL, is violated foot internally by the tribrach (LLL), the proceleusmatic

(LLLL), the 1st and 4th paion (HLLL, LLLH). It is violated across identical foot boundaries by

the pyrrhic (LL+LL), and by the 2nd and 3rd paion (LHLL+LHLL, LLHL+LLHL). None of these

are prototypa either.

                                                                                                               20 Koster (1953:26) objects to the exclusion of the spondee from the prototypa on the grounds that some chants are strictly spondaic. Perhaps Hephaistion considered those chants to belong to a special metrical category. We are, in any case, concerned here with *LLL, so Koster’s objection can be accepted without altering the point of interest.

  32  

Together, *HHH and *LLL exclude 12 of 30 cells in (27). Two more, the ditrochee (HLHL)

and diiamb (LHLH) are obvious prototypa, not separately mentioned as they count as repetitions

of more basic feet. The bachic (HHL) and unbachic (LHH) are considered equivalent to the

cretic (HLH) and not mentioned separately for that reason (Koster 1953:26). This leaves exactly

one foot, the amphibrach (LHL), that satisfies both *HHH and *LLL, yet is not mentioned by

Hephaistion among the prototypa. I consider its non-use qua periodic foot a pure accident.

What type of evaluation generates the inventory of prototypa is a question that will take us

far afield; on related ideas, see Golston and Riad 2000. The result reported here is just that TL is

active in this evaluation. It works alongside a similar constraint on repeated heavies, *HHH, the

equivalent in the domain of quantitative rhythm of a constraint against double clash.

In reaching our conclusion about the function of TL in defining periodic feet we have again

departed from Saussure. His view was that TL was a reflex of the dactylic rhythm of Greek

prehistoric speech, and that this dactylic rhythm had engendered the hexameter. The view

defended here is that TL has a much broader function: in the domain of poetic meter, it governs

all rhythms, however the basic foot is defined. As for the cadence of everyday speech, TL

operates independently of whether its rhythm is dactylic, anapestic, iambic, or a mix.

7. TL in Sanskrit

Insler (1997) shows that a constraint against three lights, in many respects identical to TL, is

active in Sanskrit denominative verbs. The theme vowel before the denominative suffix

-y(a)-, shown in its original form in (28.a), is lengthened to -ā- when preceded by a light root

syllable (28.b), that is, where the unlengthened form yields LLLσ. Lengthening is sometimes

extended within a denominative verb’s inflectional paradigm, beyond the contexts where TL

requires it (28.c).

28. *LLL effects in Sanskrit, after Insler 1997

stem /HLL, LLH/ /LLL/→[LHL] a. HL: kāmá-: kāmá-ya-te, kāmá-ya-māna n/a b. LL: yuvá-: yuva-yus, yuva-yuni yuvā-ya-vas

rtá-: rta-ya, rta-ya-nta rta-ya-vas, rta-yu-bhis c. LL: aghá-: aghā-yá-ntam, aghā-yós aghā-yá-ti, aghā-yá-vas

This Sanskrit TL effect differs from that of Greek in one respect: Greek displays no quantity

alternations in inflection, keeping TL effects in the predesinential domain. By contrast, Sanskrit

  33  

does show length alternations in inflectional paradigms, alongside optional leveling. This

material is yet to be fully analyzed, but the TL effect is clear, and of exactly the type that

Saussure had posited for prehistoric Greek.

8. Conclusion

In 1884 Saussure proposed that a prehistoric Greek sound law, TL, had eliminated non-final

tribrachs from the language. The reexamination and extension of his evidence presented here

suggests that TL continues to be active in historical Greek. The law can no longer lengthen

vowels in historical times, but it guides the choice among root allomorphs (section 4), and

among affixal variants (section 2.2), and may occasionally misplace affixes (section 2.1). The

law may also determine the choice between analytic and synthetic expressions (section 5).

Seen in this context, the connection between Blass’ Law, the 4th cent. phrasal counterpart of

TL, is neither surprising nor coincidental: both phenomena are reflexes of the same anti-tribrach

condition, pursued with similar means in historical Greek.

Saussure was able to discover TL because he could conceive of it as a surface-oriented

constraint, to be satisfied through a variety of strategies. His discovery had one limitation: he

could not conceive of TL as a violable constraint. This is why he did not think that TL could be

operative in historical Greek. The TL extensions reported here hinge on the idea of violable TL,

and on the related point that a constraint may be active even while unable to modify inputs.

References

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