and : The Rough-Breathing Reflex of Greek *

Julia Sturm, Harvard University

The typical reflex of initial PIE * in Greek is > , as is well known (Fortson 2010, i.a.). However,
we also find that initial * yields h- (rough breathing or spiritus asper) in some environments. To date,
the environments in which this result occurs have not been comprehensively defined, and a plausible
phonetic mechanism for this result has not been put forth. In this paper, I propose that h- is a regular
outcome of initial * (via *) in two closely-related environments and that the process generating the
h- is tautosyllabic aspiration assimilation.
It has long been known that an initial *VsC sequence tends to produce an initial h- result. This
is generally known as the " rule", since < *s-tor < *d-tor- 'knower' (Nussbaum 1998,
i.a.). Other examples of this are < *esperos 'evening' (: Lat. vesper) and < *es-n-mi
'I wear' (: Lat. vestis 'clothing'). However, we also find initial h- from * in the absence of such a
conditioning environment; examples of this are 'holiday' < *eort- and 'dew' < *eers-.
The current explanation for this latter r-related phenomenon (put forward in Nussbaum 1998,
following Sommer 1905) is that the aspiration of is due to assimilation with "the r that was
apparently the realization of -r- before a voiceless C" (Nussbaum 1998: 140n.). In my view this account
is inadequate, as it misses the crucial connection of this r-phenomenon to the rule.
I synthesize these phenomena and find that, crucially, in both the case and the
case, a * assimilates to a tautosyllabic coda consonant produced with a forceful, turbulent airstream
(the trill r and the fricative s). Coda consonants both tend to shorten the vowels before them (and thus
the distance over which the assimilation takes place) and to debuccalize (as is the case with coda s in
some dialects of Spanish [Widdison 1991]), thus increasing the perceptual cues for aspiration and
thereby increasing the chance of listener error (for this see Ohala 1993). The coda position of r and s in
these words thus is a critical factor in order to produce an initial h- result. Initial h- most likely would
have developed out of * through a transitional phoneme similar to [] or [w ], with subsequent loss of
lip rounding.

References
Fortson, Benjamin. 2010. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Nussbaum, Alan. 1998.Two Studies in Greek and Homeric Linguistics . Gttingen: Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht.
Ohala, John. 1993. "Sound Change as Nature's Speech Perception Experiment". Speech
Communication 13: 155-161.
Sommer, Ferdinand. 1905. Griechische Lautstudien. Strassburg: Trbner.
Widdison, Kirk. 1991. The Phonetic Basis for s-Aspiration in Spanish. PhD Dissertation, UC Berkeley.