PIIONETIC CHANGES. Many changes in the form of Greek words are to be traced to phonetic causes. The most important of the changes are: (1) Loss of consonants. F, al though retained in some dialects until compara tively late times, shows a constant tendency to disappear (owes, orig. *Folvos, cf. Lat. vinunt; Moir, orig. *eFi3oy, Lat. vidi) ; cr disappears at the beginning of words and between vowels(hrrd= Lat. septem, 7ivovs, from through Lat. generis) ; even crF has disappeared in some cases (180s= Lat. sudor, Eng. sweat). At the end of words, consonants are often lost, owing to the law that only v, p, and a can terminate a word (nom. ltpx(ov, from stem dpxovr-); r, 5, and 0, regularly disappear before a (Awls, for "iX as well as v (6alpmn, for "Eciiaon-at), and the combinations vr, v8, ve for yryarr-r). (2) Change of consonants. The combination of a consonant and I ( representing an original semi-consonant i) is the cause of many changes: Si becomes r(cOpd('or for *Nam)); la and xi become cra, Att. TT (011XCECTOW, Att. 01.1.17-rcu, for • covXcuaw); ya becomes sometimes as (rdircrio for Lra-yad), some times r (Kpdpe for •Kpayur); Xi becomes XX (dXXos for *dXtor = Lat. alias); Pt and pi become PV and pp, with subsequent loss of one consonant and lengthening of the preceding vowel (Lesbian rrIvvw, 00ippw, Att. xrelsw, 00€1pco, for "crevuo, •00epao), or else the is lost, and the preceding vowel is strengthened by the addition of an t (the so-called epenthcsis, i.e. coatis.), for •itoartv.•). The vowel i sometimes
changes a preceding r to cr(Olpoval, Dor.olporri= Lat. (crust). Before A, — r, and p5 become u (XAetapat for •XeXeir-pat) ; x and x become (ri7Xeyuai, for *TarXerc-acii) ; r, a, and 8 become a (r/reter.cti for The combinations kip and aX are strengthened by the insertion of /3 (pial3Xtexa for • aeaXonia) ; and vp is strengthened by the insertion of 8 (dv8p6s for •dvpos) : at the he ginning of a word, such /A or r is dropped (ftporlic for *a,Sporos, cf. Lat. ntorior). (3) Loss of vowels. isometimes becomes consonant (j) and is then lost ('.itenvda for ilienvata). So, too, is between two vowels becomes F., and disappears (poor for *poFos, from stem pou-, Lat. bovis). (4) Con traction of successive vowels is frequent, and in Attic regularly takes place (7-q4.0 for rtp.dw). The contraction of et, so, oo, oe, produces the so-called spurious diphthongs et and ov, which were, in early times, at least, spoken and written as simple sounds. (5) Compensative lengthen ing of vowels. When one or more consonants are dropped for euphony (especially before o), a preceding vowel is often lengthened (p.iXas for *FeXav-s). The diphthongs et and ou which arise from this process are also spurious, being simply lengthened forms of e and o (AtIouet for (6) An exchange of quantity sometimes takes place between a long vowel and a succeeding short one (epic Ya6s, gacriXijos, Att. red n, PaxiXeces).