Quantitative Metathesis - Greek

Greek

In the Attic and Ionic dialects of Greek, ēo and ēa often exchange length, becoming and .

This quantitative metathesis is more accurately described as one form of long-vowel shortening. Usually if quantitative metathesis affects a word, other kinds of shortening do as well, in the forms where quantitative metathesis cannot occur:

  • ēwo (quantitative metathesis)
  • ēwsews (shortening of long diphthong before consonant)
  • ēiei (analogical shortening)

In general, the vowels affected by this shortening were separated by the Proto-Indo-European semivocalic versions of u or i, usually deleted in later Greek: w (written ϝ or υ̯ ) or y (written ι̯ ).

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