From: Rob
Message: 44204
Date: 2006-04-09
>Ah, yes. I had forgotten about Wheeler's Law. My mistake. :)
> On 2006-04-07 15:38, Rob wrote:
>
> > Just out of curiosity, where did the Greek accentuation come
> > from?
>
> The contrast between *bHoró- and *bHóro- was neutralised in the
> second members of Gk. compounds because of Wheeler's Law (the
> retraction of accent from the last syllable to the penult in
> dactylic words, e.g. *poik^iló- 'many-coloured' > Gk. poikílos).
> Wheeler's Law operated regularly if the second member had an
> initial cluster (making the antepenult heavy by position), e.g.
> *patro-ktonós > patroktónos 'parricidal' or if the first member
> ended in a long vowel or a closed syllable, e.g. *bou-kolós >
> boukólos 'cowherd', *aig-polós > aipólos 'goatherd', *bou-pHonós >
> boupHónos 'ox-slaying', *sun-pHorós > sumpHóros 'profitable'. The
> retraction was then analogically generalised in compound words
> even if they didn't meet the original structural description of
> Wheeler's Law.