THE PHONOLOGY OF VERBAL REDUPLICATION IN ANCIENT GREEK: AN OPTIMALITY THEORY APPROACH by SAM ZUKOFF (Under the Direction of Jared S. Klein) ABSTRACT This thesis sets out to develop a constraint grammar for Ancient Greek within the framework of Optimality Theory that can economically and thoroughly account for the diversity of forms and patterns within the reduplicated categories of the verbal system. Analyzing the reduplicative morphemes to have a morphologically fixed vowel, I propose a constraint ranking that unites the patterns and ascribes the variation to differences in syllabification and alignment considerations. The exceptional patterns of the reduplicated presents and the enigmatic Attic Reduplication are explained as lexicalized archaisms generated by a minimally different constraint grammar of an earlier period of the language. This thesis thus seeks to integrate cutting-edge theoretical techniques with traditional historical methods to create a fully integrated account of reduplication in Ancient Greek, such that the conclusions drawn here may yield new insights not only into the synchronic state of Ancient Greek but also on the nature of reduplication in Proto-Indo-European. INDEX WORDS: Ancient Greek, verbal reduplication, Optimality Theory (OT), Correspondence Theory, syllabification, Attic Reduplication, coalescence, Proto-Indo-European (PIE), lexicalization, Structural Role (STROLE ) THE PHONOLOGY OF VERBAL REDUPLICATION IN ANCIENT GREEK: AN OPTIMALITY THEORY APPROACH by SAM ZUKOFF B.A., Georgetown University, 2010 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2012 © 2012 Sam Zukoff All Rights Reserved THE PHONOLOGY OF VERBAL REDUPLICATION IN ANCIENT GREEK: AN OPTIMALITY THEORY APPROACH by SAM ZUKOFF Major Professor: Jared S. Klein Committee: Anya Lunden Keith Langston Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2012 DEDICATION To my brother. Don’t give up, don’t ever give up. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I cannot possibly properly thank the innumerable people who have helped me in the writing of this thesis, and who have helped me reach this point in my academic career, but I will try nonetheless. The most thanks of all must go to my teacher Jared Klein. Two years ago, I walked into UGA not even knowing what it was that I didn’t know. Now I know a lot of that, and, equally important, I now know what remains out there for me to learn. Without your tutelage, there is no way I would have had the skills necessary to write this thesis or been able to achieve everything I have over these past two years. I need especially to thank Anya Lunden for, among other things, introducing me to Optimality Theory, telling me to read the Kager book, and talking through so many issues about so many different topics and so many different papers. I truly would not be on the path on which I now find myself without your guidance. I would also like to thank my other committee member, Keith Langston. Although I never managed to take any of your classes for credit, I gained immensely from sitting in on them nonetheless. I would never have found myself interested in this topic at all without my amazing Linguistics and Classics professors from Georgetown University: Shaligram Shukla, Alex Sens, Patricia Slaton, Jim Gruber, Charles McNelis, Solomon Sara, Elizabeth Zsiga, and many others. v This thesis benefits immensely from the many constructive comments on, critiques of, and conversations about it that so many of the kindest people around have spent their time on over the past several years. Among others, I need to thank Donca Steriade, Jay Jasanoff, Donald Ringe, Kie Zuraw, Edward Flemming, Adam Albright, Velizar Sadovski, my friends and most valued colleagues Andrew Byrd, Tony Yates, Mark Wenthe, Brent Peterson, Caley Smith, Nick Kalivoda, Jessica DeLisi, Mattyas Huggard, Ryan Sandell, Adam Paulukaitis, Martin Macak, Ludi Chow, Kelly Dugan, Filip De Decker, my friend and fellow Neo-Saussurian Andy Paczkowski, all the members of Georgetown’s 2010 thesis seminar class, especially Nick Miller, for helping me through the first incarnation of this project, and my non-linguist friends Dan Rufolo, David Richards and Noah Frederick for humoring me and taking a look at this gibberish, even though it surely makes little sense even to the initiated linguist. And of course, above all, I need especially to thank my family. To my parents, my brother, and my grandparents, you have all been unbelievably supportive through what has surely been the craziest year of my life. There is absolutely no way I could have made it through without you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 1.1. The facts: the reduplicative patterns of Ancient Greek ....................................3 1.2. The corpus: what do we mean by Ancient Greek ? ............................................6 1.3. The approach: Optimality Theory and Correspondence Theory ......................8 1.4. Previous research ............................................................................................12 1.5. The outline ......................................................................................................17 1.6. Notes on the symbology and terminology of Optimality Theory ...................19 2 PERFECT-TENSE REDUPLICATION OF CONSONANT-INITIAL ROOTS ........22 2.1. Morpheme alignment ......................................................................................22 2.2. The size and shape of the reduplicant .............................................................25 2.3. The nature of the reduplicative vowel ............................................................26 2.4. The complications of longer roots ..................................................................33 2.5. Reduplication of CRV roots............................................................................35 2.6. CV and CRV reduplication conclusions .........................................................39 3 THE NON-COPYING BEHAVIOR OF obstruent + obstruent ROOTS ...................40 3.1. The problem with COV roots .........................................................................40 3.2. STRUCTURAL ROLE ..........................................................................................42 vii 3.3. Ramifications of a STRUCTURAL ROLE account ..............................................49 3.4. An alternative to STRUCTURAL ROLE : alignment ............................................54 3.5. Other COV root-shapes...................................................................................57 3.6. The problems with TS roots ............................................................................61 3.7. Conclusions about the reduplicative patterns of COV roots ...........................68 4 PRESENT-TENSE REDUPLICATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE PERFECT ...71 4.1. Accounting for the reduplicated presents in Pre-Greek ..................................75 4.2 Which solution is better? .................................................................................79 4.3. The copying COV roots and their connection to reduplicated presents .........82 4.4. The alternation between ἔκτηµαι and κέκτηµαι ..............................................86 4.5. Conclusions about the reduplicated presents ..................................................87 5 REDUPLICATION AND INITIAL GEMINATES ....................................................89 5.1. σεύω and palatalization ...................................................................................89 5.2. σεύω as an initial double-consonant root ........................................................91 5.3. The present tense of an underlying double-consonant root ............................93 5.4. σεύω as an initial moraic-consonant root........................................................96 5.5. Other initial geminate roots ............................................................................99 5.6. r-initial roots as initial geminates .................................................................102 5.7. Conclusions about initial geminates .............................................................103 6 PERFECT-TENSE STEM-FORMATION OF VOWEL-INITIAL ROOTS ............105 6.1. The origins of vowel-initial roots in Greek...................................................107 6.2. What about the augment? ..............................................................................110 6.3. Perfect-tense stem formation through vowel lengthening ............................113 viii 6.4. Determining the quantity of the coalesced vowel .........................................116 6.5. Ruling out Attic Reduplication .....................................................................118 6.6. Determining the quality of the coalesced vowel ...........................................120 6.7. The vowel system of Ancient Greek .............................................................121 6.8. ā-fronting in Attic-Ionic ................................................................................124 6.9. Vowel-lengthening in Classical Attic ...........................................................125