A Brief History of Scholarship on the Greek Accent

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter provides a concise survey of scholarship on ancient Greek accentuation from antiquity to the present. Topics included are the role of the ancient grammarians in making the first generalizations about the data at their disposal; the subsequent transmission of Hellenistic doctrine on the accent; views on ancient Greek accentuation arising from discussion of ancient Greek pronunciation beginning with Erasmus, Voss, Hennin, and others; modern collectors of data (especially Göttling and Chandler); the contribution of Indo-European linguistics and the development of a historical perspective on Greek accentuation; attempts to formulate the law of limitation; and treatments of Greek accentuation in generative phonology. Generative phonology concepts that will reappear in later chapters are explained.