Internal Reconstruction of Juncture for Proto-Greek

Abstract

In a recent article Stockwell, Bowen, and Silva-Fuenzalida were able to prove that word boundary in Spanish is phonologically significant, that is to say phonemic, determining the occurrence of particular allophones within otherwise identical environments.l This may also be expressed by saying that a phoneme of juncture occurs between some words in Spanish. The authors compare items like the following: [ejoxo] en ojo 'in (the) eye' vs. [eneros] eneros 'Januaries' (a contrast found in the Caribbean and Central American areas and elsewhere); [ezdeaki] vs. [ezEeaki] es de aqui 'he's from here' (both forms found in all dialects). To avoid setting up [1J], [n], [n], and [d] as four separate phonemes, they assume a juncture to exist in the phrases ,en + oxo/ and /es + de + aki/. Hence they analyze [q] and [d] as the allophones of /n/ and /d/ proper before and after plus juncture respectively. By employing a similar procedure, it is possible to reconstruct for ProtoGreek a juncture occurring between words and the components of compound words.2