Beekes - Etymological Dictionary of Greek

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PRE-GREEK LOANWORDS IN GREEK
PRE-GREEK LOANWORDS IN GREEK
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Recently, I have become more inclined to assume a system with the usual five
vowels, because there seems to be a distinction between ilie two variations U I £ and
U I 0, on the one hand, and a stable, not interchanging u, on the other. This would
point to a system with a, e and o. On the other hand, it is diffIcult to explain why the
suffixes do not show the same variation that we find in the root vowels.
It is essential that the palatalized and labialized consonants colored an adjacent U
to £ and 0, respectively. On the effects of palatalized consonants see Beekes 2008: 46-
55. Fur. 340 has a rule U > 0 before 0, w, U (e.g. KUAUPOC:; I KOAUPOC:;); this can now be
understood as the o-like realization of lal before high rounded vowels in the
following syllable (see 15.3-2).
So, e and 0 originally were variants of the phoneme la/. It is difficult to establish
whether they had already become full phonemes in Pre-Greek. A good illustration of
the case is the name of Apollo. In Hittite, Appaliunas renders Apollon- (see Beekes
JANER 3, 2003). We know that Greek originally had A1t£AA-, with -£- arising from
-a- before the palatalized P. The -0- developed only later in Greek, but I assume that
the Hittite form still shows the -a-. The Pre-Greek form was ApaPun-.
I have long doubted (and still doubt) whether there was phonemic vowel length
in Pre-Greek. Greek substrate words quite often only have a form with a long vowel.
Vacillation is sometimes found, as in 8plVUKTj beside 8pivu (see B 6.2), and note
6Pplf.LOC:; beside Pplf.LOc:;, Pplf.LTj. Quite a different argument is the following: axupov
and 1tlLUPOV both mean 'chaff; it is therefore probable iliat they contain the same
suffix -up-; but in the first word the u is short, while it is long in the second.
Note that Tj often represents a (ya8uAAlC:; I yTj8-), and as our knowledge of the
relevant dialects is rather limited, we often simply do not know whether Tj represents
an older a or e. If we had not had Dor. oloapoc:;, we would not have known that it
contains an old a. Also, Af.Lvoc:; represents Aaf.Lvoc:;. There are well-known Pre-Greek
words with Tj < *e, like 01tAatOV.
I assume two diphthongs, ai and au. If there were no e and 0, we do not expect
other diphthongs. A diphthong w is rare (Fur. 353 Anm. 5; I found some 12 instances
in the whole of Furnee's material); it interchanges with UU. Fur. 339 Anm. 2) calls £l
"(in mehreren Fallen) nur eine Nebenform von at". Also, Ol is rather rare, and we
may find ou more often, but mostly interchanging with other vowels (see the remark
on the suffIx -oup-). See further section B6.1 on vowel variation.
Regarding the accentuation, I noted vacillation in: appuf.LlC:; I -f.Llc:;; UiyWAlOC:; I -lOC:;;
axupoc:; I -oc:;; axwp I axwp; KOpUOOC:; I Kopu06c:;; KOPUOUAOC:; I KOPUOUAAOC:;; f.LEOlf.LVOC:; I
f.L£Olf.LVOc:;; OlKUOC:; I 0lKUOC:;; UplOXOC:; I UplOOOc:;. Note also the almost identical forms
such as AUKU\jIOC:; I AUKO\jlOC:;. This does not imply that the language had no clear
stress: the Greeks who adopted a word could simply have been uncertain about it.
The phenomenon may, however, be important heuristically: such variation is very
rare in inherited words.
2a. Characteristic sounds and sound groups
In Pre-Greek words, we find some sounds or clusters that are rare in PIE words. In
brackets, I give the variants.
1. au: Of course, uu does occur in PIE words, but only when it derives from *h2eu
(mostly in initial position) or eh2u. Examples: PAUUO£C:;, PPUUKUC:;, ypUUKUAUC:;,
KUVUUaLpOV, KUOUUpU, LPUUuvu; Auppuuv06c:;.
2. : As is well known, *b was rare in PIE. In Pre-Greek words, it seems to occur
relatively often. Examples: apAupOl, apupPTjAOC:;, appuATj, aLuppuKLOC:;, PUPPlAOC:;,
80pupoc:;, KlPUAOC:;. It is frequently found word-initially. Of course, p may also go
back to a Pre-Greek labiovelar (i.e. labialized velar): e.g. PU01A£UC:;, Myc. qa-si-re-u.
3. p: The cluster is possible in PIE words, but it is rare (see on p sub 2. above).
Examples: apo£AAov, apoTjpu, apoTjC:;, ,(poTjC:;, UULO-KUPOUAOC:;, KlPOTjAOC:;, KUPUPOU;
KOf.LpolAl1nu.
4. y& Cf. Fur. 3185. There is nothing against PIE *gd, but it is infrequent. Of
course, the group is reminiscent of po. Examples: ayouc:;, af.LuyOCtATj, YOOU1tEW (cf.
KLU1tEW), '(yoTj, KPlYOUVOV, AUyOTj.
5. yv: Example: iyvuc:; (iKVUc:;). On Xv,