On the representation and realization of the Ancient Greek acute: Evidence from tone-tune mappings in Ancient Greek music

Abstract

This study addresses the phonological representation and phonetic realization of pitch patterns found on or near prosodically prominent syllables in Ancient Greek, namely, the distinction between the so-called “acute” and “circumflex” accents. Empirically, we investigate in detail the correlation between tones and tunes in the Delphic hymns (DAGM 20 and 21) on syllables capable of bearing a circumflex accent (i.e., syllables containing a long vowel or diphthong = VV-syllables). This data supports two major findings. First, VV-syllables with circumflex accent are significantly more likely to be set to a melism than VV-syllables that are acute, grave, or unaccented, and, moreover, the proportion of melismatic settings among acute, unaccented, and grave VV-syllables does not significantly differ. Second, circumflex melisms consistently (always or nearly so) fall in pitch (on average, by three semitones), whereas acute and unaccented melisms may either rise or fall (on average, by 1.5–2.25 semitones in either direction). Taken together, this data conforms to the usual description of the circumflex as a falling pitch, [H L], but speaks against claims that the acute constitutes a rising pitch ([L H], or High alone aligned with the latter portion of a VV-syllable, [∅ H]). We instead conclude that the acute represents a single High pitch target phonologically mapped to the entirety of a VV-syllable, and discuss the implications for the phonological analysis of the prosody of Ancient Greek in light of the typology of contour tones.