Hauchumsprung and the historical phonology of Greek *h

Abstract

Ancient Greek underwent a sporadic sound change that copied an *h from the second syllable of a word to the first syllable, applying when the first syllable was vowel-initial, and perhaps also when it was stop-initial; this complements the analyses proposed so far in Greek historical phonology, particularly Sturm (2016, 2017), in accounting for the various sources of Proto-Greek *h. This change, Hauchumsprung, is unusual among recorded sound changes for involving the copying of a consonant over intervening material. Hauchumsprung, the φρουρᾱ́ rule, and Grassmann’s Law can be unified as three different footprints of a single sound change: one that copied aspiration from the middle of a word to the beginning of a word in early Greek.