Rough breathings in compound words

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 28 13:37:12 EDT 2002


At 12:37 PM -0400 8/28/02, Erik Westwig wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>When a compound word is formed, does/should one pronounce the rough
>breathing of the original word?  For example, the word hORAW has the
>compound KAQORAW.  When I try to pronounce this, I reflexively say
>"kath-hor-AH-oh" instead of "kath-or-AH-oh."  Just curious if this is normal
>practice for others on the list, or not.

There are at least two distinct issues here: (1) present-day pronunciation,
about which I have no advice (there are three or four different schemes
from which you can take your choice); (2) in theory the Theta was an
aspirated Tau, so; that when the rough breathing preceding omicron in hORAW
compounded with the elided KAT, the SOUND "T-h" was SPELLED with a Theta
(Q). In theory (at least) the Theta did not originally have the fricative
sound of "th" in either "the" or "thin" but was rather like the combination
of "t" and "h" in "hothouse.
                                                                --
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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