Abstract

The change of the Greek aspirates into the voiceless spirants of the modern language was already beginning to appear in some of the ancient dialects. The intermediate stage in this development is naturally that of affricates, ph, th, kh, becoming pf, tp, kx respectively, a stage seen in such spellings as μετνλλακχóτα. The evidence of the inscriptions shows that the change was not readily effected in Attic, and the clearest mark of this conservatism is the interchange of aspirates and tenues