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I was marveling today at the word hebdomadal, from the Greek ἑπτά for seven. But that had me wondering why words derived from seven sometimes use /bd/ and other times /pt/. I notice, for instance, that the word for seventh is ἕβδομος. (The same could be asked of ὀκτώ and ὄγδοος.) And among compound numerals, the cardinals persist in using /pt/ and /kt/, while the ordinals persist in using /bd/ and /gd/. What's going on here?

I consulted Smyth's Greek Grammar, and it distinguishes in §16 between the order of stops—/p/ and /t/, as unvoiced stops, belong to the first order, while /b/ and /d/, as voiced stops, belong to the second—and per §82, a labial or palatal before a dental changes to the dental's order. Smyth lists ἑπτά as an example in §82.c. N. 1, so I think I'm on the right track. It appears the dental is changing from smooth to middle order, and the labial with it—my question is, why?

Nick
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    Good question. I really don't know under which circumstances a stop would change from voiced (dgb) to unvoiced (tkp) or the converse. They do that when followed by another stop, as in the the p and the b in this case; but why would the t and the d be different, as they must come from the same root? When did they differentiate, and by what rule can this be explained? – Cerberus Oct 14 '19 at 22:34

1 Answers1

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The Greek word for seven, hepta, like Sanskrit sapta, Latin septem, and others, points to an Indo-European *septm. In Greek *s becomes h, and the syllabic *m becomes a. In the word for “seventh”, IE *septm-o-, the m is a consonant (non-syllabic) and remains m in Greek, giving *heptmos, and then (with voicing of pt to bd before the voiced m) *hebdmos, and then (with insertion of a vowel to break up the cluster) hebdomos.

fdb
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  • Thanks so much! I have to ask, what's happening with ὀκτώ and ὄγδοος, then? Is it something different? I see the PIE was oḱtṓw or h₁oḱtṓw—the long o didn't drop out, and no stop follows it, anyway. Analogy, maybe? – Nick Oct 15 '19 at 13:40
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    @Nick. “Analogy” is the easy way out, but as yet no one has suggested anything better. – fdb Oct 15 '19 at 19:21
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    The explanation I've heard for ὄγδοος is oktwos > ogdwos > ogdowos, exactly parallel to ἕβδομος, with voicing assimilation to w. I don't know enough about the morphology of PIE ordinals to say whether the absence of ō is expected. – TKR Oct 15 '19 at 23:57
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    @TKR. Yes, this and other proposals are discussed by Beekes, s.v. ὄγδοος. In this case it is the assumed suffix *wo that is problematic. – fdb Oct 16 '19 at 09:59
  • More precisely, that proposal doesn't necessarily assume a suffix *wo, but a -w as part of the stem. But it all seems very unclear. – TKR Oct 20 '19 at 00:48