Appendix:Ancient Greek contraction

Ancient Greek had a complicated system whereby two vowels in hiatus were contracted together into a single long vowel according to a set of rules, which often varied by dialect. This contraction was ubiquitous, appearing in several prominent modes of verb and noun inflection.

Origin of hiatus
Due to the loss of Proto-Indo-European *s (> Proto-Hellenic *h) and *y between vowels, many pairs of vowels were brought into contact. This set was further augmented by the later loss of (*w). However, not all dialects lost between vowels (namely, most West Greek dialects), and in many cases vowels are not contracted even when  is lost:  (*génehos) but  (*hwādewos).

General notes
Similar vowels are usually contracted into a single long vowel:, , etc. Diphthongs in -ι usually retain their final element. (There are no certain examples of contraction with a diphthong in .) Dissimilar vowels are generally either contracted into the lengthened form of the first vowel, or a vowel of intermediate quality.

The diphthong had shifted at an early point to a long vowel /eː/, which was equal in quality to  /e/. For this reason, long /eː/ which originated from lengthening of (including, but not limited to, contraction of  /e.e/) was also written as. However, the differing origins of the sound are still evident in contracted forms: which comes from an original diphthong (called "genuine" ) is contracted to forms with /j/, whereas  which comes from lengthening of  (called "spurious" ) is contracted to forms without /j/.

A similar situation occurred with and :  was contracted to  rather than. However, no examples of contraction of "genuine" exist.

However, in some forms of Doric (Elean, Laconian, Heraclean, and Cretan, often called "Severe" Doric), as well as the Arcadocypriot dialect,, were closer in quality to ,. For this reason, and  contract to  and  respectively (and other lengthening processes lengthen them to  and  as well.) In Boeotian,  is written for lengthened, but  for lengthened  (note that Boeotian in fact lacks  entirely, and has  for all instances of it.)

Attic
Attic contracted vowels the most out of all dialects. Most other dialects did not contract, , , , etc.

The following contractions are also attested:

Ionic
Major differences from Attic are bolded.

Ionic contracts the least of all dialects. Many of the above contractions are rare (however, contractions of like vowel sounds are usually common.) Note also that Ionic also has for most cases of.

Not shown in the table is the contraction οαυ &rarr; ωυ, attested in, from.

West Greek (Northwest and Doric) and Boeotian
Major differences from Attic are bolded.

Most West Greek dialects have scant inscriptional evidence. Many contractions are not well attested, and most alphabets do not distinguish between, , or , ,. Additionally, many verbs that would be contracted in Attic or Ionic have different stems in West Greek ( for, for ).

Crasis
Crasis is the process of contracting vowels across word boundaries—that is, contracting the last vowel in a word with the first vowel in a following word. Crasis only occurs after a vowel that cannot be elided—so only monosyllables not ending in, or words ending in a long vowel, can undergo crasis. Additionally, only articles, some pronouns, and adverbial particles will undergo crasis.

A pair of words joined by crasis is written as a single word, with a coronis (κορωνίς)—considered as equivalent to the smooth breathing in Unicode—written over the contracted vowel (regardless of whether the second word has a smooth or rough breathing): However,, , become , ,  before a word beginning with the rough breathing: Additionally, if the first word comprises a single vowel which has the rough breathing, the rough breathing will be written: The accent of the second word is always used, and does not change if the vowel becomes long: If the first vowel is a diphthong, it loses its final element: Before, the final vowel of the article or (or its compounds) is dropped, and  is lengthened instead of contracting normally: usually loses its final vowel except before, :
 * → (not **)
 * → (not **)
 * → (not **)
 * → (not **)
 * → (not **)
 * → (not **)