Properties that distinguish crasis from contraction in Attic Greek

Abstract

This research deals with crasis in Attic Greek. Crasis obeys two restrictions on prosodic structure: (i) an antihiatic device, which prevents the occurrence of contiguous syllable nuclei; (ii) a maximal quantity restriction, which limits the number of moras to at most two per syllable nucleus. Crasis is, thus, non-distinct from contraction. Crasis, nonetheless, differs from contraction in the mechanisms of feature spreading and stress assignment, as well as in the direction of nuclei scanning. Being the strongest nucleus at the right, spreading applies right to left, but nuclei scan begins to the left. Contraction observes the opposite values, because it is a lexical process, while crasis occurs post-lexically.