From what we know of phonology, would there be an aspiration in the middle of words like “PanHellenic”?
This touches a number of different things, such as the definition of what a word is before grammatical conceptualization, variations in time, so I’ll take what I can get – what do we know?
Nu doesn’t have an aspirated variant in the spelling, but pi does, eg. ἀφαίρεσις.
Perfects in -χα (cf. Hittite).
There’s no reason for aspiration to be lost within a word. Ancient manuscripts sometimes mark internal aspiration, e.g. (from POxy.3151) εξανἕστηκεν.
On the other hand, there’s no phonological justification for the doubled aspiration we find in modern texts, e.g. ἀφ’ Ἑλληνων.
Let me pose the obvious terminus ad quem question:
Are all varieties of Modern Greek psilotic?
Yup. According to Vox Graeca, [h] was likely lost after i AD (it shows up in Coptic and Syriac loans) and before iv AD (it’s frequently left out in Gothic loans).
How about in the forms of the language that are not derived from the Koine? Eg. Are the aspirated consonants in Tsakonian preserved from the Classical era, or are they later post-Classical developments?
I ask that, without being restricted by the defining example of “Panhellenic”, and looking at aspiration as a phenomenon, then aspiration within a word occurs whenever and every time that there is an aspirated letter; φ for pʰ, θ for tʰ, or χ for kʰ. In one plausible line of logic - that may of course not be the correct one - the change from /pʰ/, /tʰ/, and /kʰ/ to /f/, /θ/, and /χ/ is in fact the loss of all aspiration from inside a word, and, not-illogically, that could be the time when aspiration is lost from the beginning of the word as well. Taskonian is a Modern form of the language in which there are aspirated consonants, ie aspiration within words.
They Tsakonian aspirates are all postclassical: they are derived from clusters, with the end result that Tsakonian syllables are CV. So στόμα > τθούμα /tʰuma/, σχάρα > κχάρα /kʰara/, σπείρω > πφείρου /pʰiru/, ρύγχος > σχούκχο /ʃukʰo/. The reflexes of Ancient φ, χ /pʰ, kʰ/ are φ, χ /f, x/. Occasionally ancient θ /tʰ/ goes to modern /s/ instead of /θ/, e.g. θέρος > σέρε. It’s irregular, but it could be explained by the early fricativisation of /tʰ/ to /θ/ in Laconian.
Was Grassman’s law applied to proto-Indoeurpean, an early branch including Greek and Sanskrit, proto-Greek and Sanskrit severally or a later period of the Greek language?
Aspiration inside a word shows up in the spellings of τριθημέρη , Adv. three days ago, and τριθημερινός, nudiustertianus.