Peust, Carsten: Egyptian phonology: an introduction to the phonology of a dead language (Göttingen, 1999)

In order to explain this type of exception, Kasser (1994b: nyM., 297) suggests that in
addition to stressed and unstressed syllables Coptic had syllables with one or
several intermediate degrees of stress.

In a few cases, Bohairic aspirate stops do not derive from Egyptian class 1 stops but
rather from a succession stop + h I h. The synchronic pronunciation is not quite clear:

• hLt-hrw > b&eu)p /a'thor/ (/at'hor/?) (name of the goddess Hathor)

• *t-hll > beeAHA /rVlel/ (/thg'lel/?) "to rejoice" (its' § 3.2.4)

• di.t-hbi "cause to be low" > beeBlO /th9pp/ (/thaP'jV?) "to humiliate"

This is a good reason to believe that the aspirate signs in Bohairic actually express aspi-
ration just as the same signs do in Greek, instead of being mere graphical approximations
to a specifically Coptic articulation feature (e.g. non-emphatic pronunciation) for which
the Greek letters would have provided no better way of expressing.

There is no clear indication that the Bohairic aspirate signs could also be used as
digraphs, i.e. to render a sequence of two phonemes (/th/ etc.) in addition to rendering
aspirate stops (/th/ etc.). Bohairic never employs aspirate signs if a stop and /h/ meet at a
morpheme boundary (e.g. T-°,H /'the/ "the front" is not written OH as it regularly is in
Sahidic). Although difficult to prove, I assume that a digraphic function of the aspirate
signs is nonexistent or at least marginal in Bohairic.

Greek aspirates are regularly rendered as such in Bohairic, and we can assume that
Bohairic speakers simply identified aspirate stops of Greek loan words with the aspirate
stops of their own language.

3.3.3 Stops in Coptic dialects other than Bohairic

In all Coptic dialects apart from Bohairic, stops derived from Egyptian stops of both the
classes 1 and 2 are indiscriminately rendered by K, 6, A, T, and IT, i.e. by the Greek
letters for non-aspirate voiceless stops plus two specifically Coptic letters for palatals.
(It should be noted that the difference between S and A is one of the place of articulation
in most dialects, whereas it is one of aspiration in Bohairic).

The aspirate signs (X, O, <§) do occur in the non-Bohairic dialects, but they are exclusive-
ly used as digraphs expressing sequences ofp/t/k + h. These digraphs occur:

1) frequently to render a sequence of a stop and /h/ which meet at a morpheme
boundary. This concerns, for example, the combination of the femin. sg. definite
article A/ + a noun beginning with /hi: BH /'the/ "the front" (= T + <>H).

2) more rarely to render a sequence stop + /h/ within a morpheme, e.g. SA\X "neck"
(besides more common SA&.K2).

3) as a substitution of aspirate plosives in Greek foreign words.

The digraphic nature of the aspirate signs is evident from a morphophonological observa-
tion. In Sahidic, the definite article has two allomorphs: a short form IT- (masc. sg.)/ T-
(fem. sg.)/ M- (plural) is used before nouns beginning with a vowel or a single consonant,

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