Greek Accents… Holy Cow - Ch. 2 - The Greek Accents - “Form Alpha to Omega” by Anne Groton

Stephen Alexander Beach

Content from this lesson is taken from the book "From Alpha to Omega" by Anne Groton and put into my own words. (I just want to say from the outset, that I may have misunderstood or written down wrong content from the book, so please realize these are my own notes and not any official or trustworthy copy of her book.)

Accenting Greek words … holy cow 

History 

Groton points out that originally accents had to do with the pitch of the syllable of a word, but over time pitch became replaced by simply stress. “In reality, however the marks were designed to indicate raising or lowering of the pitch of the speaker’s voice and have nothing to do with stress.” “Eventually, stress entirely replaced pitch.” 

Three Types of Accents 

There is the acute (a mark going up and right), the grave (its opposite (`)), and circumflex (^). “The acute denotes a gliding up of pitch, the grave a gliding down, the circumflex a gliding up followed by a gliding down.” 

Rule - The vowel or diphthong which is to be stressed takes the accent marks. 

Specifics - Accent goes on the vowel or diphthong. 

Specifics - It goes over the second letter in a proper diphthong, and over the first in an improper diphthong. 

Specifics - They go to the left of a capital letter, unless the word begins in it diphthong in which is goes over the second vowel. 

Specifics - It also goes to the right of the breathing mark for acute and grave, and over the breathing with a circumflex. 

Rule -  For the most part, only one syllable is accented in Greek words. 

Rule - The accent will only ever be on the last three syllables of any word. 

Specifics - The last three syllables are called the “antepenult” (before almost last), “penult” (almost last), and “ultima” (last). 
Exception - “A few words in Greek have no accent, and under certain circumstances a word may receive a second accent. This will all be explained in later lessons.” 

Rule - Acute and grave accents can be found on short and long vowels, as well as diphthongs. Circumflex accents are only found on long vowels and diphthongs. 

Rule - Acute accents can be on any of the three accenting sites: antepenult, penult, or ultima. 

Circumflex accents can only be on the penult or ultima sites, never the antepenult. 

Grave is used only on the ultima in certain circumstances. This is when a word would end with an acute accent but there is no punctuation after the word. Therefore, it switches to a grave accent. 

Predicting Where The Accent Will Fall On Any Particular Word

“In many Greek words the position of the accent … is not predictable and must therefore be memorized when each word is learned. In many other Greek words, however, the position of the accident is predictable.” 

How are they predicted though? Two General Principles 

This requires the ability to determine “whether a syllable is long by nature, long by position, or short”. 

Rule - Long by Nature - This is when a word contains a long vowel (ω or η) or a diphthong. 

Exception - When the diphthongs αι and οι are the last letters in a word, they are considered short. 

Rule - Long by Position - When a vowel is followed by two consonants pronounced separately, or by a double consonant, the syllable becomes long by position. 

Rule - Short - When the syllable contains (ο or ε) not followed by a consonant or by a single consonant. 

Exception - a syllable is usually short if there are two consonants after that are pronounced together. Sometimes they are pronounced separately in poetry making the syllable long by position.