Class Notes: June 30, 2007

• Class Notes and Comments
• The General Principle of Greek Accentuation

Class Notes and Comments

Lesson 4: Important Sections and points:

22. Memorize the vocabulary and the extra vocabulary. Read the blog entry "Learning Vocabulary" (the audio files are recorded by saying the article before the noun).

See Sidebar for Lesson 4 vocabulary and audio files, including the extra word from the LXX-NT vocabulary, plus the other extra words you are to learn (words that occur 25x or more in the New Testament).

23. Memorize the paradigm (pattern) of the endings for the Second Declension. Memorize the [definite] article if you have not yet done so. (We'll actually encounter it in Lesson 5 next week. Learn it by this week and Lesson 5 will be easy.)

26. Do all the Exercises after you have learned the vocabulary (Section 22, as well as the Lesson 2 and 3 vocabulary) and the Lesson grammar so you are really able to do the Exercises with understanding, and not have to keep looking back in the Lesson to know what to write.

Again, you will at times be introduced to things you have not yet learned, but should be able to deduce based on what you have learned, so don't feel badly if on occasion you get something wrong, or can't quite figure out how to translate something. It's purposeful.

The General Principle of Greek Accentuation

Here is what I shared about accenting from my Attic Greek textbook - from Unit Two, Section 4, p. 17 of Introduction to Attic Greek, by Donald J. Mastronarde:

Contonation and Mora. The apparently complex "rules" of Greek accentuation can be understood in terms of a single general principle involving the concepts of contonation and mora. Contonation is the combination of the rise of pitch generally thought of as the accent with the necessary return or fall to standard pitch which follows it. In the case of an acute accent, the contonation includes both the syllable on which the accent is written (and on which the pitch rises) and the entire following syllable (on which the pitch falls), if any, whether it counts as long or short. In the case of the circumflex accent, the contonation occurs on the one syllable on which the accent is written, for there are both a rise in pitch and a return to standard pitch on that syllable. A mora is the (theoretically assigned) "standard" length of a short vowel (α, ε, ι, ο, υ, and final αι and οι in most cases). A long vowel (α, ει, η, ι, ου, ω, υ) or a diphthong* (except for final αι and οι in most cases) occupies (theoretically) a time span equivalent to two morai.

The general principle of Greek accentuation is that the contonation may be followed by no more than one mora before the end of a word (or phrase pronounced as one word unit). This principle is in many respects similar to rules in other languages (e.g., Latin) which constrain the position of the accent according to the nature of the final syllables of a word. In Greek this principle limits the position of the acute and circumflex accents and requires the addition of an extra accent in some phrases consisting of word + enclitic.**

* Remember that so-called "improper" or "long" diphthongs (α, η, and ω with subscripted ι) are also always long. I am not sure why Mastronarde omits mention of αυ, ευ, and ηυ.

** For the definition of "enclitics," see Section 42 of Lesson 7 in Croy's textbook. Also see "proclitics" in Section 28 of Lesson 5.

By convention there are a couple exceptions to this principle when it comes to the enclitics εστι(ν) and τις/τι:
1) εστι(ν) following a word with a circumflex on the ultima is not accented; one would normally expect an acute on the ultima of εστι(ν); and
2) τινων (the genitive plural) following a word with an acute on the penult has a circumflex accent on its ultima; normally a disyllabic enclitic following such a word receives an acute accent on its second syllable.