Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

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Emma Ehrhardt
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Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Emma Ehrhardt »

I ran across this sentence from John 6:18, and noticed the form ἥ. The NFS article makes sense to me in this context (and MorphGNT tags it as such), but if it were the article (and not a relative pronoun) I would have expected it to not use the acute accent.
καὶ σκοτία ἤδη ἐγεγόνει καὶ οὔπω ἐληλύθει πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, 18 τε θάλασσα ἀνέμου μεγάλου πνέοντος διεγείρετο.
MorphGNT: 040618 RA ----NSF- ἥ ἥ ἥ ὁ

Does τε have an accent and throw it backwards or something? What am I missing here?
Emma Ehrhardt
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Yes, τε is an enclitic and it will cause the preceding word to have an acute at the end, unless there would be two acutes in a row in the same word.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Syntactically, it seems to only happen to the article when followed by τε. The ones I can find are:
  • αἵ - Rom 1:26
  • ἥ - Jn 6:18, Acts 26:30, Rom 1:20, Heb 9:2
  • ὅ - Lk 23:12, Acts 1:13, Acts 5:24, Acts 8:38, Acts 13:1, Acts 17:14, Acts 18:5, Heb 2:11

The usage in Romans 1:26
Διὰ τοῦτο παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς πάθη ἀτιμίας· αἵ τε γὰρ θήλειαι αὐτῶν μετήλλαξαν τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν εἰς τὴν παρὰ φύσιν·
is particular. The others are being used in the same syntactic pattern
Σκηνὴ γὰρ κατεσκευάσθη ἡ πρώτη, ἐν ᾗ ἥ τε λυχνία καὶ ἡ τράπεζα καὶ ἡ πρόθεσις τῶν ἄρτων, ἥτις λέγεται ἅγια.
There seem to be no instances of οἵ (as definite article) in the New Testament at least.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Emma Ehrhardt
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Emma Ehrhardt »

Thanks Stephen & Stephen.

After looking a bit further, MorphGNT does tag οἵ as a definite article 4 times:

031502 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Luke 15:2 καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἵ τε Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγοντες ...

051352 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 13:52 - οἵ τε μαθηταὶ ἐπληροῦντο χαρᾶς καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου.
051411 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 14:11 - οἵ τε ὄχλοι ἰδόντες ὃ ἐποίησεν Παῦλος ἐπῆραν τὴν φωνὴν αὐτῶν
052802 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 28:02 - οἵ τε βάρβαροι παρεῖχον οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν φιλανθρωπίαν ἡμῖν,
Emma Ehrhardt
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Emma Ehrhardt wrote:Thanks Stephen & Stephen.

After looking a bit further, MorphGNT does tag οἵ as a definite article 4 times:

031502 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Luke 15:2 καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἵ τε Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγοντες ...

051352 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 13:52 - οἵ τε μαθηταὶ ἐπληροῦντο χαρᾶς καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου.
051411 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 14:11 - οἵ τε ὄχλοι ἰδόντες ὃ ἐποίησεν Παῦλος ἐπῆραν τὴν φωνὴν αὐτῶν
052802 RA ----NPM- οἵ οἵ οἵ ὁ - Acts 28:02 - οἵ τε βάρβαροι παρεῖχον οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν φιλανθρωπίαν ἡμῖν,
That seems to be the same sort of syntactic construction of τε with the plural that is in Romans 1:26.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

τε solitarium has been discussed previously
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Emma Ehrhardt
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Re: Can the article ἡ ever take an acute accent?

Post by Emma Ehrhardt »

Thanks for those links, very informative.
Emma Ehrhardt
Computational Linguist
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