[b-greek] Re: Accent placement rules

From: Al Jacobson (abj@the-bridge.net)
Date: Sat Jun 30 2001 - 14:39:50 EDT


To Matt, Maurice, Clay, Carl and others:

Just a followup to this discussion. Generally Carl covers anything that
needs to be covered but no mention was made of a development in the Greek
language known as quantitative metathesis which is probably the source of
the apparent anomaly in accentuation of third declension i stems like POLIS,
POLEWS. The other dialects of Greek and Homer had the forms POLIS, POLIOS
and POLIS, POLHOS. In those forms the accentuation of the genitive singular
is regular, i.e. the ultima is short and (since the accent in Greek nouns is
persistent, i.e. it tries to stay where it is in the nominative singular
unless it is forced to change) the accent remains on the POL. In the Attic
dialect "quantitative metathesis" occurred (the interchange of vowel length
between syllables, in this case between the ultima and the penult, the
ultima becoming long and the penult short, so, e.g., from POLHOS to POLEWS.
But the accent was fixed by that time.

As to whether to learn the rules or not, I think its useful and can be
helpful in making distinctions between otherwise similar looking forms. But
I wouldn't get paranoid about it when I was just beginning.

Some beginning books that cover it pretty well? Well I think "An
Introduction to Ancient Greek, a Literary Approach" by C.A.E. Luschnig did
it pretty well. (I have no idea whether it is still in print or not. Mine
copy shows last copyright 1975 and the publisher was Charles Scribner's
Sons)

Allen B. Jacobson
2024 2nd Avenue East
Hibbing, MN 55746
218.262.1070
abj@the-bridge.net



-----Original Message-----
From: Maurice A. O'Sullivan [mailto:mauros@iol.ie]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 7:39 PM
To: Biblical Greek
Cc: Biblical Greek
Subject: [b-greek] Re: Accent placement rules


At 01:10 30/06/01, Daniel L. Christiansen wrote:

>Well, there is the possible difference of pitch vs stress accentuation;
>however, I
>can't imagine how that would make a difference in accent
>placement. Maurice, what
>did you have in mind in your post? Or was the comment regarding classical
not
>really pertaining to the accent question, but only a general caveat?

Daniel:
Thank you for your charitable approach -- I was too telegraphic in my
reply; I meant to add that there were _pronunciation_ tutorials ( and
practices ) side by side withe the ones for accentuation..

And, yes, for someone who announced that " I am teaching myself Biblical
Greek " I thought a general caveat might be appropriate for a page which
announces itself as a tutorial in Attic Greek.





Maurice A. O'Sullivan
mauros@iol.ie

"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know
a thing, to allow that you do not know it: This is knowledge."
Confucius



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