Can a Case Change, Change Syllabification?

[LearningGreek]

I am going through bill mounces pronunciations of the words from Chapter 4 of basics of biblical greek.

One of the flash cards has "ἔσχατος, -η, -ον"

When he pronounces the three forms of this word (going left to right), when he gets to the second form (the one that uses the η), it sounds like the syllabification of the word changes.

The first form is "es ka tas", the second is "eh ska tay" and the third is "es ka tan".

For the second form, it sounds like the first syllable is not εσ but just ε.

Am I correct in this? If so how do I no how to change the syllabification?

Thank you.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Regardless of how Mounce pronounces it, case change does not change syllabification.

[Daniel Semler]

I am going through bill mounces pronunciations of the words from Chapter 4 of basics of biblical greek.

One of the flash cards has "ἔσχατος, -η, -ον"

When he pronounces the three forms of this word (going left to right), when he gets to the second form (the one that uses the η), it sounds like the syllabification of the word changes.

The first form is "es ka tas", the second is "eh ska tay" and the third is "es ka tan".

For the second form, it sounds like the first syllable is not εσ but just ε.

Am I correct in this? If so how do I no how to change the syllabification?

Thank you.

You might be hearing a change in accentuation.

thx
D

[Stephen Carlson]

You might be hearing a change in accentuation.

I would guess that’s probably it. Mounce is an expert language pedagogue not pronouncer. Like most people, there would be a lot of L1 interference (influence from one’s native tongue). There are a few people, however, with a talent for pronouncing other languages. I’d ask Luke Ranieri, the most youtube-famous of the lot.

[Jason Hare]

I imagine it's just that... he's actually talking about the accentuation of the word. Yes, it changes.

ἔσχατος, ἐσχάτη, ἔσχατον

The long vowel on the end of the word (eta η) doesn't allow an accent any further back than on the second-to-last syllable. So, É-scha-tos has the accent shifted to e-SCHÁ-tē.

You heard right.

[LearningGreek]

I imagine it's just that... he's actually talking about the accentuation of the word. Yes, it changes.

ἔσχατος, ἐσχάτη, ἔσχατον

The long vowel on the end of the word (eta η) doesn't allow an accent any further back than on the second-to-last syllable. So, É-scha-tos has the accent shifted to e-SCHÁ-tē.

You heard right.

Thank you so much! That makes perfect sense. On the flash cards, when he changes the case ending, it has just the ending, not the whole new word with the new case.

Thus I was reading it as ἔσχατη and did not realize the accent moved.

I just learned about "enclitics" but that was an accent from one word getting moved to another. I had not yet learned about the accent being moved due to long vowels though that makes sense.

[Shirley Rollinson]

I imagine it's just that... he's actually talking about the accentuation of the word. Yes, it changes.

ἔσχατος, ἐσχάτη, ἔσχατον

The long vowel on the end of the word (eta η) doesn't allow an accent any further back than on the second-to-last syllable. So, É-scha-tos has the accent shifted to e-SCHÁ-tē.

You heard right.

Thank you so much! That makes perfect sense. On the flash cards, when he changes the case ending, it has just the ending, not the whole new word with the new case.

Thus I was reading it as ἔσχατη and did not realize the accent moved.

I just learned about "enclitics" but that was an accent from one word getting moved to another. I had not yet learned about the accent being moved due to long vowels though that makes sense.

If you want to learn a bit more about accents, there's a pdf file (Appendix B2) linked to the Online textbook http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook02/contents.html. Do NOT try to learn any of that - just read it for information and to get a feel for how accents can move. As we're usually reading the GNT, rather than writing our own koine sentences, all you really need to do is watch out for the accents as you read, and put the stress or tonal variation where it shows you. There are a (very few) times when the position of the accent is important for the meaning, but most of the time they are there just to stop us sounding like hicky barbarians