accentuation: contonation and mora

Josh Kennedy jdkenn at wm.edu
Sat Feb 27 17:13:08 EST 1999


I'm been a Greek student for a few years, but I'm trying to go back now and 
figure out those principles of accentuation that I never learned.
I came across the concept of contonation and mora in Mastronarde's "Intro 
to Attic Greek," and it seems to apply easily to most of the situations, 
but I'm having trouble figuring out how verbs fit in.
The contonation on a word is the combination of rise and fall in pitch. 
This comprises either two syllables (an acute followed by the entire 
unnaccented syllable) or one syllable with a circumflex accent.
One mora is equal to syllable composed of a short vowel or dipthong.
"Two morae" is equal to two mora syllables or one syllable with a long 
vowel or dipthong.
The general principle is that the contonation cannot be followed by more 
than one mora before the end of the word.
 
Does anyone know what the oldest NT manuscript with accent marks is? 
   
Josh



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