Accent placement rules; APOLUTRWSEWS

Matthew Harris griechisch at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 29 11:05:40 EDT 2001


Hi, I'm new to this list. (Wow, this message system is harsh... I forgot
the subject field the first time and lost my entire message. Here goes for
a second try...)

I am teaching myself Biblical Greek and am somewhat disappointed that,
despite a couple of hundred dollars invested in grammars, lexicons etc. I
have been unable to find any in-depth discussion of accent placement
rules.

According to a brief description I found somewhere, the third accent rule
is, "if the ultima is long, then the antepenult cannot be accented".

What is troubling me is a word I came across, APOLUTRWSEWS (the genitive
singular form of APOLUTRWSIS), which apparently has an acute accent on the
antepenult. Can someone explain this to me, since I thought having an W in
the ultima makes it long, thereby necessitating the enforcement of the
third rule? Does it have something to do with the final sigma? Or am I
just syllabifying wrong, and the accent isn't really on the antepenult?

Can anybody explain the accent placement rules to me, or direct me to
somewhere/someone who could (preferably online)? E.g. what exactly does it
mean to say that verbs are recessive?

Thanks
Matt Harris



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