GR.2 in Carson's Greek Accents

James Forsyth james at bigbeing.com.au
Thu Aug 1 15:49:35 EDT 2002


Hi B-Greekers,

Maybe it's me that's going mad, but I just noticed a possible error in 
Carson's Greek Accents.  on page 34 he says "Consider ALHQEIA. The ultima 
must be short: the antepenult has an accent(GR.2)"

2 problems:

1) GR.2 doesn't shed any light on the problem at all.  GR.2 simply says "An 
acute accent may stand only on an ultima, a penult or an antepenult; a 
circumflex accent may stand only on an ultima or a penult; and a grave 
accent may stand only on an ultima."

2) If Carson is referring to GR.4.1 ("If the ultima is long, then the 
antepenult cannot have any accent") then there is a problem of 
directionality.  When considering ALHQEIA, says Carson, the cause of the 
ultima being short is the presence of an accent on the 
antepenult.  Causality in GR.4.1 is moving in the opposite direction.  (A 
note on the chart on page 13 of W Mueller's Grammatical Aids for Students 
of New Testament Greek does help on this issue, but access to both books 
couldn't be assumed!)

James Forsyth




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