[B-Greek] 1st declension/ vowel length and accents

TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com
Sun Oct 2 07:32:20 EDT 2005


These are some notes I took after reading a PILE of textbooks and  webpages  
on 1st declension. Can someone please tell me if this is  right? Or if I need 
to know anything else? We often need to know if an alpha is  long or short, 
if we are to accent a  
word correctly, right?

Kat  Doe
Homemaker

There are 4 subdeclensions of 1st declension  nouns:
long alpha
short  alpha
eta
masculine

long alpha  usually comes after rho, iota, or epsilon. All alphas are long in 
the   
long alpha subdeclension. 

Eta usually comes after consonants other than rho. All the etas  and alphas 
are long  
in the eta subdeclension.

Short alpha can  come after any stem, and is rarer than long alpha and eta. 
After consonants  other than rho, short alpha turns to an eta in the genitive 
and dative  singular .After rho, iota, and epsilon, short alpha becomes a long 
alpha in  everything other than Nom. sg., Acc. sg., and Voc. sg.

masc 1st  declension is declined like the eta subdeclension, except for: hs  
in  the nom. sg., ou in the gen. sg., and short a in voc. sg.

"pure alpha"  can be long or short.

"impure alpha" is a short alpha after a consonant  other han rho.

Alpha is usually long. We can identify a short alpha in  the following ways:  
An accented antepult in words with 3 or more  syllables; an alpha in the  
nominative after a consanant other than  rho; an impure alpha if  the  
genetive  is listed.




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