[B-Greek] Absurdity of Koine Greek accents (was "Allegory about learning Koine Greek")

theomann at comcast.net theomann at comcast.net
Sun Jul 19 18:41:44 EDT 2009


How's that again?! 

Ted Mann 
theomann at comcast.com 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric S. Weiss" <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> 
To: "b-greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> 
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 5:56:44 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [B-Greek] Absurdity of Koine Greek accents (was "Allegory about learning Koine Greek") 


>From Unit Two, Section 4, p. 17 of Introduction to Attic Greek, by Donald 
J. Mastronarde: 

Contonation and Mora. The apparently complex "rules" of Greek accentuation 
can be understood in terms of a single general principle involving the 
concepts of contonation and mora. Contonation is the combination of the 
rise of pitch generally thought of as the accent with the necessary return 
or fall to standard pitch which follows it. In the case of an acute 
accent, the contonation includes both the syllable on which the accent is 
written (and on which the pitch rises) and the entire following syllable 
(on which the pitch falls), if any, whether it counts as long or short. In 
the case of the circumflex accent, the contonation occurs on the one 
syllable on which the accent is written, for there are both a rise in 
pitch and a return to standard pitch on that syllable. A mora is the 
(theoretically assigned) "standard" length of a short vowel (A, E, I, O, 
U, and final AI and OI in most cases). A long vowel (long A, EI, H, long 
I, OU, W, long U) or a diphthong (except for final AI and OI in most 
cases) occupies (theoretically) a time span equivalent to two morai. 

The general principle of Greek accentuation is that the contonation may be 
followed by no more than one mora before the end of a word (or phrase 
pronounced as one word unit). This principle is in many respects similar 
to rules in other languages (e.g., Latin) which constrain the position of 
the accent according to the nature of the final syllables of a word. In 
Greek this principle limits the position of the acute and circumflex 
accents and requires the addition of an extra accent in some phrases 
consisting of word + enclitic. 

- - - 
Eric S. Weiss 


       
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