[B-Greek] Changing an Acute Accent to Grave

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Sep 28 12:26:21 EDT 2009


On Sep 28, 2009, at 9:23 AM, David McCarley wrote:

> I've been attempting to absorb some of the rules for accenting.   
> I've been
> able to follow some of the rules, but I've run into something that  
> is not
> registering.  I keep waiting for a light to go off in my head but,  
> so far,
> no luck.  Here is the rule with which I am grappling: "An acute  
> accent on
> the ultima changes to a grave when it is followed by another word  
> with no
> intervening punctuation."

There is a major exception: if an acute-accented final syllable is  
followed by an enclitic, then the acute remains; common enclitics are  
unaccented forms of SOI and MOI, present-tense forms of the verb EIMI,  
the unaccented TIS which functions as an indefinite pronoun, and some  
others.

> Consider the following examples:

You appear to be making up these sentences, as the forms are wrong
>
> If I write "ego eimi mathatos tou Xristos," two accenting issues  
> arrise.
> First, the acute accent in ego is NOT changed to a grave accent for  
> some
> reason.  Second, the acute accent in eimi is not only not changed  
> but it is
> totally removed.  Why are these exceptions made?

This should be EGW EIMI MAQHTHS TOU CRISTOU [ἐγώ εἰμι  
μαθητὴς τοῦ Χριστοῦ]
(Look at the B-Greek FAQ for our standard transliteration scheme:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/faq.html)

Here εἰμι [EIMI] is an enclitic, pronounced as a one-word sequence  
with EGW/-EIMI.

> However, if I write "oi anthropoi esten oi mathatai tou Xristos,"  
> the acute
> accent in mathatai appears not to be changed in the plural form.  Can
> someone please explain why the basic rule applies with the singular  
> form of
> the word and does not apply on the plural form of this word?

Presumably you meant to write:

οἱ ἄνθρωποί εἰσιν οἱ μαθηταὶ τοῦ  
Χριστοῦ [hOI ANQRWPOI EISIN hOI MAQHTAI TOU CRISTOU]

In this instance ἄνθρωποί has its regular accent on the first  
sylllable and an added acute accent on the final syllable because the  
word is followed by he enclitc εἰσιν.

Accentuation is difficult. Enclitics radically can affect the  
accentuation of preceding words, so that one must learn the basic  
rules and then learn the paraticular ways in which enclitcis can alter  
the working of those regular rules.

The accentuation of ancient Greek texts is difficult and frustrating  
-- and all the more frustrating when one learns that the system of  
accentuation is supposed to represent a pitch-accent system that was  
replaced by a stress-accent system before the time of NT Koine Greek.  
It's sort of as if one were trying to learn 21st century Englihs as  
pronounced with an Elizabethan British pronunciation.




Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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