[B-Greek] Accents

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Dec 9 12:53:27 EST 2010


A.T. Robertson says in his chapter 5.5 about accents:

 Ἑρμᾶς (Ro. 16:14) is from the old Doric form abbreviated from Ἑρ-
μόδωρος;  Ἑρμῆς (Ro. 16:14) may be merely the name of the god
given to a man, though Blass doubts it. Likewise we may note
that θευδᾶς (Ac. 5:36) is possibly an abbreviation of θεόδωρος;
 Ἰουνίας (sometimes taken as feminine  Ἰουνία, Ro. 16:7) may be
 Ἰουνιᾶς as abbreviation of  Ἰουνιανός.

I don't want to go into the question whether Ἰουνίαν IOUNIAN in Rom 16:7 refers 
to a man or a woman. My question is only a matter of accentuation.
Is it correct that the circumflex accent indicates that the word is assumed to 
be an abbreviation or contraction? Does it indicate anything about the gender of 
the person?
Is is correct that Ἰουνίαν in the accusative could be either masculine or 
feminine, and that the acute accent does not decide one way or the other?
There are many Greek transcriptions of Hebrew masculine names that end in -ίας. 
Al Wolters in JBL 127.2 mentions 15 in the NT: Ἀνανίας, Βαραχίας, Ἑζεκίας, 
Ζαχαρίας, Ἠλίας, Ἠσαΐας,
Ἰερεμίας, Ἰεχονίας, Ἰωσίας, Λυσανίας, Λυσίας, Μαθθίας, Ματταθίας, Ὀζίας, and
Οὐρίας.

Iver Larsen




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