SBLNT accentuation rules

[jeidsath]

I notice "αὐτῶν ἐστιν" or "αὐτοῦ ἐστιν" every so often in SBLNT. [Ex. Luke 7:28]. This seems in line with the example given in Smythe 183.b (though the wording of the rule itself is silent on the accentuation of the enclitic).

But do we have any evidence for treating a perispomenon like an oxytone instead of paroxytone? All of Smythe's other rules seem to respect mora-counting the vowels. I feel like something like αὐτοῦ ἐστιν is what a stress-accent speaker would use, which is a bit anachronistic (prochronistic?) for the NT.

I suppose that it doesn't matter very much. I have a lot of trouble at this point pronouncing a perispomenon followed by the disyllabic enclitic without an accent on the final vowel, however it's written. (That's why I noticed it at Luke 7:28, as it happens at the end of the sentence where the final accent is not suppressed, and I found that I wasn't pronouncing it as written.)

[Sorry, I meant to post this in the Koine forum. --Joel]

[Qimmik]

Joel,

This point was discussed in a recent thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=62006&p=165470#p165470

The upshot is that most texts follow the rule that a bisyllabic enclitic following a perispomenon word is unaccented, but there is some dispute about this. An ancient authority on accents insists that this rule is correct.

Bill

[ariphron]

So, Joel, in your tonal reading style you find you need the accent on the enclitic for it to sound right? How high is the accented second syllable of an enclitic the way you read it, relative to the first syllable and the pitch baseline? I must confess that those particular accents are something that I generally ignore. I make sure the enclitic starts at a lower pitch than the preceding word, and if the following word is enclitic I'll rise in pitch so that I can go down again for that one. In a two-syllable enclitic with no accent or a grave accent, I pronounce both syllables at the same low pitch, and then go up in pitch for the next word. At the end of a sentence (as at Luke 7:28), I don't feel a need to go up in pitch: I feel equally good sitting at the low pitch or relaxing from extra-low pitch to baseline in the last syllable, regardless of whether there's an acute accent on it, and I do not feel right jumping to a high pitch.

[jeidsath]

@Qimmik

Oh wow, great research in that other thread. I'm sorry that I started a new one instead of replying there. It seems Charax was a 6th century grammarian who wrote "De orthographia," which is preserved in another 9th century work. As you state in the other thread, one hopes he would have been aware of Attic versus later Koine accent differences.

Here is the quote from Charax, though I'm not sure if I'm reading it correctly.

ἄλλοι δέ τινες συγχέουσιν, ὡς καὶ Ῥωμανὸς λέγων, εἰ περισπωμένη προηγεῖται, οὐ παρέχουσι τὸν τόνον αὐτῇ, οἶον καλοῦ μοῦ· εἰ δὲ ἄλλος τόνος εἴη, παρέχουσι τὸν τόνον, οἶον πόθεν τις, ὅθεν με. ψευδὲς δὲ λίαν ἐστίν

Would that be something like the following?

"But when these others come together, as in Latin, if the perispomene is in front, they do not remove its accent, for example καλοῦ μοῦ; but if it is another accent, they remove the accent, for example πόθεν τις, ὅθεν με. But not λίαν ἐστίν"

I'm not sure that Charax is dealing directly with the disyllabic enclitic case here. I would like to read Hermann's view on it, but unfortunately I can't read Latin. It seems to be the bottom of pg. 71 where Hermann discusses it:

https://archive.org/details/godofrediherman03hermgoog

[jeidsath]

@ariphron

Here is a recent recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23NN- ... sp=sharing

I mostly follow the pitch rules from Allen's Vox Graeca, though I've been more careful about isolating pitch to the first or second half of a long vowel lately. I don't change the pitch of following or preceding syllables.

[Qimmik]

Charax (although I'm not sure I understand it correctly): "Certain others are confused , as Romanos [another so-called "authority" on Greek accentuation] when he says that if a perispomenon comes first they (enclitics) don't hand over the tone to it, such as καλοῦ μοῦ, but if it were another tone [other than perispomenon], they do hand over the tone, such as πόθεν τις, ὅθεν με. That is definitely false." Vendyes, Traité d'accentuation grecque (1938), pp. 82-3, calls Charax "fort obscur" and suggests (if I understand him correctly) that the accent on the syllable preceding a two-syllable enclitic functions as an acute, not a circumflex, accent. You should also bear in mind that Charax was an early Byzantine scholar writing at a time when Greek was spoken with a stress accent--how did he know what Greek sounded like hundreds of years earlier?

Sorry, but I just don't have time right now to translate Hermann's extended discussion, which I think simply boils down to the mora-counting rule.

The bottom line is that this point is uncertain, and probably beyond our ability to reach certainty, since ancient Greek hasn't been spoken with tone accents--by native speakers, at least--for close to two millenia. As I wrote earlier, it makes sense to me to simply accept the practice of modern texts, even if it seems to violate the mora-counting rule. If you want to pursue the issue, you'll have to bury yourself in a large research library and be prepared to read material in Latin, French and German, as well as English. Frankly, your time might be better spent reading more Greek, rather than trying to get your ancient Greek pronunciation exactly like it would have sounded when spoken as a native language--and there must have been much regional as well as diachronic variation, anyway.

[jeidsath]

...That is definitely false.

Thank you. I thought from that last sentence that Charax might have been arguing with others, but I didn't understand the first phrase well enough to make sense of interpretation, so I tried to figure out an alternative meaning. That coupled with the Romanus -> Latin mistake took me off course.

Frankly, your time might be better spent reading more Greek, rather than trying to get your ancient Greek pronunciation exactly like it would have sounded when spoken as a native language--and there must have been much regional as well as diachronic variation, anyway.

I agree with all of your post but this. Every ounce of effort that I have put into pronunciation has been paid back many times over. I am 10 months into my study of Greek, and have read the first 4 books of the Anabasis (books 2-4 in the past month), and much else besides. I can read large swaths of the New Testament and Septuagint without a dictionary. Xenophon, Euripides, and Plato are even easier (though they all have very hard sections as well, that completely stump me unless I start looking up words).

The single thing that improves my reading speed and comprehension more than anything else is recording large blocks of text, and listening to them until I understand them. At first with a translation at hand, and then with no aids (except sometimes for review).

I hope to be able to read Attic and Koine authors easily by next year some time.