ἡ μοῖ?α declension

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Socrates the Cyborg
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ἡ μοῖ?α declension

Post by Socrates the Cyborg »

again questioning the accent mark placement

μοῖ?α μοῖ?αι
μοῖ?ᾱς μοῖ?ων
μοῖ?ᾳ μοῖ?αις
μοῖ?ᾰν μοῖ?ᾱς
μοῖ?ᾰ μοῖ?αι

modus.irrealis
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Post by modus.irrealis »

Two things to remember:

First there's the general accent rule that when the final syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, you can't have a circumflex accent on the second-to-last syllable -- except that the final -αι doesn't count as long here.

Second with first declension nouns the genitive plural always has a circumflex accent on the final syllable.

So you get:

μοῖ?α μοῖ?αι
μοί?ᾱς μοι?ν
μοί?ᾳ μοί?αις
μοῖ?ᾰν μοί?ᾱς
μοῖ?ᾰ μοῖ?αι

Socrates the Cyborg
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Post by Socrates the Cyborg »

Thanks. Looks like I will have to take some time and review the basics of accenting again.

Bert
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Post by Bert »

modus.irrealis wrote:Two things to remember:

First there's the general accent rule that when the final syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, you can't have a circumflex accent on the second-to-last syllable --
Does the circumflex always move to the last syllable in those cases or can it change to an acute and stay on the second last?

modus.irrealis
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Post by modus.irrealis »

Bert wrote:Does the circumflex always move to the last syllable in those cases or can it change to an acute and stay on the second last?
The way I think of it is that the general accent rule says it changes to an acute and anything else would be the result of some other more specific rule (because the noun belongs to a certain declension for example -- like here with the genitive plural).

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GreekGeek2
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Post by GreekGeek2 »

If the last vowel becomes long, the circumflex turns into an acute. Always, except for the gen. plural. This because the ending -ων was originally -άων (which you'll encounter a lot when reading Homer)(the acute on the alpha can't move further back because of the long ending), which contracted to -ῶν. This is of course only the case for feminine words of the first declension.
With other nouns, the accent stays on the same syllable (if possible). The biggest exception however is the gen. and dat. singular and plural from the third declension with words having a mono-syllablic stem. So:
πάτη?
πατ?ός
πατ?ί
πάτε?α

πάτε?ες
πατε?ῶν
πατ?ᾶσι
πάτε?ας
If I'm not mistaken.
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Swth\r
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Post by Swth\r »



Swth\r
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Post by Swth\r »



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GreekGeek2
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Post by GreekGeek2 »

Okay, what was the use of that quote?
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Swth\r
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Post by Swth\r »

GreekGeek2 wrote:Okay, what was the use of that quote?
Sorry, I quoted myself by mistake... :oops: :oops:
Last edited by Swth\r on Fri Oct 03, 2008 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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GreekGeek2
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Post by GreekGeek2 »

Ooh okay, I thought maybe you would like to agree with yourself or something :P
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Swth\r
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Post by Swth\r »



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GreekGeek2
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Post by GreekGeek2 »

Okay, πάτε?ας does indeed strike me a little odd as vocative :P
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