Could someone please explain if there is a simple rule which would have enabled me to work out that the second person imperative of διώκω is δίωκε.
Thanks
It’s a standard recessive accent - the last vowel is short, so the accent goes back to the antepenult
Verb accents go back, noun accents stay in place, more or less.
Chandler only needs three and a half pages in his little book for the exceptions to this otherwise general festival of retrahence among Greek verbs. (Greek Accentuation 36-39.) Basically nothing. Note especially the 2nd aorist active imperative, which will here be διωκαθοῦ, 2nd pers. aor. imp.
Just a quick clarification to what Joel rightly said - this recessive accent business applies to finite verb forms. Infinitives and participles are unfortunately a different matter.
Just remember the end of the Clouds when they’re attacking Socrates’ phrontisterion: δίωκε, βάλλε, παῖε!
Thank you for your replies.
Is this correct:
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In διώκω, the acute accent falls on the penultimate, because a) the acute can only fall on of the the last two syllables if the final syllable is long and b) as the accent is recessive it will fall as far from the end of the word as possible, ie the penultimate.
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In δίωκε, the final syllable is short so the acute accent can move to the antepenultimate because the restriction in 1.(a) is removed.
The context of this post is that in Reading Greek Exercise 1E-F 5.2 asks students to translate Chase! (s.).
Yes, that’s right.
Just bear in mind that syllable length for the purposes of accentuation is not the same as for poetic metre. For accentuation, it is only vowel length that counts - the number of consonants after the vowel is irrelevant.
Short: α ε ι ο υ
Long: ᾱ η ῑ ω ῡ and all diphthongs/digraphs.
However, the diphthongs αι and οι count as short if they are the last two letters in the word (i.e. if followed by a consonant they are long - so in the noun form δοῦλοι the last syllable is short, but in δούλοις it’s long, hence the different accent on the first syllable).
ANNOYINGLY, however, if the form is optative, the αι and οι endings are long.
I think that is it, and hopefully I haven’t made any errors. The whole topic is tiresomely complicated if you ask me!
Thank you. That seems correct to me.
When I was an undergraduate I started my formal studies with a very sketchy understanding of accentuation and never caught up, there was always too much other material to cover.
I also have to explain to my students the imperative of βαίνω.
βαίν-ω βαίν- εις βαίν- ει βαίν- ομεν βαίν- ετε βαίν- ουσι(ν)
Here αι is long for accentuation purposes (as it is not at the end of the word). The verb forms here are recessive. The acute falls on the penultimate in the singular because the final syllable is long and the verb is recessive. In the plural it falls on the antepenultimate because the final syllable is short and the verb is recessive.
I will explain βαῖν-ε as an example of the “σωτῆρα rule” as described by Probert “If the final syllable contains a short vowel and the penultimate syllable contains a long accented vowel, the accent on that vowel must be a circumflex.”
Is this clear enough?
I think this is a lot for beginners who are struggling to understand the text to cope with but I don’t want them to start off as ill-equipped as I was (and remain!).
It seems like a clear and useful example to me. And I agree that it’s much better to teach accentuation from the beginning - I’d expect students to make a lot of mistakes, but an understanding of the principles will save them a lot of pain and frustration later on (I speak from personal experience, as I was pretty much told not to worry about the accents when first learning Greek).
Yes that seems clear enough (and better than your previous), however dauntingly formulated. More examples should make it clear, and you’ll have explained what “recessive” means. It’s not a word in everyone’s active vocabulary.
Of course, that σωτῆρα rule of Probert’s doesn’t say why the accent comes on that syllabie at all. Hopefully your students will not ask that.
Thanks MattK and Michael
Matt your experience parallels my own. I was told to ignore the accents which is a terrible idea. I tried going through Probert a while back but couldn’t find the motivation. Having students is a great motivator and I will try again.
Michael yes my first example was more of a note to myself. Yesterday I explained some of the principles but I could see eyes glazing over. Anyway they have been told what recessive means. I doubt they will ask why the accent occurs where it does on σωτῆρα as I will only use it as the name of the “rule” in place of “final trochee rule” which she disapproves.
Ιs your question why is it σωτήρ rather than *σώτηρ. I would be interested in the answer. Or did you mean something else?
Well no I wasn’t actually asking a question. And I’m not sure I could explain why agent nouns in -τήρ are accented so (though I could try).
Good luck with your students. δίωκε βάλλε παῖε
Thanks. Thats such a great line and really useful material to illustrate this.
This has all put a smile on my face for which much thanks.
This clarification applies to Probert (I assume), but isn’t general.
The rule itself is ancient, and dates back to Herodian at least (beyond, I’m sure). πάντα τὰ ῥήματα ἀποστρέφονται τὴν ὀξεῖαν τάσιν, says Choeroboscus.
Both infinitives and participles are considered verbs under the rule by Chandler. His exception list (from his Elements book) mentioned in the post depends on this. His larger book, still the bible on the subject, also makes the same assumption.
Choeroboscus, though Chandler does not discuss this, includes infinitives but not participles in τὰ ῥήματα, quoting this rule, and uses this fact to explain how the 2nd future/2nd aorist accents are distinguished for the participles but not the infinitives. (Aside: I thought that Choeroboscus’ application of Aristotle’s δύναμις ἢ ἐνεργεία was fun here. He is extremely interested in showing which verbs are constrained by something like contraction, and so can’t fully demonstrate the rule.)
δίωκε βάλλε παῖε
Aristophanes has metrified an apparently real rhythmic stoning chant. Xenophon records it in the attack on the merchants in the Anabasis. Aristophanes adds διωκε to metrify the line. Elsewhere, otherwise.
βάλλε, βάλλε, βάλλε, βάλλε,
παῖε, παῖε τὸν μιαρόν.
οὐ βαλεῖς; οὐ βαλεῖς;
But Xenophon’s, apparently real version, was:
Παῖε παῖε, βάλλε βάλλε
Unlike all other aspects of the language, however, I’m not sure that memorizing Greek meter is any help for accent learning. In fact, the opposite. This verse, for example, scans διωκε βαλλε παιε, and hopefully the students cement that pattern on their tongues and in their ears early on. But I would think that διωκε is going to draw a forgetful student towards the incorrect διῶκε. Similarly, this is why modern Greeks tend to have such trouble with the ancient meter in the other direction.
For an easy demonstration of how meter can destroy pitch, you can search for a video of the Japanese at a soccer game rhythmically chanting Nippon Nippon, following quantity. However, the pitch accent in Nippon goes exactly opposite. Nippon.
Is there anything in Greek where the accent does correspond with some noticeable text element that could help memory? Line end in Babrius is all that I know of (though maybe it’s better said to “anti-correspond”, depending on whether you consider the ictus to fall on this syllable or the final). But it would be nice to have some others. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is something in Medieval Greek.
On a practical level it’s also useful for students to get familiar with the accentuation of 2nd aorist infinitives and participles, βαλεῖν, βαλών etc. (i.e. not recessive). That helps distinguish βαλεῖν from βάλλειν etc. And to learn that 2nd aorist stems tend to be shorter than present ones, e.g. βαλ- vs. βαλλ- and more obviously λαβ- vs. λαμβαν-. εὑρ- vs. εὑρισκ-, etc. etc.
As to accentual/metrical complementarity that Joel asks about, I ventured some instances in my review of West’s Greek Metre. it can be quite pronounced in some of Aristophanes’ lyrics and a few other places; not in tragedy.
But this thread is threatening to become rather too esoteric!
It’s because participles have persistent accent. So it’s παιδεύων, παιδεύουσα, but παιδεῦον - if the accent were recessive you’d say παίδευον.
In the case of infinitives, it’s because there are so many cases where the accent isn’t recessive. The CGCG says that they “normally have the accent on the same syllable as the base accent of the corresponding active participles” - section 24.20.
But my knowledge on this is very limited - I haven’t read Chandler or Probert, though I have the latter on order.
Chandler uses a slightly different definition, as at 767. It’s a mnemonic rule, not a language rule, after all. Choeroboscus’ use of it is the interesting one, imo.
Chandler is interesting as a guide to the grammarians. Probert is a distillation of the moderns, especially Chandler, although really just a handbook, and gave me, on first reading, more of an impression of a settled and known system than was really justified.
But my own experience is that the only thing that sticks with me is not rules like Chandler/Probert/etc., but (prose) composition practice. When I get something wrong in composition, it tends to stick.
I know plenty of people who get their accents to a level of accuracy much more advanced than mine (ie. bedwere or Rico), and I think that it comes from the listening and verbal practice. On the other hand, to my ear, they often privilege the accent over quantity, and I have trouble imitating them as much as I’d like to while continuing my Attic ictus-stomping ways. But my quantities often push my pitch accent entirely out of my speech, and I don’t yet have a solution. On the other hand, it makes Homer/etc. as much fun as a ballad and Attic drama even better than English blank verse.