Are there any easy rules to remember all the rules of accenting ancient greek? Or how do you remember all the rules for accents?
Thanks
TxGreekMann
Hey Tex,
I find the easiest way to remember is through experience. I type out or write by hand entire chapters of just Greek, for example. But once you get a handle on it, it feels very intuitive and easy.
Some basic rules:
A word-final acute accent becomes grave when followed by another word (that is not enclitic).
α?τός
but
α?τὸς καί
yet
αὺτός τε
An accent can only occur on the last, second-to-last, or third-to-last syllable of a word.
Some others here can probably synthesize the rest of the rules more concisely than I.
I think it will become easier with reading experience, as L. says. It is a more pressing matter if you want to compose right away. I found it intimidating to just try to memorize the rules, however, and I think it will make more sense if you learn some of the basic terms, and then use the rules in Smyth’s Grammar to try to explain to yourself the accents in a few sentences of real Greek.
Some general things to keep in mind:
The accent can only fall on one of the last three syllables of a word. The last syllable is called the ultima, the next to last the penult, and the one before that the antepenult (Smyth section 139).
The acute accent can stand on all three positions. The circumflex can stand only on the ultima or penult, and only over vowels long by nature and diphthongs. The grave on the ultima only. On which position a word is accented will depend on the word itself (you have to learn as you go, checking a dictionary), but the type of accent can be determined by the rules in sections 163-170, depending on the vowel lengths in each position.
The accent on verbs is said to be recessive, that is, the accent is pushed back in the word as far as the rules will permit (no farther than the antepenult, of course).
When followed by another word in the sentence, an acute accent on the ultima will change to a grave accent.
Some other resources to look at:
William Harris on Greek accents
Chad’s notes on freewebs, forward-slash “mhninaeide” forward-slash “pharrnotes.pdf”, see the first few pages (for some reason I wasn’t allowed to link to it).
There is also a highly recommended book by Probert on accenting, with examples, but I haven’t used it myself.
Well, I’ve been working on this actually; to compress rules and perhaps create an easy jingle to remember. This is as short as I can make it for the antepenultimate and the penultimate:
Antepenultimate: It can only receive an acute accent if the ultima is short. (No other accent)
Penultimate: (On a long vowel) It receives the circumflex if the ultima is short. Otherwise it can only receive the acute.
No jingle yet, but the sentences are short to remember and I structured the sentences to emphasize the word short so you don’t read short … long … short … long and get confused when recalling the rules. As always in language learning, there are probably a few exceptions to the rules.
There aren’t really any rules worth remembering for the ultima -other than the grave accent rule- and I think you have to remember the other accents on a case by case basis.
If you feel more adventurous, I recommend Chandler’s book: “A practical introduction to Greek accentuation.” It’s free on google books. I quite enjoyed his preface. Probert’s update to Postgate’s book is probably preferable though. Note: Probert has another more scholarly book on accentuation: “Ancient Greek Accentuation: Synchronic Patterns, Frequency Effects, and Prehistory.” You can tell the difference between her two books by the price.