In Unit 4 of Mastronarde, he says, “the entry νῑ’κε lets you know that the nominative plural will be νῖκαι.” However, the dictionary listing is νῑ’κε, νίκης, without the macron on the genitive singular. Should I assume that the iota is long in all declined forms, including the genitive singular? I am struggling a bit with the concept that listings do not use macrons when you should be able to figure it out on your own from how the word is accented.
(Sorry, I cannot get the accent directly over the ῑ using the “Ancient Greek (to 1453)” keyboard.)
The nom. sing. is νίκη (not νικε), and yes, iota is long in all cases.
IIRC, Mastronarde marks vowel lengths only in the nominative – check out e.g. τιμή in the same vocabulary list in Unit 4.
I should add that it’s good to get into the habit of always checking the length of α, ι and υ in LSJ when you learn new words. These are fairly consistently marked in that dictionary, except of course when they’re followed by two consonants. If you can’t find a length in LSJ, another good source to check is Bailly.
Both these dictionaries are available here:
Thank you! This is very helpful.