Vowel Shortening and Accentuation

Greek Learning Greek
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Χαί?ετε, παντες !

I was musing about the change of the musical accent in Greek under certain conditions.

For example, an accented final syllable, such as in κα?πός, will lose its accent when followed by another word in the same phrase: κα?πὸς καί.

If I understand scansion correctly, a long final vowel will be scanned (and therefore pronounced) short when followed by another vowel: ἄνθ?ωπου ?ν — the ου is short.

Now, a circumflex accent can only occur over a long vowel; there is no other possibility, right? Well, therefore, if we have a phrase like ?ν τοῦ ἀγ?οῦ, since the ου of τοῦ is perforce short, can the accentuation in fact be fully circumflex?

Or something else?

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So if it is Epic correption, what would be scanned in Attic?

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I haven’t the foggiest. The Attic verse I know best, trimeter dialog in drama, avoids hiatus pretty fastidiously.

Hopefully chad or Helma can chime in with more info.

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For the sake of comparison, the Latin paradigm is to elide all final vowels completely with the initial vowel of the proceding word, regardless of length, such that only one syllable and vowel is sounded.

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Doesn’t est get aphaeresis (or ‘prodelision’ if you prefer latinate English)? I seem to recall seeing -st tacked onto words in older Latin books which seemed to represent est.

In Greek only final short vowels may be elided, and not all of them — υ is not, and ι in certain words and paradigms resists elision.

Some later Greek prose authors worried a great deal about elision and would reorganize clauses so that no words except particles or prepositions had elision. Philodemus is probably the most famous devotee of this, and the resulting prose seems to exasperate everyone who studies him.

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Indeed, and I speak Latin just so — but there is also copious inscriptional evidence indicating just the opposite; the obscenity mentules (=mentula es, “you’re a mentula”) found right alongside mentulas. Italian is a perfect analogy since the vowel system is so similar, in particular with regard to elision. T’amo is heard in the same part of town as ti amo.

In Greek only final short vowels may be elided, and not all of them — υ is not, and ι in certain words and paradigms resists elision.

Well, let me be clear about what I mean. I do not mean the full contraction and loss of a vowel, necessarily, but merely the fusion of a final vowel and an initial vowel into one syllable. So let me give an example:

πολὺ ἔλαιον
How many syllables here?

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hi, just a few quick notes:

re. the 1st post, the change of a final acute to a grave isn’t a “loss” of accent. As Devine and Stephens explain it, the difference between an acute and a grave is that:
(a) the syll after an acute is on a lower pitch, whereas
(b) the syll after a grave is on a higher pitch.

so it’s not really a loss, it just signifies a different pitch pattern. for my summary of Devine and Stephens (i tried to simply the rules down into a technique of relative pitches), i can’t link on textkit anymore but:
(a) google “mhninaeide”
(b) add this filename to the end of my free website: GreekPitchModel.pdf

secondly, note you don’t accent *ἄνθ?ωπου (which breaks the law of limitation) but ἀνθ?ώπου. the final diphthong ου is definitely long for accentuation purposes. it’s the final αι and οι diphthongs which are short for accentuation purposes (except in the optative, adverbs like οἴκοι, &c.) it’s worth going through the probert accentuation exercises book once, i found it really helpful.

re. correption, i don’t believe this occurs in attic prose but i’m no expert, this is just based on what i’ve come across so far. i saw nothing on it in Threatte 1980, i think also i checked this in dionysius of hal’s scansion of attic prose (can’t confirm now, i don’t have my classics books here). also, if you’re interested in correption generally, i read an interesting book on correption statistics in homer: there are different frequencies in the dialogue and non-dialogue parts (Kelly 1990: for a quick summary, see my old Iliad A notes, note on line A.299).

one way to follow up this question on whether correption applies in prose would be to find a commentary on dionysius thrax… i remember that he says that ὅτ᾽ ἂν εἰς φωνῆεν μακ?ὸν λήγηι καὶ τὴν ἑξῆς ἔχηι ἀπὸ φωνήεντος ἀ?χομένην, the final syll of such a word is κοινὴ συλλαβή (i.e. it can scan long or short), however he doesn’t specify whether this only applies in homer (he gives a homeric e.g. after this) or in prose as well. a commentary might explain this further, giving e.g.s from elsewhere. i don’t have access to one but if you do, it’d be interesting to find out :slight_smile:

re. your question lucus on “the fusion of a final vowel and an initial vowel into one syllable”, this is called crasis. it doesn’t occur in all cases, you need to check the list relevant to the genre you’re reading:

(a) for attic prose, the best list i have is Threatte 1980 pgs 428 and following, showing how crasis worked in attic public and private texts after 480BC. my free website won’t let me upload my scan of the relevant pages, too big, but if you want i can email it to you,

(b) for attic poetry, see my iambic notes page 41 (my summary of sidgwick GVC),

(c) for sappho, see my sappho notes page 10 (my summary of a german grammar of sappho and alcaeus).

re. your final question, there are 5 sylls.

hope some of this helps, cheers, chad. :slight_smile:

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sent, cheers :slight_smile: