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Ancient Greek phonology - Accent

Ancient Greek phonology - Accent: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek phonology - Accent

In Ancient Greek one syllable of a word was normally accented. Unlike Modern Greek, this was a pitch accent; in other words the accented syllable was pronounced at a higher pitch than the other syllables; Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that the interval was approximately that of a fifth in music. In standard polytonic orthography (invented in the Hellenistic age, but not adopted universally until Byzantine times), the acute accent (ὀξεῖα) is used to indicate a simple accented ...

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Ancient Greek phonology, Ancient Greek phonology - Vowels, Ancient Greek phonology - Alphabetic representation of the vowels of Attic, Ancient Greek phonology - Diphthongs, Ancient Greek phonology - Consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - Plosives, Ancient Greek phonology - Other consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - Doubled consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - Syllables, Ancient Greek phonology - Accent, Ancient Greek phonology - Types of arguments and evidence used in reconstruction, Ancient Greek phonology - Internal evidence, Ancient Greek phonology - External evidence, Ancient Greek phonology - History of the reconstruction of ancient pronunciation, Ancient Greek phonology - The renaissance, Ancient Greek phonology - The nineteenth century, Ancient Greek phonology - More recent developments, Ancient Greek phonology - Bibliography

Ancient Greek phonology, Ancient Greek phonology - Accent, Ancient Greek phonology - Alphabetic representation of the vowels of Attic, Ancient Greek phonology - Bibliography, Ancient Greek phonology - Consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - Diphthongs, Ancient Greek phonology - Doubled consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - External evidence, Ancient Greek phonology - History of the reconstruction of ancient pronunciation, Ancient Greek phonology - Internal evidence, Ancient Greek phonology - More recent developments, Ancient Greek phonology - Other consonants, Ancient Greek phonology - Plosives, Ancient Greek phonology - Syllables, Ancient Greek phonology - The nineteenth century, Ancient Greek phonology - The renaissance, Ancient Greek phonology - Types of arguments and evidence used in reconstruction, Ancient Greek phonology - Vowels, Greek language, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching

Ancient Greek phonology: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek phonology - Accent

Ancient Greek phonology - Accent

In Ancient Greek one syllable of a word was normally accented. Unlike Modern Greek, this was a pitch accent; in other words the accented syllable was pronounced at a higher pitch than the other syllables; Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that the interval was approximately that of a fifth in music. In standard polytonic orthography (invented in the Hellenistic age, but not adopted universally until Byzantine times), the acute accent (ὀξεῖα) is used to indicate a simple accented syllable. In long vowels and diphthongs the accent could fall on either half (or mora) of the syllable, if it fell on the first mora, so that the syllable had a high tone followed by a low tone, it is indicated in polytonic orthgraphy by the circumflex (περισπομένη): e.g. /ée/ = ῆ ~ /eé/ = ή.

The accent can fall only on one of the last three syllables of a word, and if the last syllable contains a long vowel, it can fall only on one of the last two syllables. (Hence the circumflex can only fall on the last two syllables.) An acute accent on a final syllable (except before a pause or an enclitic word) is regularly replaced in the orthography by a grave accent (βαρεῖα): this may indicate a lowering of tone, but the evidence from ancient authors is unclear on this point.

If the penultimate syllable is accented, it normally has the circumflex if it contains a long vowel or diphthong and the last syllable contains a short vowel, otherwise it has the acute. An accented final syllable can have either the acute (or grave) or the circumflex.

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15th century, 5th century BC, Ζ, Θ, Υ, Φ, [ŋ], Aelius Herodianus, Aldus Manutius, Ancient Greek, Antonio of Lebrixa, Armenian, Attic Greek, Attic dialect, Byzantine, Cyrillic, Dionysius Thrax, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Doric, Erasmus, Etruscan, Gemination, Girolamo Aleandro, Gothic, Greek dialects, Greek language, Hellenistic, Indo-European, Jerome Aleander, Johann Reuchlin, Koine Greek, Modern Greek, Philipp Melanchthon, Phoenician alphabet, Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching, Zeta (letter), ablaut, acute accent, affricate, allophone, bilabial, circumflex, close central rounded, close front rounded, closing diphthongs, codal position, digamma, enclitic, fifth, fricatives, grave accent, h, heavy and light syllables, historical linguistics, hypercorrection, l, labio-dental, m, modern Greek, mora, n, phonology, pitch accent, plosive, polytonic orthography, pronunciation, r, s, sibilant, sigma (Σ, σ, ς), spiritus asper, spiritus lenis, subscript, voiced, w, z, Η, ζ, η, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ρ, ς, ψ

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Accent", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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