A Rule for the Accentuation of Ancient Greek

A Rule for the Accentuation of Ancient Greek.

Figure 1:  A Greek flag that I coded in SVG.





Figure 2:  What the above image looks like when exported as a PNG file

You may view the code, and the vector image itself, for the above depicted Greek flag at my CodePen account.


Figure 3:  ἡ λύρα Genitive: τῆς λύρᾱς or: hē lúra Genitive: tē̃s lúrās. 1st-declension feminine noun. The lyre. The lyre is very often used to symbolise Ancient Greece.

Nouns are Persistent , whereas Verbs are recessive:

Nouns are Persistent
[1]
:

When it comes to Ancient-Greek accents, the accent wishes to remain upon the syllable ‒ upon which it is found ‒ in the nominative form of the noun as found in a Greek dictionary.

Whether or not that accent can remain upon this syllable will depend upon how many morae will separate this syllable and the end of its morphology[2].  It is another rule of classical Greek that an accent can only occur upon the last-three morae of a noun.  A short syllable is worth one mora, and is held for one metrical beat.  A long syllable is worth two morae, and is held, or sustained for twice as long, i.e. for two metrical beats.  A mora is analogous to a crotchet, or quarter note in Music theory.  A short syllable is held for one crotchet beat, whereas a long syllable is held for two crotchet beats.

Verbs are recessive
[3]
:

Whereas nominal accents possess the tendency to persist, verbal accents possess the opposite tendency, i.e. verbal accents possess the tendency to recede.

Verbal accents possess a tendency to recede to the antepenult, which is the third syllable from the end.

In the Erasmian or Restored-Classical pronunciation of Latin and Greek, the last three syllables are termed:

  • the antepenultima;
  • the penultima;
  • the ultima;

[1].  Etymologically, the adjective, ‘persistent’ means ‘thoroughly standing still.’  The Latin preposition, ‘per’ means ‘thorough;’ and the 3rd-conjugation verb, ‘sistō, sistere, stitī or: stetī, statumstatus’ which means ‘to stand.’  By way of a slight digression, our English noun, ‘status’ comes from a participle form of the verb ‘sistō,’ and this participle form means ‘standing.’  As regards the English noun, ‘status,’ one’s status is his/her social standing.

[2].  A declensional form of a noun, e.g. the nominative form; the genitive form etc.

[3].  Etymologically, the English grammatical adjective, ‘recessive,’ means ‘relating to the going backwards.’  In English, the verb, ‘to recede,’ means ‘to go backwards,’ and the adjectival suffix, ‘-ive,’ means ‘relating to.’  In Latin, the prefix, ‘re-, red-,’ means ‘backwards;’ the 3rd-conjugation verb, &OpenCurlyQuotecēdō, cēdere, cessī, cessum’ means ‘to go,’ and the 1st-and-2nd-declension adjectival ending, ‘-īva, -īvus, -īvum’ means ‘relating to.’

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