Ancient Greek accent

Mora

The rules of accent are based on the concept of mora. In the context of Ancient Greek accent, a mora is a measurement of vowel length. A short vowel has one mora, and a long vowel has two morae. A diphthong usually counts as a long vowel and has two morae, but at the end of a word the diphthongs αι and οι can sometimes count as one mora. In most noun or verb endings they have one mora, but two morae in the optative and locative. Here are the main categories of vowels, first in Greek, then in IPA, and finally in IPA with each mora written as a separate vowel letter:

Syllables

Only last three syllables in an Ancient Greek word can be accented. The very last syllable is called the ultima, the next-to-last is called the penult, and the third syllable from the end is called antepenult.

Accent diacritics

Standard polytonic orthography was created in the Hellenistic period to represent the pitch accent. There are three accents: acute (´), grave (`), and circumflex accent (῀). These four terms are based on Latin loan-translations of the Greek terms. Latin accentus corresponds to Greek προσῳδία "song sung to instrumental music, pitch variation in voice" (the word from which English prosody comes), acūtus to ὀξεῖα "sharp" or "shrill", gravis to βαρεῖα "heavy" or "deep", and circumflexus to περισπωμένη "pulled around" or "bent". The Greek terms for the accents are nominalized feminine adjectives originally modifying the feminine noun προσῳδία and agreeing with it in gender.

Words for accent placement

Words can be named by where their accent is placed and what type it is:

Pitch contours

In Ancient Greek, one mora in a word was accented. A mora was accented by being pronounced at a higher pitch than other morae. A vowel of one mora could have accent or no accent; a vowel of two morae could have accent on its first mora, last mora, or be unaccented. These possibilities translate to two possible pitch patterns on a one-mora vowel, and three on a two-mora vowel. These pitch patterns are shown below in the International Phonetic Alphabet. High pitch is marked with an acute accent.

1. /ó o/
   /ó(i) o(i)/
2. /ɔ́͜ɔ ɔ͜ɔ́ ɔ͜ɔ/
   /ó͜i o͜í o͜i/

The pitch patterns on a two-mora vowel formed tone contours. A two-mora vowel with high pitch on the first mora had a falling (high–low) pitch pattern, and one with high pitch on the second mora had a rising (low–high) pitch pattern. These are can be represented using the circumflex and caron respectively. The pitch patterns represented by the circumflex and acute on a two-mora vowel can also be transcribed using symbols for tone contours, although this article uses the moraic transcription above:

Acute, grave, and circumflex could be placed on two-mora vowels, whereas only acute and grave could be placed on one-mora vowels. The accent marks are placed on the second vowel letter of a diphthong.

These accent marks corresponded to the variations of pitch listed above. On a one-mora vowel, acute indicates high pitch. On a two-mora vowel, the circumflex indicates high pitch on the first mora and the acute indicates high pitch on the second mora. On either one-mora or two-mora vowels, grave accent indicated normal pitch.

The grave accent represents lower pitch than the acute accent, but more precisely it simply represents lack of high pitch, or normal pitch. In some Ancient Greek texts it was written on all unaccented morae.

The original shape of the circumflex accent came from a combination of the acute and grave accents, although in some fonts the Greek circumflex has the shape of a tilde.

Rules relating to ultima

A further set of rules restricts where the circumflex and acute are placed. Even though the falling and rising tone contours could be pronounced on any long vowel, and the high pitch on any short vowel, they do not appear in all positions in a word. The length of the ultima determines where these accents can be placed on the antepenult and penult. In words with a one-mora vowel in the ultima, one set of rules applies, and another set of rules applies to words with a two-mora vowel in the ultima.

If the ultima is short, accent can be on the last three syllables: the antepenult, penult, or ultima. When the antepenult is accented, it must have an acute whether it is long or short. When the penult is accented, it must have an acute if it is short, but a circumflex if it is long.

If the ultima is long, accent can be on one of the last two syllables: the penult or ultima. The penult must have an acute accent, not a circumflex. When a one-mora vowel in the ultima changes to a two-mora vowel, or an ending adds a syllable, the accent moves forward in the word.

Summary of ultima rule

These rules can be derived from a single rule: the morae between the accented mora and the last mora cannot belong to different syllables. This rule is shown below by placing the IPA transcription of a word in a table. Here the accented mora and the final mora are placed in two different columns, and the middle morae between the two are placed in the column between them. Syllables before the accent are irrelevant to the rule.

Incorrectly accented forms are marked with an asterisk (*). The middle morae between the accented mora and last mora, marked with dagger (†), belong to two different syllables, or there are no middle morae. Both of these conditions cause the accent placement to be incorrect.

Exceptions

There are a few exceptions to the ultima length rule.

Certain nouns have an accent on the antepenult due to quantitative metathesis and other forms may have a similar accent due to analogy. πόλεως has an accent on the antepenult, since it derives from πόληος /pó.lɛ͜ɛ.os/ (a form used in Ionic), in which the ultima is short, and the accent of the genitive plural follows it.

Certain words derive from the combination of a word with an enclitic. The accent remains as it would be if the enclitic were still a separate word.

Rule relating to grave accent

A final rule relates to the grave. An acute at the end of a word was replaced by a grave when another normally accented word followed. The acute accent represents high pitch on the last mora of a two-mora vowel or the only mora of a one-mora vowel, and the grave indicates normal pitch, so the grave accent rule means that high pitch on the last mora of a word was usually lost (changed to ordinary pitch). A final circumflex represents high pitch on the next-to-last mora, so it remains unchanged.

The acute remains unchanged when it comes before an enclitic, a period, a colon, or sometimes a comma. Also, the acutes on τίς, τί "who, what" always remain unchanged.

Recessive accent

In most verbs and compound nouns, accent is recessive, meaning it moves as far back towards the beginning of the word as allowed by the length of the ultima. Thus, verbs of three or more syllables often have an acute accent on the penult or antepenult. Contracted verbs are apparent exceptions — their accent was recessive before contraction took place — and some other true exceptions are enclitic verbs and some second-person singular imperatives.

Nominal accent

Some nouns have recessive accent, others have an accent on the ultima. (There are only a few nouns where the accent is neither of these.) When the noun is changed to the accusative, genitive or dative case or to the plural, the accent usually remains in the same place as it was in the nominative singular, unless the length of the ultima or the addition of another syllable forces it to move. For example:

There are few nouns, however, where the accent moves to the ultima in the genitive and dative, as in the following example:

See Ancient Greek nouns: accent.

The numbers one (εἷς, ἑνός, fem. μία, μιᾶς), two (δύο, δυοῖν), and three (τρεῖς, τριῶν) also follow this shifting accent rule.

Comparison with Latin

Latin accent differed from Greek in several ways. Unlike Ancient Greek, Latin had a stress accent. This is suggested by the fact that the placement of accent in Latin depended on consonants as well as vowels. A rule for accent placement depending not only on vowels, which can carry pitch, but also on consonants, most of which cannot carry pitch, suggests a stress accent.

The placement of Latin accent largely depended on weight or length of the penult. If the penult was heavy, it was accented; if it was light, it was not. A penult qualified as heavy either if it had a long vowel or diphthong or if it ended in a consonant. Thus the Latin rules of accent differed in two ways: accent depends on the penult, not the ultima; and accent depends on syllable weight rather than simply vowel length.

In Greek terms, Latin accent was typically "recessive", meaning that it was usually on the antepenult or penult. There are exceptions in cases of vowel contraction and attachment of an enclitic.