Reasoning: Polytonic Greek for Android?

So I finally joined the 21st century at the end of the summer and got a smartphone.  I've always had trouble with Apple products so I got an android. However it doesn't have polytonic Greek support (no polytonic Greek input and can't render some polytonic Greek files although apps like Greek Reference work). Anyone have a solution that doesn't require me to root the phone?

Appetitive/Reasoning: Plato's Manuscripts

This picture is page 1r (screen 11) from Gallica Bibliothèque Numérique

Recently, I was wondering what the Platonic manuscript tradition looked like. I had never really thought about it before-- mostly I've considered manuscript traditions for plays or poems. I did a quick browse around the web and I found this amazing website that has a copy of Parisinus gr. 1807 (A). I haven't really even gotten a chance to look at it, but I thought I would put it up for anyone to browse. You can even download a PDF! How cool is that?

Reasoning/Spirited: Updates on Classical Greek Accent Rules

Before I took Greek Prose Composition, I had a really difficult time understanding the rules of Greek accentuation. I wrote up this post originally using Eleanor Dickey's unpublished Greek Prose Composition because I found it to be a really useful guide. Doing some more review this summer, I found that there were a bunch of irregularities that I didn't account for in the original so I am adding them in now. Most of these additions come from Hansen and Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course. There may still be mistakes or obscure portions in here, so comment or email me if you notice anything that is incorrect or confusing.

As a side note, if anyone can teach me how to do a unicode breve above a vowel it would be much appreciated.

Vowel Quantities:

• ε and ο are always short
• η and ω are always long
• α, ι, υ can be long or short
• ει, υι, αυ, ευ, ου, ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ are always long. 
• αι and οι can be long or short depending upon circumstance.[1] They are long when:
• They are not at the end of a word
• When they end a verb in the optative
• When they end locative adverbs (e.g. οἴκοι)
• In some interjections (e.g. αἰαῖ)

Accent Types:

• There are three types of accents: acute (´), grave (`), and circumflex (^/~)
• The acute accent (´) can appear over any of the last three syllables (antepenult, penult, and ultima).
• If the last syllable is short, the acute vowel may stand on the antipenult, irrespective of the vowel quantity of the penult (the sort of exception to this rule is contract verbs. See verbs).
• If the last vowel is long, the acute accent must sit on the penult or the ultima. The one exception to this rule is in cases where the ultima is long by quantitative metathesis-- i.e. the quantities of the two final vowels are switched-- some nouns retain the accute accent on the antepenult even though the manifested form has a long ultima).
• The grave (`) accent may only appear on the ultima
• It may appear over long or short vowels
• It may only appear when it replaces an acute accent when another word follows without pause unless the following words is an enclitic.
• The circumflex accent (^) may only appear over the penult and the ultima
• It can only stand over a long vowel
• It must appear over a long penult when the ultima is short
• It may not appear over over a long penult when the ultima is long

Verbs:

• Most finite verbs have recessive accents (they go as close to the beginning of the word as possible). However, most non-finite forms have persistent accents.
• Recessive accents generally appear over the antepenult or penult unless there is a contraction.
• In the optative, αι and οι are long at the end of a word. However, αι and οι are short when they are the final letters in other verb forms.[2]
• Contract Verbs (and other contract words) have accents that reflect the uncontracted form of the words
• If the accented syllable is not the one that contracts, there is no effect on the accent.
• If the accented vowel is the first of the two vowels that contract, the resulting vowel will have a circumflex
• If the accented vowel  is the second vowel in the contracted pair, it will have an acute accent. 
• The example of παιδευσαι: παίδευσαι 2nd person singular aorist middle imperative (αι is short), παιδεύσαι 2nd person singular aorist active optative (αι is long), παιδεῦσαι aorist active infinitive (accent is persistent).

Nouns (and adjectives when noted):

• Except where noted, nouns and adjectives have persistent accent
• Nouns take their persistent accent from the nominative singular form. Third declension nouns have special accent paradigms that somewhat alter this.
• Adjectives take their persistent accent from the neuter nominative singular form.
• If the ultima is accented, circumflexes tend to appear in the oblique cases (genitive and dative) while acute accents tend to appear in nominative, vocative, and accusative. e.g. ἀγοράς is accusative while αγορᾶς is genitive.
• First Declension Nouns
• Feminine first declension nouns ending in α have a short α except when the α is preceded by ε, ι, or ρ, in which case the ᾱ is long (with a few exceptions)
• NOTE: feminine first declension nouns with a short α ending have recessive accents except on the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex.
• Genitive and accusative plural ᾱς (α is long)
• For masculine first declension nouns ending in ᾱς, the α is long.
• All nouns of the first declension have the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex, irrespective of accentuation rules. This is not true of first declension adjectives
• First and Second Declension Nouns and Adjectives
• If the basic accent is on the ultima, it is an acute in the nominative, vocative, and accusative, but a circumflex in the genitive and dative of both singular and plural in all genders
• Third Declension
• Third declension nouns ending in α, the α is always short
• Third-declension neuter nouns ending in -ς (e.g. γένος) have recessive accent, except on the gentitive plural, which takes a circumflex: -ῶν.
• Monosyllabic nouns of the third declension accent the stem of the nominative, vocative, and accusative, but accent the ultima of the ending of genitive and dative. Generally, the genitive plural takes a circumflex.
•  Although γυνή, γυνικός is not a monosyllabic noun, it is accented like one.
• τίς, τί the interrogative pronoun/adjective is monosyllabic (and essentially third declension), but the accent always stays on the first syllable (rather than switching to the ultima in genitive and dative).
• Words of the πόλις-type have accent that stays on the same syllables throughout the paradigm, irrespective of the rules of accent. This is because of quantitative metathesis.
• βασιλεύς-type and some other words have paradigm-specific rules.
• In the βασιλεύς-type, the nominative, dative, and vocative singular have accents on the ultima; dative and vocative have circumflexes. In the plural, the nominative/vocative and dative have circumflexes (in the nominative/vocative on the ultima and int he dative on the penult), while the genitive and accusative both have acute accents on the penult.

Enclitics: (e.g. τις, τε, ποτέ, ἐστί)

• enclitics have no accent of their own and follow accented words, whose accents they affect
• If the accent of the preceding word is on the ultima and it is acute and the word is followed by an enclitic, it does not change to grave.
• If the preceding word word has an accent on the penult:
• If the accent is acute
• and the enclitic is a single syllable, the enclitic takes no accent
• and the enclitic is more than on syllable, the enclitic takes an accent on its ultima (either acute or circumflex depending upon the length of its final vowel)
• If the accent is a circumflex
• there is no change to the preceding word irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic and the enclitic takes no accent
• If the preceding word has an accent on the antepenult, it adds a second acute accent on its own ultima, irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic.
• If several enclitics appear in succession, each one takes an accent on its penult, except for the last in the series.
• If some disyllabic enclitics are placed at the beginning of a clause or a sentence, they take a grave accent on the final syllable (or an acute accent if they are followed by a pause). 
• ἐστί, at the beginning of a sentence, is not an enclitic and it takes an acute accent on the penult: ἔστι
• If an enclitic follows an elided syllable (of a wierd either enclitic or not), it receives an accent.

Proclitics: (e.g. ἐκ, οὐ, εἰ, ὡς)

• Proclitics have no accents of their own and are accentually joined to the following word.
• If followed by an accented word, they cause no change
• If followed by an enclitic, they take an acute accent (from the enclitic)

Addendum: Fun Facts from Class:

• Greek words for the positions of acute accents: ὀξύς (sharp, pointed, quick, swift) τόνος (musical note) the idea being that the accent gives a rise in pitch (musical tone) to the vowel.
• ὀξύτονον-- acute accent on the ultima
• παροξύτονον-- acute accent on the penult
• προπαροξύτονον-- acute accent on the antepenult
• Greek words for the positions of circumflex accents: περι (around) σπώμενον (from "I drag") the idea being that the musical pitch is dragged back to its origin by the accent
• περισπώμενον-- circumflex on the ultima
• παραπερισπώμενον-- circumflex on the penult

Endnotes

1. In this section I am referring to the fact that they are long or short for the purposes of accentuation. In terms of meter, αι and οι are almost always long (although και can be long or short depending upon what is necessary for the metrical pattern).
2. This may not be the case if you are reading a text with iota addscripts instead of iota subscripts, in which case ᾳ, which is long, can be written as αι.

Reasoning: Grad School Reading List

So I've been (slowly) doing a little work on my reading list for grad school. However, I'm realizing I don't actually have any idea how to find the best commentaries on specific texts (either grammatical, historical, or literary). I thought I'd put up just a few of the titles in case anyone has any ideas.

Greek

• Aeschylus' Choephoroe
• Aristophanes' Frogs, Lysistrata
• Euripides' Trojan Women
• Isocrates' Panegyricus, Helen
• Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, Book II

Latin

• St. Augustine's Confessions, Book VIII
• Lucretius' Books I and V
• Quintilian's Book X
• Suetonius' Augustus

Reasoning: Learn Ancient Greek Online

A professor at the University of Missouri Kansas city has created a resource for teaching ancient Greek online. I found the resource posted at AWOL. Enjoy! 

Things I Didn't Know: Tenses in Latin (Reasoning)

Since I haven't been able to post much, I thought I would post a few short notes now and again about things I encounter in my study of classics that I didn't know before. I encountered a few doing my Latin Prose Composition homework.

Bradley's Arnold: 180 [1]: dum (while) always takes an historical present when it denotes the time within which something occurs. I'm not sure if this was something I just missed or if it actually wasn't in my Latin textbook, but this was news to me. Amusingly enough, I bought this textbook used and the person who had the textbook before me circled this as well.

181: The Latin perfect cannot express the equivalent of the English "I have been doing"," so the Romans used the present plus an adverb connoting the idea of the past for the same effect. Teh adverbs are iampridem, iamdiu, and iamdudum. This definitely did not show up in my Latin textbook, but i also can't think of a situation when I've run across it "in the wild" so I guess I can't really blame Moreland and Fleischer for the oversight.

Notes:

1. Bradley's Arnold references are by paragraph number, not by page.

Spirited/Reasoning: Verbs

I haven't been getting much of my Greek and Latin review done lately. In fact, I haven't been getting much of anything at all done. However, I decided to finish up inputting all of the verbs from Hansen and Quinn into my list of verbs. At the moment I have the approximately 100 verbs from there as well as around 50 verbs from Eleanor Dickey's unpublished prose composition manual. More to come.

Spirited/Reasoning: Stagecraft in Aeschylus

Usually when I read Greek drama, I don't consider the actual theatrical performance of the plays. Instead, I think about the language and the themes. The first time the actual staging became important to me was when I was assigned large portions of Oliver Taplin's The Stagecraft of Aeschylus in my Agamemnon class at my alma mater. Taplin explains the importance of the entrances and exits of the characters and the staging.

Recently, in the Garvie commentary which I have been raving about of late, the staging has come to my attention. Garvie explores a lot of the controversial aspects of the staging of the Persians in his introduction. I ended up dealing with this specifically in my presentation today in my Persians class. Taplin (and Garvie citing Taplin) discuss the difference between the two entrances of Atossa. At the first entrance, the chorus greets the queen with a full body prostration and the queen arrives decked out in rich clothing and she presumably arrives in a chariot. In the second entrance, she arrives on foot, possibly dressed in black, and carrying a set of libations. Her change in attire demonstrates the change in fate of the empire.

The presentation went reasonably well, thanks to some help from Propertius II with regards to the meter. Now back to more Lysias (of which I have completed two pages today and am hoping to read two more tonight).

Reasoning: Truth Behind the Song

So there was an interesting piece on Got Medieval about "Ring Around the Rosie." I thought it was pretty interesting that the supposed origin of the song was not in fact the plague, as I was always told.

Reasoning: The Development of Writing

There was a great five-part (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) show on the the development of written language on In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. I found the first two episodes quite fascinating. Melvyn Bragg discusses everything from the technology of writing to the development of literature in the whole series. The first two episodes focus on writing's early evolution from an accounting system into an alphabetic system and then the development from clay to paper.

For some reason only the first two episodes downloaded into my iTunes from the In Our Time podcast, but the rest of them might be heard on the website. Enjoy!

Reasoning: Gone Antiphoning!

 

I have generally gone dark at the moment because I started the term off really lazily and I am now rather behind (although I should be almost caught up after this weekend, I hope). One of the things that I am assigned for Monday is reading Antiphon 1 and 3 in Greek. I hear the Antiphon's tetrologies (mock trials) are really hard (and so I am not looking forward to Antiphon 3) but I am so greatly enjoying Antiphon 1. It helps that we were assigned a wonderfully helpful commentary by Michael Gagarin.

Also, if you enjoy poisoning in the ancient world as much as I do (and really weird gender politics), I am sure the work is also good in English, although I don't know for sure.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Reasoning: Tools for Vergil

First, because I'm posting today, I thought I would post an article about SOPA explaining not the problems but rather that it is based on a false premise. Wikipedia and Amazon as well as AWOL have links to information.

Second, I found this amazing resource. Let me preface this with the fact that no matter how easily I can read Latin prose, Vergil still just makes me hate life. I am not sure why, but every time I look at a line of Vergil all of my Latin seems to disintegrate underneath me. This class I am taking is supposed to be easy, but it just depresses me. I am spending the next two days doing massive amounts of Vergil to catch up and I have a quiz on Monday. The commentary by R.G. Austin is good, but sometimes either provides help that is too ambiguous or focuses more on the inter-textual references than something useful. So I found a resource provided by the University of Pennsylvania. Obviously this resource is a bit dangerous in that it gives a lot of information. However, studying for a quiz when I can't ask questions of someone else, it might provide some guidance. Enjoy with caution.

Reasoning: Lectures on Vergil

I am taking a class on Aeneid Book II because I am trying to like the Aeneid. I know this may sound like a strange statement, but I hated the Aeneid when I read the Mandlebaum translation in my first year of college and I continued to take it when we read Book VIII in my second year Latin class. One of the things that I meant to do over winter break was to read the Aeneid in its entirety (using the Fagles translation translation) and listen to the Standford lectures by Susanna Braund (see iTunes U) on the Aeneid. Needless to say, I didn't get around to it.

Since I've been going back over the first 100+ lines we had to translate, I decided I would listen to the lecture while I transferred my notes. It was quite enjoyable, with the exception of a few stupid comments by the students. Each lecture (after the introduction) is about 2 hours and discusses 3 books of the Aeneid. She uses the Fitzgerald translation, but any translation should do.

I've enjoyed the first two lectures and I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

Reasoning/Spirited: Gone Philosophizing

 

This weekend I'm working on a paper I am supposed to give on Tuesday. Although I outlined it over a week ago, I am still far behind the gun. It is on Plato's views on emotion in the context of the Athenian courtroom. While I was reading, I happened upon this (long) quotation in an essay by Josiah Ober and Barry Strauss [1] and it opened up a whole slew of thoughts unrelated to present topic:

"Demosthenes sets about proving this by point out that in the course of his speech Aiskhines quoted from Euripides' Phoinix, which he had never performed onstage himself. Yet Aiskhines never quoted from Sophocles' Antigone which he had acted many times. So, 'Oh Aiskhines, are you not a sophist...are you not a logographer...since you hunted up [zētēsas] a verse which you never spoke onstage to use to trick the citizens' (19.250)

The argument that underlies Demosthenes' comment says a good deal about Athenian attitudes toward elite useof literary culture. According to Demosthenes, Aiskhines is a sophist because he "hunts up" quotes for a play with which he had no reason to be familiar in order to strengthen his argument. Clearly the average Athenain would not be in a position to search out quotes when he wanted them; if the ordintary citizen ever wanted toquote poetry, he would rely on verses that he had memorized, and his opportunity to memorize tragic poetry was limited" (Ober & Strauss 251).

Although this seems obvious, it had never occurred to me that access to tragic texts might have been limited for much of the Athenian populace. In Book III of the Republic, Plato discusses a number of different passages of poetry. All of them come from the Iliad or the Odyssey and not a single one from tragedy, although the critique here extends explicitly to tragic drama. The choice of those specific passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey is an interesting topic, and one I explore thoroughly in my thesis. However, it had always baffled me  that not a single line of the tragic poets appeared in the text. The quotation above illuminates this question.

It also makes the character of Socrates more believable. Although it seems likely that Plato would have had the ability to seek out (ζητεῖν) quotation from tragedy, Socrates [2] was engaging in conversation and would have to rely on his memory in order to quote. Furthermore, Plato's Socrates is not particularly wealthy (although he has countless wealthy friends and associates) and spends most of his time walking or in conversation, not reading, writing, or researching. As such, he might not even have access to texts of plays and would have to rely on quotations from common knowledge. Thus, the omission of tragic quotation makes the character more believable, even as it renders the critique of tragedy a bit lopsided.

Endnotes

1. Ober, Josiah and Barry Strauss. "Drama, Political Rhetoric, and the Discourse of Athenian Democracy," Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context ed. John J. Winkler & Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp. 237-270.
2. Whenever I say Socrates, I mean Plato's character and not the historical Socrates.

Reasoning: Introducing Classical Greek Principal Parts

No where that I have found is there a definitive list of principal parts in Greek. Many textbooks, including Ἀθηναζε the textbook from which I learned Greek, does not have a full list of principal parts and expects students to intuit some of principle parts. While there are paradigms for certain types of verbs, even when completing these paradigms a student (like myself) sometimes runs into trouble. For that reason, I thought I would make my own list. I am planning on starting a page on my blog that will work as a list of principle parts. I will put it up in the next few days, although it will probably be under major construction for quite a while.

The page, now up on the website (see left-hand column) looks something like the following:

Please note: I am a student of Greek myself and do not have an authoritative view of Greek at all. If I am wrong, which is certainly possible (especially factoring in typos), please comment with a correction (and if possible a source for the correction) and I will fix it.

My goal is as follows: as I am finish my prose composition class, I am planning on adding the verbs from Eleanor Dickey's unpublished prose composition book (which is what we are using so this will be part of the studying for my final). After that, I will add the verbs from Malcom Campbell's Classical Greek Prose: A Basic Vocabulary, as this is a standard text book for prose composition classes and verbs I should know.

As a key: "---" means that the principal part does not exist for this verb. "-" in front of a form means it is usually paired with a prefix of some sort.

ἀγγέλλω	ἀγγελῶ	ἤγγειλα	ἤγγελκα	ἤγγελμαι	ἠγγέλθην	(to) announce
ἀγείρω	----	ἤγειρα	----	----	----	(to) gather, collect
ἀγω	ἄξω	ἤγαγον	ἦχα	ἦγμαι	ἦχθην	(to)drive, go
ᾄδω	ᾄσομαι	ᾖσα	----	ᾖσμαι	ᾔσθην	(to) sing

 etc...

Works Referenced

Dickey, Eleanor. Greek Prose Composition (draft). Completed at the Columbia University Classics Department, 2003. Unpublished.

Reasoning: JSTOR Thematic Index

For those who have access to JSTOR through a university, this is pretty cool. I discovered in an AWOL post this morning that JSTOR has created a thematic index for classics. This is a little weird because it automatically generates groups of terms and then articles that relate to them, but it's also really interesting.

Two thematic lists I am browsing are:

1. First:  plato, republic, dialogues, socrates, platonic, laws, phaedo, dialogue, timaeus, ideas, phaedrus, parmenides, sophist, aristotle, taylor, philosophy, philebus, philosophical, theaetetus, cratylus, platon, cornford, burnet, doctrine, gorgias, dialectic, critias, method, symposium, passage
2. Second: soul, body, plotinus, plato, matter, intellect, souls, timaeus, universe, evil, divine, doctrine, things, intelligible, principle, bodies, cosmos, power, proclus, demiurge, cause, passage, forms, platonic, nous, sense, idea, rational, myth, immortal

From there, I generated the list of articles to browse one by one.


Enjoy!

Appeitive/Reasoning: The Elusive Oxford "Reds"

I guess I'm really becoming one of those classical geeks.

Ever since I did some of the original reading from David Schaps' Handbook for Classical Research, I have been hunting the local university library for the "Oxford Reds." According to Schaps, "the “Oxford Reds,” a number of works (never officially a series) [were] published by Oxford University Press from the 1930s until the 1980s, offering an introduction and a detailed commentary that were on quite a respectable scholarly level: some of these editions, indeed, became the scholarly standard for decades. The text used was usually that of the OCT, occasionally with minor deviations" (Schaps 110). I am glad to say I finally found one. I need to practice my dactylic hexameter scansion with Virgil, so I checked out what I believe is the "Oxford Red" of Book II of the Aeneid. It has a detailed commentary. Should be fun. I might actually translate some of it.

Reasoning: Latin Review

My Latin is rusty. Reading Sallust is a more arduous process for this reason, although I am really enjoying it. When I started taking Latin a few years ago, I learned from the helpful but rather pompously written Latin: An Intensive Course by Moreland & Fleischer. I recently have been reviewing with this book and found an online answer key, which has proved useful when I check over my answers.

Reasoning/Spirited: Classical Greek Accentuation

I am embarrassed to say how long I have not understood Classical Greek accentuation. I tried. My most recent attempt with Hansen & Quinn was more successful than the previous ones, but I was still confused. Finally, reading over the chapter for Prose Composition tomorrow from Eleanor Dickey's Greek Prose Composition [1] I understand. Here is what I learned:

Vowel Quantities:

• ε and ο are always short
• η and ω are always long
• α, ι, υ can be long or short
• ει, υι, αυ, ευ, ου, ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ are always long. 
• αι and οι are long when:
• They are not at the end of a word
• When they end a verb in the optative
• When they end locative adverbs (e.g. οἴκοι)
• In some interjections (e.g. αἰαῖ)

Accent Types:

• There are three types of accents: acute (´), grave (`), and circumflex (^/~)
• The acute accent (´) can appear over any of the last three syllables (antepenult, penult, and ultima).
• If the last syllable is short, the acute vowel may stand on the antipenult, irrespective of the vowel quantity of the penult (the sort of exception to this rule is contract verbs. See verbs).
• If the last vowel is long, the acute accent must sit on the penult or the ultima.
• The grave (`) accent may only appear on the ultima
• It may appear over long or short vowels
• It may only appear when it replaces an acute accent when another word follows without pause unless the following words is an enclitic.
• The circumflex accent (^) may only appear over the penult and the ultima
• It can only stand over a long vowel
• It must appear over a long penult when the ultima is short
• It may not appear over over a long penult when the ultima is long

Verbs:

• Most verbs have recessive accents (they go as close to the beginning of the word as possible), except infinitives and participles (which have persistent accents).
• Recessive accents always appear over the antepenult or penult.
• In the optative, αι and οι are long at the end of a word
• Contract Verbs (and other contract words) have accents that reflect the uncontracted form of the words
• If the accented syllable is not the one that contracts, there is no effect on the accent.
• If the accented vowel is the first of the two vowels that contract, the resulting vowel will have a circumflex
• If the accented vowel  is the second vowel in the contracted pair, it will have an acute accent. 
• The example of παιδευσαι: παίδευσαι 2nd person singular aorist middle imperative, (αι is short) παιδεύσαι 2nd person singular aorist active optative (αι is long), παιδεῦσαι aorist active infinitive (accent is persistent).

Nouns (and adjectives when noted):

• Except where noted, nouns and adjectives have persistent accent
• If the final syllable is accented, circumflexes tend to appear in the oblique cases (genitive and dative) while acute accents tend to appear in nominative, vocative, and accusative. e.g. ἀγοράς is accusative while αγορᾶς is genitive.
• First Declension Nouns
• Feminine first declension nouns ending in α have a short α except when the α is preceded by ε, ι, or ρ, in which case the ᾱ is long (with a few exceptions)
• NOTE: feminine first declension nouns with a short α ending have recessive accents except on the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex.
• Genitive and accusative plural ᾱς (α is long)
• For masculine first declension nouns ending in ᾱς, the α is long.
• All nouns of the first declension have the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex, irrespective of accentuation rules. This is not true of first declension adjectives
• First and Second Declension Nouns and Adjectives
• If the basic accent is on the ultima, it is an acute in the nominative, vocative, and accusative, but a circumflex in the genitive and dative of both singular and plural in all genders
• Third Declension
• Third declension nouns ending in α, the α is alwazs short
• Third-declension neuter nouns ending in -ς (e.g. γένος) have recessive accents .
• Monosyllabic nouns of the third declension accent the stem of the nominative, vocative, and accusative and the ending of genitive and dative.
• Words of the πόλις-type have accent that stays on the same syllables throughout the paradigm, irrespective of the rules of accent.
• βασιλεύς-type and some other words have paradigm-specific rules.

Enclitics: (e.g. τις, τε, ποτέ, ἐστί)

• enclitics have no accent of their own and follow accented words, whose accents they affect
• If the accent is on the ultima and it is acute and the word is followed by an enclitic, it does not change to grave.
• If the main word has an accent on the penult:
• If the accent is acute
• If the enclitic is a single syllable, it takes no accent.
• If the enclitic is more than on syllable, it takes an accent on its ultima (either acute or circumflex)
• If the accent is a circumflex
• There is no change irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic
• If the main word has an accent on the antepenult, it adds a second accent on its own ultima.
• If several enclitics appear in succession, each one takes an accent on its penult, except for the last in the series.

Proclitics: (e.g. ἐκ, οὐ, εἰ, ὡς)

• Proclitics have no accents of their own and are accentual joined to the following word.
• If followed by an accented word, they cause no change
• If followed by an enclitic, they take an acute accent (from the enclitic)

Addendum: Fun Facts from Class:

• Greek words for the positions of acute accents: ὀξύς (sharp, pointed, quick, swift) τόνος (musical note) the idea being that the accent gives a rise in pitch (musical tone) to the vowel.
• ὀξύτονον-- acute accent on the ultima
• παροξύτονον-- acute accent on the penult
• προπαροξύτονον-- acute accent on the antepenult
• Greek words for the positions of circumflex accents: περι (around) σπώμενον (from "I drag") the idea being that the musical pitch is dragged back to its origin by the accent
• περισπώμενον-- circumflex on the ultima
• παραπερισπώμενον-- circumflex on the penult

 

Endnotes

1. This is not a published book. It is a manuscript Dickey put out in 2003. I am here reorganizing and summarizing what she says, re-explaining some of the concepts myself, and adding a couple of pieces from Hansen & Quinn and from my class today. If I make any mistakes (which I very well might) comment with corrections.

Reasoning: Ancient Greek Paradigms, Part 2

Actual Size

I highlighted a site the other day that showed Greek paradigms. Although this site is really great, some of it is a bit confusing in the way in which it is presented. Recently, Herodotus II recommended to Properitus II the Greek Paradigm Handbook, and he recommended it to me.

So far, I think it's fabulous. It does not have every single thing in it--e.g. it does not have have third person pronouns-- but overall it encompasses most of the paradigms I will need and it's a neat little book that is small, light, and can be carried easily.

As a point of interest, it was created by three St. John's alumni, and it's pretty cool that they put it together.