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.

Spirited: Back to Basics

I have been going back to basics with my Greek pronunciation. My rolled "r"s are getting better (slowly) and my pitch accents are getting a little better, although I still sound like an idiot. In order to help my understanding of pitch accents, I have been going back over the accentuation rules in Hansen and Quinn and doing the accent drills. Needless to say my accents are rusty, but getting better. Hopefully it will help my Greek prose composition once I go to grad school.

While doing this, I am listening to the Robert Strassler lecture from Marathon 2500, which I missed due to an unfortunate scheduling mishap.

Reasoning/Appetitive: Fragments from the Indo-European Studies Conference #1

One of the things that I noticed about the presenters at the Indo-European conference was their skilled pronunciation of words. Over the course of the conference, only one person mentioned that their pronunication was not perfect (and it only applied to his Sanskrit and not his Greek) and even those people with thick accents pronounced words impeccably. I was most impressed by the speaker who pronounced fabulous Latin although his own speech was layered with a thick Japanese accent.

This ability was one of the things that really impressed me about the eclectic people who spoke and attended such a conference. Gregory Nagy even displayed both Classical and Homeric Greek pronunciation.

This reminded me that although I was working with Vox Graeca, my pronunciation is not getting significantly better. I also realized that I cannot actually roll my r's. I can essentially do a half-trill with it but I cannot sustain that trill and it's not a real rolled r anyway. I decided I needed to learn because proper pronunciation of Greek requires this rolled r. I looked up a couple of tutorials online: wikihow and eHow. Propertius II warned me that it is possible that I might never be able to do it (lame!) but I will keep trying (although at the moment I sound like an idiot). If anyone has some hints, I would love to hear it.

More fragments from the conference coming over the next few days.

Appetitive: The Sound of Ancient Greek

There is a fabulous sample of Greek pronunciation (of both poetry and prose) online. Since I would like to improve my Greek pronunciation significantly before graduate school. Propertius II directed me to The Sound of Ancient Greek. Stefan Hagel, the speaker, uses pitch accents as well as indicating the type of phrase (e.g. interrogative, declaratory) in tone and pitch. It's fabulous. I listened to the messenger speech from Aeschylus' Agamemnon and the introduction to Plato's Symposium just this morning; they are great. Enjoy!

Hagel uses one of the same texts that I am trying to read through, Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek. Maybe my Greek will sound like that someday!

Appetitve/Reasoning: Great Getty Resources and the Problems with Publishing Classics Books

There are some really fabulous features attached to the Getty Villa exhibition The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. So even if you are not fortunate enough to go see the exhibit, you can experience some of the fabulous work put together there.

First, there is a slideshow with audio commentary which displays seventeen of the art pieces displayed. Check out the slideshow.

Second, they put up a reading of a fragment of a Sopholces satyr play called the trackers. As far as I can tell, the pronunciation is pretty good. However, my pronunciation and linguistic understanding is still not what it should be. If anyone has any thoughts, I would love to hear him. The audio can be found here.

Although I did not get to peruse them very thoroughly, there are three books that the Getty published in conjunction with exhibit. Two of them, The Pronomos Vase and It's Context and Pot's and Plays, are edited by Oliver Taplin. The Art of Ancient Greek Theater is edited by Mary Louise Hart.

Sadly, the books are all extraordinarily expensive. This, however, is not unexpected given the price of classics books in general. In a thesis meeting, I was told by Messalla, my fabulous thesis adviser, that classics textbooks were originally significantly cheaper (with adjustment for inflation). Publishers eventually realized that a large portion of the audience for these books was comprised of professors and libraries, most of whom had access to some portion of the University budget. As such, the publishers realized that they could increase their profit margin by making the books ridiculously expensive-- thereby cutting out the student and causal-reader market-- and sell the books significantly more expensively from smaller printings (which were more expensive per book to make). I do not have any specifics on the Getty as a publisher, but think that, in general, the expense trend with classics books is ridiculous. Although libraries are a great resource, with public funding decreasing everywhere, a lot of libraries are having trouble affording the same books that students cannot afford for themselves. Also, the rarer and more expensive the books are, the more likely they are to be stolen (a bunch of expensive classics books were stolen from my college last year) and then resold.

I do not believe there is any real way to break the trend of such expensive books. Some publishing houses obviously provide significantly better prices than others. And, of course, I would never want to deny money or publishing access to the scholars who produce the wonderful things that I read. I know this might sound a little hypocritical given my recent blogpost, but would it not be better if publishing houses just made books less expensive, rather than making them really expensive and then putting some portion of the scholarly collection up for free online (see the incredible CDL archive). I love ebooks and free books, but I would not search for them quite so hard if the books I needed were less expensive or appeared in more libraries.

Reasoning: Sophocles' Electra

Getty Production Banner [1]

I saw a production of Sophocles' Electra the other night. The amphitheater has fabulous acoustics and the production used the Roman-style building behind the stage as the house that would appear on a traditional Greek stage. The translation was new, written for the production itself, by Timberlake Wertenbaker (which is just such an excellent name!).

First, I really liked the translation. I have not read Sophocles in the original except for a snippet of the Antigone back in high school, so I cannot comment first hand on the veracity of the translation. However, it seemed like a reasonable translation to me, from reading another version in English. Better yet, a lot of the passionate statements were untranslated, or spoken in Greek and then translated subsequently. I thought this had a wonderful effect of highlighting the characters' emotions, as well as providing a greater sense to a modern audience of the Greek tragic ethos. My one qualm is that the pronunciation was not very good. To be sure, I am not the best person to judge pronunciation (see my recent blogpost), but this pronunciation was not significantly better than mine (which is terrible).

Second, they started the play with a cello. This I thought was an interesting touch. The cellist played throughout the performance, setting the mood for various scenes as well as providing some jarring and foreign-sounding interludes, which may or may not have been in any way close to Ancient Greek music. Either way, it worked very well to preserve the tone of the play and I thought it was a nice touch.

Third, I thought the acting was phenomenal. Annie Purcell (Electra) and Pamala Reed (Clytemnestra) were a strong and brilliant pair. The mother daughter relationship was fabulous and I thought the interpretation between the actors, director, and translator did a nice job balancing the two sides. I also was impressed that Manoel Felciano made Orestes' character believable-- something which I did not find to be the case in the translation I read. Olympia Dukakis was also phenomenal.

The one odd thing about the play was the choice of costumes. I was kind of apathetic toward them. They were generally soft, draping fabric, which alluded to the drapery of classical Greek statues, but they were modern. This was interesting but neither particularly clever nor particularly off-putting.

In general, I thought it was a great performance of a fabulous play, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Endnotes

1. © 2010. The J. Paul Getty Trust. All rights reserved

Appetitive: A Reading of Ovid

I was looking for something online the other day, I cannot even remember what it was when I stumbled across the podcast of a Dickinson Classics Professor, Christopher Francese, who reads poems in Latin. I listened to my first one this morning and I thought that it was thoroughly enjoyable. I listened to "The Art of Love (Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.1-24)," Released: Jul 31, 2010. I can't link directly to the podcast, but it is the one called "The Art of Love" dated 07/30/10. He reads in his own translation and then reads in Latin:

"Siquis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi, Hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet. Arte citae lecto carmine doctus amet. Arte citae veloque rates remoque moventur, Arte leves currus: arte regendus amor. Curribus Automedon lentisque erat aptus habenis, Tiphys in Haemonia puppe magister erat: Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori; Tiphys et Automedon dicar Amoris ego. Ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe puppe magister erat: Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori; Tiphys et Automedon dicar Amoris ego. Ille quidem ferus est et qui mihi saepe repugnet: Sed puer est, aetas mollis et apta regi. 10 Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem, Atque animos placida contudit arte feros. Qui totiens socios, totiens exterruit hostes, Creditur annosum pertimuisse senem. Quas Hector sensurus erat, poscente magistro erberibus iussas praebuit ille manus. Aeacidae Chiron, ego sumtotiens exterruit hostes, Creditur annosum pertimuisse senem. Quas Hector sensurus erat, poscente magistro Verberibus iussas praebuit ille manus. Aeacidae Chiron, ego sum praeceptor Amoris: Saevus uterque puer, natus uterque dea. Sed tamen et tauri cervix oneratur aratro, Frenaque magnanimi dente teruntur equi; Et mihi cedet Amor, quamvis mea vulneret arcu Pectora, iactatas excutiatque faces. Quo me fixit Amor, quo me violentius ussit, Hoc melior facti vulneris ultor ero" (Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.1-24) [1].

I have no idea about the accuracy of his pronunciation, but I enjoyed listening to it.

Pronunciation in both Greek and Latin is one of my greatest weaknesses. When i was originally learning the languages, I decided that other aspects were more important to me. I always loved listening to my friends speak in classical languages, but I never spent any time on developing my own ability. I did not realize how embarrassed of my lack of skill I was until this last year, when I was in a class where I had to read in Greek a lot more than I had bargained for. I enlisted the help of a Propertius, who rivals silver-tongued Hermes in pronunciation abilities, and after an hour of his patient help I realized what an arduous process learning pronunciation was going to be.

On his recommendation, I acquired a copy of Vox Graeca, but I have not gotten around to flipping through it. I read the preface and the Phonetic Introduction today, and it looks like it will be a lot of work. I have hopes that the process will pay off.

  

I was also excited to learn today that there was a Vox Latina. I do not know anything about it but I assume that it would provide a similar service. Does anyone know if it is any good?

Endnotes

1. I am not at all sure how to make the poem display in couplets (as one can easily guess from my problematic formatting on my translation of Sulpicia.