In Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

, accent

Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...

 varies from word to word, but there are rules of accent determining where it can fall and what type it can be. The rules depend on the length

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...

 of the vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

 in the last syllable

Ultima (linguistics)

In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is second-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima.-Etymology:...

 and in the syllable being accented.

Mora

The mora

Mora (linguistics)

Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...

is a unit of vowel length. Short vowels have one mora, and long vowels and diphthongs have two morae.

• short:
  • ᾰ, ε, ῐ, ο, ῠ (sometimes αι, οι)
• long:
  • simple vowels:
    • ᾱ, η, ῑ, ω, ῡ
  • diphthongs:
    • in ι:
      • ει, υι; ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ (sometimes αι, οι)
    • in υ:
      • αυ, ευ, ου; ᾱυ, ηυ, ωυ

Syllables

Only the three syllables at the end of the word can be accented. They are called the ultima ("last"), penult ("almost last"), and antepenult ("before the almost last").

Length of accented vowel

The length of a vowel determines what type of accent it can take. The acute is placed on short and long vowels, but the circumflex only on long vowels.

Grave

The grave accent indicates no accent or low pitch. In modern convention, it is used only to replace an acute at the end of a word (except before a pause), but it was once written on all unaccented vowels. Like the acute, it falls on both short and long vowels.

Acute

The acute indicates a vowel accented on its last mora. On a short vowel, it represents one accented mora; on a long vowel or diphthong, it represents one unaccented and one accented mora.

	| morae
	1	2
short vowel		´
long vowel	`	´

Circumflex

The circumflex can only fall on long vowels or diphthongs, because it is a compound accent. It is formed from one accented and one unaccented mora, in that order.

	| morae
	1	2
long vowel	´	`

Length of ultima

The accent in recessively accented words naturally falls back toward the beginning of the word. The length of the vowel in the ultima determines how far it can fall. When the ultima is short, accent can fall back to the antepenult; when the ultima is long, accent can only fall on the penult.

Short ultima

When the vowel in the ultima is short, accent is placed on the antepenult or (if the word is two syllables) the penult. The penult takes a circumflex if its vowel is long, and an acute if it is short.

• with antepenult:
  • ἄνθρωπος
• without antepenult:
  • δῶρον (long penult)
  • πάθος (short penult)

Long ultima

When the vowel in the ultima is long, accent is forced forward to the penult. The type of accent is an acute, never a circumflex, no matter what the length of the penult.

• long penult:
  • ἀνθρώπου
  • δώρου
• short penult:
  • πάθους

Summary

This rule has a simpler summary: the morae between the accented mora and the last mora cannot belong to different syllables. This is best shown by placing words (here, σῶμα, σώματος, σωμάτων, φῶς) in a table, with consonants and morae of vowels divided into individual cells.

rest		C	V	C	V	C
s	ó		o	m	a
so	ó	m	a	t	o	s
soom	á	t	o		o	n
ph	ó				o	s