Punctuation Flashcards
What is this punctuation?
Period
What is this punctuation?
Comma
What is this punctuation?
Semicolon
What is this punctuation?
Question mark
How are apostrophes used?
When certain prepositions and conjunctions end with a vowel and the next word begins with a vowel, the final vowel of the first word may drop out.
This is called elision. It is marked by an apostrophe, which is placed where the vowel was dropped.
ἀπὸ ἐμοῦ → ἀπ ᾿ ἐμοῦ
This is similar to the English contraction (e.g., “can’t”).
What is an accent?
Almost every Greek word has an accent mark. It is placed over a vowel and shows which syllable receives the stress.
We believe that originally the accent was a pitch accent: the voice rose, dropped, or rose and dropped on the accented syllable.
What is an acute accent?
The acute accent shows that the pitch originally went up a little on the accented syllable (θάνατος).
The acute can stand only on one of the last three syllables of a word.
What is a grave accent?
The grave accent shows that the voice originally dropped a little on the accented syllable (διὰ πύλης).
The grave can stand only on the last syllable of a word.
Special circumstance regarding grave accent
When citing a single word that in the text has a grave, it is customary to change the grave to an acute.
For example, if the sentence has διὰ πύλης and you want to reference the first word, you would write διά.
What is a circumflex accent?
The circumflex accent shows that the voice rose and then dropped a little on the accented syllable (γλῶσσα).
The circumflex can stand only on one of the last two syllables of a word.
The circumflex can stand only on a long syllable. When long ᾱ, ῑ, ῡ have the circumflex, the long mark is omitted, and the are written ᾶ, ῖ, ῦ.
What are the 3 reasons why accents
are valuable in the Greek language?
Pronunciation, Memorization and Identification.
There are a few words that are identical except for their accents. τίς can mean “who?” and τις can mean “someone.”
What is a consistent accent?
Accents on nouns try to stay on the same syllable.
This is called consistent accent.
What is a recessive accent?
Accents on verbs try to move as far back toward the beginning of the verb as possible.
This is called recessive accent.
