Crase - Greek

Greek

In both Ancient Greek and Modern Greek, crasis merges a small word and long word that are closely connected in meaning.

A coronis (κορωνίς korōnís "curved"; plural κορωνίδες korōnídes) marks the vowel from crasis. In ancient times this was an apostrophe placed after the vowel (i.e., τα᾿μά), but today it is written over the vowel and is identical to the smooth breathing (τἀμά). Unlike a coronis, a smooth breathing never occurs on a vowel in the middle of a word (although it occurs on doubled rho: διάῤῥοια diarrhoea).

The article undergoes crasis with various nouns and adjectives starting in a vowel:

• τὰ ἐμά → τἀμά "my (affairs)"
• τὸ ἐναντίον → τοὐναντίον "on the contrary"
• τὸ αὐτό → ταὐτό "the same"
• τὰ αὐτά → ταὐτά (plural)

καί undergoes crasis with forms of the first-person singular pronoun, producing a long ᾱ (here not written, since it occurs with a coronis):

• καὶ ἐγώ → κἀγώ "and I", "I too"
• καὶ ἐμοί → κἀμοί "and to me"

In modern monotonic orthography, the coronis is not written.