Modern Greek Grammar - Accent

Accent

Modern Greek has a stress accent, similar, for example, to English. The accent is notated with a stroke (΄) over the accented vowel and is called οξεία (oxeia, "acute") or τόνος (tonos, "accent") in Greek. The former term is taken from one of the accents used in polytonic orthography which officially became obsolete in 1982.

Most monosyllabic words take no accent such as in το (, "the") and ποιος (, "who"). Exceptions include the conjunction ή (, "or"), the interrogative adjectives πώς (, "how") and πού (, "where") in both direct and indirect questions and some fixed expressions such as πού και πού (, "occasionally") and πώς και πώς (, "cravingly"). Moreover, weak personal pronouns are accented in cases where they may be considered as enclitics (see below). For example, ο σκύλος μού γάβγισε (, "the dog barked at me") instead of ο σκύλος μου γάβγισε (, "my dog barked").

Enclitics are pronounced very closely to the previous word. Most enclitics are weak personal pronouns. Enclitics do not modify the accent of the previous word when this word is accented on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, for example οδηγός μας (, "our driver") and βιβλίο σου (, "your book"). However, when the previous word is accented on the antepenultimate syllable, the enclitic causes the ultimate syllable to be accented too. For example, δάσκαλος (, "teacher") but δάσκαλός μου (, "my teacher") and φόρεσε (, "wear (IMP)") but φόρεσέ το (, "wear it"). Finally, enclitics are accented only when they precede another enclitic and these two determine an imperative accented on the penultimate syllable. For example, φέρε μού το (, "bring it to me").

In digraphs which are pronounced as simple phonemes such as αι, οι and ει and in the case of αυ ( or ) and ευ ( or ), the accent is placed on the second letter as in αί, εί, αύ etc. When the accent is placed on the first letter, the sequence is pronounced as an accented diphthong, for example άι as in γάιδαρος (, "donkey"). When the second letter takes a diaeresis, the sequence is often pronounced as a diphthong, for example αϊ as in παϊδάκια (, "ribs"). Finally, when the accent is placed on the second letter together with diaeresis, the vowels are pronounced separately and the second vowel is accented, for example αΐ as in σαΐτα (, "paper airplane").

As in Ancient Greek, in Modern Greek the accent cannot be placed before the antepenultimate syllable (Greek: νόμος της τρισυλλαβίας, law of limitation, sometimes historically called Dreimorengesetz). As a result many imparisyllabic nouns, i.e. nouns that do not have the same number of syllables in all their inflections, have the accent placed on the next syllable when a syllable is added, if the antepenult is already accented. For example NOM SG μάθημα (, "lesson") but GEN SG μαθήματος and NOM PL μαθήματα etc. However, the transposition of the accent without the addition of a syllable is due to historical reasons; long vowels and diphthongs occupied two morae which had the same result as with the addition of a syllable. For example NOM SG άνθρωπος (, "human") but GEN SG ανθρώπου, GEN PL ανθρώπων and ACC PL ανθρώπους .