Stress
Unlike Ancient Greek, which had a pitch accent system, Modern Greek has dynamic syllable stress, like English. Still as in Ancient Greek, every multisyllabic word carries stress on one of its three final syllables.
The position of the stress can vary between different inflectional forms of the same word within its inflectional paradigm in cases where a syllable is added (e.g. πρόβλημα 'problem', προβλήματα 'problems'). In some word classes, stress position is also sensitive to Ancient Greek vowel length, so that a word cannot be stressed on the third-from-last syllable if the last syllable was long: e.g. άνθρωπος ('man', nom. sg., last syllable short), but ανθρώπων ('of men', gen. pl., last syllable long). Both of these are Ancient Greek accentual rules.
However, in Modern Greek this rule is no longer automatic and does not apply to all words, as the length distinction itself no longer exists (e.g. καλόγερος 'monk', καλόγερων 'of monks').
Enclitic words such as possessive pronouns form a single phonological word together with the host word to which they attach, and hence count towards the three-syllable rule too. This has the effect that the addition of a clitic can force the stress to move to a syllable further toward the end in the host word.
Read more about this topic: Modern Greek Phonology
Famous quotes containing the word stress:
“A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“While ... we cannot and must not hide our concern for grave world dangers, and while, at the same time, we cannot build walls around ourselves and hide our heads in the sand, we must go forward with all our strength to stress and to strive for international peace. In this effort America must and will protect herself.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“It is not stressful circumstances, as such, that do harm to children. Rather, it is the quality of their interpersonal relationships and their transactions with the wider social and material environment that lead to behavioral, emotional, and physical health problems. If stress matters, it is in terms of how it influences the relationships that are important to the child.”
—Felton Earls (20th century)