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Ancient Greek grammar

Grammar of the Ancient Greek language

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A complication of Greek grammar is that different Greek authors wrote in different dialects, all of which have slightly different grammatical forms (see Ancient Greek dialects). For example, the history of Herodotus and medical works of Hippocrates are written in Ionic, the poems of Sappho in Aeolic, and the odes of Pindar in Doric; the poems of Homer are written in a mixed dialect, mostly Ionic, with many archaic and poetic forms. The grammar of Koine Greek (the Greek lingua franca spoken in the Hellenistic and later periods) also differs slightly from classical Greek. This article primarily discusses the morphology and syntax of Attic Greek, that is the Greek spoken at Athens in the century from 430 BC to 330 BC, as exemplified in the historical works of Thucydides and Xenophon, the comedies of Aristophanes, the philosophical dialogues of Plato, and the speeches of Lysias and Demosthenes.

Writing system

Alphabet

Ancient Greek is written in its own alphabet, which is derived from the Phoenician alphabet. There are 24 letters, namely:

Inscriptions show that in the classical period Greek was written entirely in capital letters, with no spaces between the words. The use of the lower-case cursive letters developed gradually.

Two punctuation marks are used in Greek texts which are not found in English: the colon, which consists of a dot raised above the line ( · ) and the Greek question mark, which looks like the English semicolon ( ; ).

Another feature of Greek writing in books printed today is that when there is a long diphthong ending in , as in ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ (āi, ēi, ōi) , the iota is written under the long vowel, as in τύχῃ (túkhēi) "by chance". This is known as iota subscript. When the main letter is capitalized, the iota can be written alongside instead, as in Ἅιδης (Háidēs) "Hades"; this is known as iota adscript.

It is a convention in Ancient Greek texts that a capital letter is not written at the beginning of a sentence (except in some texts to indicate the beginning of direct speech). However, capital letters are used for the initial letter of names. Where a name starts with a rough breathing, as in Ἑρμῆς (Hermês) "Hermes", it is the initial vowel, not the breathing, which is made capital.

Another convention of writing Greek is that the sound ng in the consonant clusters , and is written with a gamma: γγ, γκ, γχ (ng, nk, nkh), as in ἄγγελος (ángelos) "messenger", ἀνάγκη (anánkē) "necessity", τυγχάνει (tunkhánei) "it happens (to be)".

The lower-case letter Σ (S) ("sigma") is written ς (s) at the end of a word, otherwise σ (s), e.g. σοφός (sophós) "wise", ἐσμέν (esmén) "we are".

Diacritics

Breathings

  • The rough breathing ( ῾ ; known as δασὺ πνεῦμα (dasù pneûma) or δασεῖα (daseîa) in Greek, spiritus asper in Latin), written over a vowel letter, marks the sound at the beginning of a word, before the vowel. Written over the letter ρ (r), it indicates that the r sound is voiceless: . At the beginning of a word, the letters υ and ρ always have the rough breathing.
  • The smooth breathing ( ᾿ ; known as ψῑλὸν πνεῦμα (psilòn pneûma) or ψῑλή (psilē) in Greek, spīritus lēnis in Latin) marks the absence of the sound. It is used on any word which starts with a vowel, e.g. ἐγώ (egṓ) "I".

When a word starts with a diphthong, e.g. εὑρίσκω (heurískō) "I find", the breathing goes on the second of the two vowels.

A sign similar to a smooth breathing, called a coronis, is used to show when two words have joined together by a process called crasis ("mixing"), e.g. κᾱ̓γώ (kāgṓ) "I too", contracted from καὶ ἐγώ (kaì egṓ).

Accents

Written accents, marking the tonic syllables of Greek words, appear to have been invented in the 3rd century BC, but only became commonly used in the 2nd century AD.

  • The acute accent ( ´ ; known as ὀξεῖα (oxeîa) in Greek) is used on long or short vowels on any of the last three syllables of a word. However, if the last vowel of the word is long (with certain exceptions), the acute cannot go further from the end than the penultimate syllable. Compare ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos) "man" vs. ἀνθρώπου (anthrṓpou) "of a man". It is usually accepted that in classical Greek the accent was a pitch accent, that is, the accented syllable was pronounced on a higher pitch than the other syllables of the word. The accent is believed to have changed to a stress accent by about the 2nd century AD.
  • The grave accent ( ` ; known as βαρεῖα (bareîa, bare in Greek)) is used on long or short vowels and usually replaces an acute accent on the final syllable of a word when the word is used non-finally in a sentence. So the word καλός (kalós) "beautiful" changes to καλὸς (kalòs) in the phrase καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθός (kalòs kaì agathós) "beautiful and good". However, the acute remains when a punctuation mark follows, e.g. αὐτῷ εἰπέ, ὦ Νῑκίᾱ (autôi eipé, ô Nīkíā) "tell him, Nicias", or before an enclitic word such as μοι (moi) "to me", e.g. εἰπέ μοι, ὦ Σώκρατες (eipé moi, ô Sṓkrates) "tell me, Socrates". The exact pronunciation of the grave accent is disputed, but it is quite likely that it often represented absence of high pitch, i.e. normal pitch. However, there is some evidence from Greek music that in some circumstances the grave was pronounced with a degree of high pitch, for example when a pronoun with a grave such as κἀμὲ (kamè) "me too" was emphasised.
  • The circumflex (Greek: περισπωμένη (perispōménē)), displayed as either a tilde ( ˜ ) or an inverted breve ( ̑ ) is used only on long vowels. It is typically found (a) where a long-vowel penultimate syllable which has the accent is followed by a short-vowel final syllable (e.g. δῆμος (dêmos) "people"); (b) where a contraction of an accented vowel plus an unaccented vowel has taken place: e.g.: φιλέει (philéei) > φιλεῖ (phileî) "he" or "she loves"; (c) in the genitive plural of all 1st declension nouns and all 3rd declension nouns of the type τεῖχος (teîkhos) e.g. ναυτῶν (nautôn) "of sailors", τειχῶν (teikhôn) "of walls"; (d) in the genitive and the dative case of the article and of all nouns and adjectives whose final syllable is accented, e.g. nominative φωνή (phōnḗ) "a sound", but genitive φωνῆς (phōnês), dative φωνῇ (phōnêi). The circumflex appears to have indicated a fall from a high pitch to a low pitch on the same vowel, and quite often in Greek musical fragments it is represented by two notes, the first higher than the second.

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