A Short Grammar of Classical Greek: Part I, On the Sounds

Letters: Their Form and Pronunciation

1. The Greek alphabet consists of twenty-four letters. Kaegi presents each letter by capital or uncial form, small cursive form, sound, English name, and Greek name.

1. The form σ is used at the beginning of and within a word; the form ς at the end. Kaegi also notes the old letter digamma ϝ, used in primitive Greek for a sound like English v, and the historical trace of the semivowel j.

1. Pronunciation notes include: γ before γ, κ, χ, ξ is sounded as ng; ζ is equivalent to ds; θ, φ, χ are aspirated mute sounds; ι is vowel i, not consonantal y; τι is always like ti in tin; and ου has the sound of u in rule.

Classification of Sounds

1. As to quantity, simple vowels are either short (ε, ο), long (η, ω), or doubtful (ᾱ, ῑ, ῡ). Proper diphthongs include αι, ει, οι, υι and αυ, ευ, ου, ηυ; improper diphthongs arise from a long vowel with following silent iota.

Simple consonants are classified by the organ of speech and by their characteristic sound:

Semivowels include liquids (λ, ρ), nasals (ν, μ), and spirants such as σ.

1. Kaegi distinguishes double consonants: ζ, ξ, and ψ, and gives the learner a compact map from spelling to sound before proceeding to breathings and accents.

Breathings, Accents, and Quantity of Syllables

1. Every initial vowel or diphthong is marked by a breathing. The rough breathing (῾) is pronounced like English h; the smooth breathing (᾿) has no sound. Every initial ρ is aspirated, and doubled ρρ may mark the first rho with smooth breathing and the second with rough breathing.

There are three accents: acute (´), grave (`), and circumflex (῀). Kaegi presents them as marks of tone or pitch and notes their altered form when combined with breathings.

1. The sign of diaeresis marks that two vowels do not form a diphthong but are pronounced separately. When required, accent and breathing signs are combined with the diaeresis.

1. Every single consonant and every combination of consonants that can begin a Greek word is joined to the following vowel. A syllable is long by nature when it has a long vowel or diphthong, and long by position when a short vowel is followed by two or more consonants or by a double consonant.

Accentuation

1. Nearly every Greek word has one of the accents mentioned in §3. The acute may stand only on one of the last three syllables, the circumflex only on one of the last two, and the accentual behavior of the final syllable determines much of the rule system.

1. According to accent, a word may be oxytone, paroxytone, proparoxytone, perispomenon, or properispomenon. The same passage defines words without accent in connected speech: proclitics and enclitics.

1. Proclitics are words without their own accent because they attach closely to the following word. Kaegi lists forms of the article, prepositions, conjunctions, and particles.

1. Enclitics similarly attach to the preceding word. They may cause the preceding word to receive an additional accent, especially after proparoxytones and properispomena.

1. Enclitics are accented, or orthotoned, in special conditions: after certain paroxytones, before other enclitics, when stress is required, when elision removes the expected syllable, or at the beginning of a sentence.

The Principal Phonetic Laws: Vowels

1. Changes of vowels show regularity within related stems. Kaegi distinguishes change of quantity, or weakening and shortening, from change of quality, or ablaut. The table of examples connects strong, weak, and ablaut grades.

1. The long vowels η and ω in the nominative singular are often due to the lengthening of ε and ο, which reappear in other cases.

1. Compensative lengthening makes up for the loss of consonants: a short vowel with two or three consonants may be replaced by a long vowel with one consonant.

1. Syncope is the dropping of a vowel within a word.

1. Metathesis, or transposition, consists in placing a short vowel after a simple liquid instead of before that liquid.

1. Contraction unites two successive vowels or a vowel and diphthong within a word.

1. Elision is the dropping of a short final vowel before a word beginning with a vowel. The sign of elision is the apostrophe.

1. Crasis is the contraction of the final vowel or diphthong of one word with the initial vowel of the following word. The contracted vowel receives coronis unless the first word has the rough breathing.

The Principal Phonetic Laws: Consonants

1. Two or more adjoining consonants are treated either without change or through euphonic change. Kaegi names the chief operations: insertion, dropping, assimilation, and elision.

1. Before rough breathing a smooth mute is changed to the corresponding rough mute.

1. In two successive syllables beginning with rough mutes, one mute is changed to the corresponding smooth mute. This is the law traditionally called Grassmann's law.

1. Initial ρ is doubled when a short vowel precedes it, whether as augment or as reduplication; Kaegi gives examples for simple forms and compounds.

1. Rule for consonantal termination: no Greek word can end in any consonant other than ν, ρ, or ς (ξ, ψ). Other final consonants that would historically stand at the end of a word must be dropped.

1. Movable final consonants: movable ν is added to third persons in -ε(ν) and -σι(ν), to datives and locatives in -σι(ν), and to some other words with similar endings. Movable ς occurs in οὕτως and ἐξ before vowels, and a movable guttural may be added to the negative οὐ.