BREATHING MARKS

NAME: MUOGBO MICHAEL

COURSE: NEW TESTAMENT GREEK

LECTURER: Fr. ANTHONY EWHERIDO

BREATHING MARKS

Breathing marks are marks placed over a vowel or a diphthong to indicate whether the vowel or diphthong has a smooth breathing or a rough breathing, thus the two types of breathing. These breathing marks aid pronunciation.

·         The smooth breathing which is indicated by the symbol ’ makes no difference in the pronunciation of a vowel or diphthong.

·         The rough breathing which is indicated by the symbol ‘ over an initial vowel or diphthong is indicated with a ‘h’ in transliteration and is pronounced as such.

·         Every word beginning with a vowel or diphthong must have a breathing mark on it. In cases where a diphthong begins a word, the breathing mark is placed over the second letter.

·         Every word beginning with an Upsilon or a Rho takes a rough breathing.

·         The breathing marks determine the pronunciation of a word in sequence of sounds. In some cases, they are the only difference between two words E.g     is a verb, while    is a form of relative pronoun.

ACCENTS

Accents are pronunciation marks placed on words to indicate the intonation with which they are to be pronounced; especially indicating which syllable(s) to be emphasized. There are three accents in Greek: acute accent ‘, grave accent `, and the circumflex ~. These accents indicate the rising intonation, falling intonation, and rising and falling intonation respectively. Each Greek word must have one accent except in few cases.

·         The acute accent falls on any of the last three syllables of a word and may accent either a long or a short syllable.

·         The circumflex accent may fall on either of the last two syllables of a word and may accent only a long syllable.

·         The grave accent may fall only on the last syllable, and unaccented syllables are considered to have a grave accent.

·         The accenting of finite verbs is recessive, receding as far as possible to the end of the word; to the antepenultimate.

·         The accenting of all other accented words is retentive; each word retains the accent of its form in the lexicon.