The Attic declension is a group of
second-declension noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s and
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Tra ...
s in the
Attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
of
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
, all of whose
endings
End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to:
End
*In mathematics:
**End (category theory)
**End (topology)
**End (graph theory)
** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous)
**End (endomorphism)
*In sports and games
** End (gridiron football ...
have
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensur ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s. In contrast, normal second-declension nouns have some short vowels and some long vowels. This declension is called Attic because in other dialects, including
Ionic and
Koine
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
, the nouns are declined normally.
History
In
Proto-Greek
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Ae ...
, Attic-declension nouns had long ᾱ ''ā'' and
digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
(ϝ ''w'') before the endings. The
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
dialect preserved the ᾱ, but lost the digamma by the classical period. In the
Aeolic
In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anatolia ...
dialect, the digamma was retained as
upsilon
Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; el, ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, grc, Υʹ, label=none has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw .
Etym ...
(υ ''u'').
In the
Ionic dialect, the ᾱ changed to long η ''ē''. In Attic, η was shortened to ε ''e'' and, if possible, the vowel of the ending was lengthened to ω ''ō'' or (if it was a
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
with
iota
Iota (; uppercase: Ι, lowercase: ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin alphabet, Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Cy ...
) ῳ ''ōi''.
*Doric
νᾱός (Aeolic ναῦος) → Ionic νηός → Attic νεώς "temple"
*:nāós (naûos) → nēós → neṓs
*νηοῦ → νεώ (genitive)
*:nēoû → neṓ
*νηῷ → νεῴ (dative)
*:nēō̂i → neṓi
The shortening and lengthening was caused by
quantitative metathesis
Quantitative metathesis (or transfer of quantity) Smyth, ''Greek Grammar''paragraph 34on CCEL: transfer of quantity is a specific form of '' metathesis'' or ''transposition'' (a sound change) involving ''quantity'' or vowel length. By this process ...
, the switching of vowel lengths. In the forms where there is no lengthening, the change is simply vowel shortening.
Accent
When the
last syllable is accented, it takes an
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
, even if the non-Attic form has a
circumflex
The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...
.
If the non-Attic form is accented on the third-from-last syllable, the Attic form is accented on the same syllable, even when it violates the rules of accent. Normally the accent would be forced forward to the second-to-last syllable.
*
Homeric
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
Μενέλᾱος → Ionic Μενέληος → Attic Μενέλεως (not *Μενελέως)
This is as if εω were analysed as one long vowel instead of a short vowel and long vowel. This occurs with the Homeric first-declension ending -εω (
synizesis
Synizesis () is a sound change (metaplasm) in which two originally syllabic vowels (hiatus) are pronounced instead as a single syllable. In poetry, the vowel contraction would often be necessitated by the metrical requirements of the poetic form. ...
).
References
Herbert Weir Smyth
Herbert Weir Smyth (August 8, 1857 – July 16, 1937) was an American classical scholar. His comprehensive grammar of Ancient Greek has become a standard reference on the subject in English, comparable to that of William Watson Goodwin, whom he s ...
. ''Greek Grammar''
paragraphs 237, 238, 239 Attic declension; paradigm; accent.
See also
*
Ancient Greek nouns
In Ancient Greek, all nouns are classified according to grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and are used in a number (singular, dual, or plural). According to their function in a sentence, their form changes to one of the five case ...
:
Attic declension
The Attic declension is a group of second-declension nouns and adjectives in the Attic dialect of Ancient Greek, all of whose endings have long vowels. In contrast, normal second-declension nouns have some short vowels and some long vowels. This ...
*
Quantitative metathesis
Quantitative metathesis (or transfer of quantity) Smyth, ''Greek Grammar''paragraph 34on CCEL: transfer of quantity is a specific form of '' metathesis'' or ''transposition'' (a sound change) involving ''quantity'' or vowel length. By this process ...
*
Ancient Greek dialects
Ancient Greek in classical antiquity, before the development of the common Koine Greek of the Hellenistic period, was divided into several varieties.
Most of these varieties are known only from inscriptions, but a few of them, principally Aeolic ...
**
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...
**
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
**
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
Ancient Greek declension
{{AncientGreek-lang-stub